It’s another Saturday, so for those who tune in, welcome to a Saturday diary discussing the Nuts & Bolts of a Democratic Campaign. If you’ve missed out, you can catch up anytime: Just visit our group or follow Nuts & Bolts Guide.
Last week, I talked about school boards and the impact they have on our community. This week, the series covers special districts, private boards, and what some think of as forgotten offices. In many communities around the country, these city or county boards are designed to provide some form of oversight of city or local services. These can include water boards, utility boards, zoning boards, parks and recreation boards, transportation, river, stream, ocean boards, fish and game, wildlife boards, and so on.
Communities are free to create their own elected boards to handle process issues that might be too time-consuming for a city council or county commission, and these boards can focus on specific items, sometimes passing the results of their work on to another board or even a state legislature.
Does the community even care?
The most common question even Democratic activists ask when you talk about special boards is this: Does anyone actually care who gets elected to these boards? I mean, why do we care about a parks and recreation board or a water board? Does it really matter who serves on the fish and game local board? Unfortunately, this same apathy is often evident at the ballot box, where many special districts and special boards go completely unchallenged. Some have their seats go empty because no one at all runs for them, even in larger cities.
So if people don’t pay attention, the boards don’t matter, right? While many of the items these boards cover are truly non-partisan and run themselves, special boards run badly can become the means by which bad policy becomes the status quo. This also means that these boards are often include positions for which people who actually care and are knowledgable about an issue can and should run and win.
How do you even campaign for a special district?
Some special district races are high-profile in larger cities. Those races can use real resources, the same as are used in a race for a state house or any large countywide seat. Those races are run by means of a traditional campaign.
But in the case of the tiny special districts we are discussing this week, campaigns are structured very differently. It is quite difficult for a candidate to, say, raise a lot of money for their race to become a member of the local utilities or water board, and frankly, if someone did raise a lot of money for those races, odds are it would come from those who would like to see a very friendly outcome for the companies impacted by the decisions of the board.
In these ultra-low-money, low-advertising campaigns, the basic fundamentals are most important. Build name recognition by talking to voters: When you are raising very little money, a big expense might be new shoes to replace the ones you wear out walking door to door.
It also means finding an issue, a way to explain why the board is important to you and the community. What is it about the local water or utility board that made you want to run for it? Maybe you were motivated by a water crisis, or concerns over quality. Maybe you were frustrated with rate increases from a utilities provider. You could be running for a fish and game board spot just because you want biodiversity or to restock a community pond.
Recruiting: Who makes a great candidate?
Local county and state party resources almost never get involved in recruiting for a position on a local board. Even activist groups often turn up their noses at getting involved in any way in a race for something like a spot on a water board. With most infrastructure checking out of the race, how do you find someone to check in?
While races for a school board, state house, or federal position often see candidates self-recruiting, finding someone to run for specialty boards generally means explaining to people what the board even is, why they should care, and why it matters to have someone on that board, before you can get anyone to run. Look into the issues being discussed before these special districts. Take just a little bit of time to briefly mention to people, “Someone should run for XYZ, because they handle ABC issue.” Recruiting candidates to run for special districts? These are the races where that job falls to the community itself, and to concerned activists and voters.
Next week on Nuts & Bolts: We have candidates. Now what?