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Maybe this will inspire more working-class people to run for political office.
by droptablemain 5y ago
Maybe this will inspire more working-class people to run for political office.
- jackorange 5y agoI liked his premise. It's a good idea, appeal to the people who aren't voting.
- jefftk 5y agoIt is an extremely difficult idea to put in practice: people who historically haven't voted, especially in local elections, are notoriously difficult to convince to vote. So even if you identify a situation where you can appeal strongly to the average non-voter, that is super hard to turn into a win.
- gumby 5y agoThis is the reason politicians get salaries.
- reaperducer 5y agoThe vast majority of elected offices in the United States are unpaid.
- WillPostForFood 5y agoDo you have a citation for that? Interesting if true, however 100% of State and Federal legislators are paid.
- greenburger 5y agoServal states only pay a small amounts. New Hampshire is the smallest I’m aware of at $100/ year.
- sjg007 5y agoThis is by design, it encourages only the wealthy to hold office.
- LurkersWillLurk 5y agoI don't have a written source, but I think it's safe to say that the majority of elected offices in the United States are local/municipal, and many (most?) of those are unpaid. And if they're not unpaid, they usually only pay a few thousand a year, if that.
- psychlops 5y agoCurious, I Googled a bit, but can't find a definitive source. It is true that most politicians are local. Here is an infographic that shows 96% are local: https://poliengine.com/blog/how-many-politicians-are-there-in-the-us https://poliengine.com/blog/how-many-politicians-are-there-i...
- voz_ 5y agoI am not sure that is correct.
- gumby 5y agoGiven many are at the municipal and school board level I suppose that’s true, but they are barely “politicians”. For example Palo Alto has professional management and then an unpaid city council (they take turns being mayor). There are no political parties. How well does this work? It’s a mixed bag. The professional managers get things done but managed to build a little empire (lots of middle management) which is now hard to dislodge. The non-professional council members couldn’t keep up. Also there are waves of the real estate interest taking over the council for a while and screwing up priorities. Compared to that, a few who were on the job full time might have been better.
- toyg 5y agoweird: we have a very similar setup in my little corner of England and I have similar feelings. The "executive" professionals can run amok, awarding dubious contracts to friends and spending millions of taxpayer money in quixotic schemes, with little or no accountability; meanwhile, elected councillors are counting potholes. The electorate is so divided that there has been no clear majority for 5-6 years, which probably weakens political oversight even more. Coming from a more "roman-napoleonic" country, all this seems silly and wide-open to all sorts of corruption.
- AlbertCory 5y agoI don't think you know what you're talking about, as evidenced by your failure to follow up with citations. In any case, the office he's running for IS paid. So what exactly is your point? That other elected offices are unpaid? Who cares? One reason to pay them (not that it works very well) is to make them less susceptible to bribery. In some Third World countries, it's expected that government officials will supplement their income with bribes.
- reaperducer 5y agoI don't think you know what you're talking about, as evidenced by your failure to follow up with citations Fortunately, I'm not all that concerned about what some rando on HN thinks. As for the citation, what's the proper form for citing common knowledge, basic math, and high school civics classes?