Vote for who?

It's so rare I agree with a News-Gazette editorial that I actually went back and read it again a day later to see if Tuesday's offering still said what I thought it said.

The editorial - which is, of course is not online - is headlined TRANSIT ELECTION PLAN/A GROSS OVERREACTION. It argues quite logically against the silly bill introduced by Reps. Rose and Cuthra to force elections for mass transit district boards.

The editorial's subhed pretty well states the premise:

Some people might like to get even with the local mass transit district by electing the members of its board of directors. But proposed legislation to do so is bad public policy.

Completely true. And that's all the proposal is for - to get even with the CU MTD. How juvenile.

The only persons likely to run for such positions are those with axes to grind. Those interested and/or incensed by one single issue. That kind of person will make for very bad governance of a board which administers such a large and expensive enterprise as the CUMTD.

About the only persons likely to care enough to become familiar with the issues and vote (if they can remember when to vote) will be a few incensed and largely single-issue voters with similar axes to grind.

To put it another way, there's simply no way to get a competent MTD board by electing it. Injecting even more poilitics into an already politicized situation isn't gonna solve anything. Instead, it'll just make it worse.

Happily, as the editorial makes clear, the legislative proposal is pretty much stillborn.

It is highly doubtful tghat the legislative proposal authored by state Reps. Shane Cuthra and Chapin Rose will go anywhere. They are Republicans in a Democratic House controlled by Speaker Madigan and, consequently, they have nothing resembling clout.

Fortunately.

And so it goes.