Brian over at Bearing Drift tips us off to HB 3157, which is just a bad bill, as it raises the bar for those seeking office, in particular local candidates. Why in the world would you want to reduce the number of candidates, when so few are willing to run? The 125 petition signatures now required would more than double in Norfolk, due to the 105,000+ registered voters in the city.
Even more onerous is the increased cash required. The bill proposes a filing fee equal to 2% of the salary of the office being sought, with a minimum of $50, unless the candidate is indigent. My guess is that not too many indigent candidates are going to run for office. (By the way – what is Norfolk paying its council members these days? I couldn’t locate that info.)
Honestly, I had enough heartburn with the 2% filing fee I had to pay in order to run in the primary in 2005, which I saw and continue to see as a barrier to opening up the field, even though I understand it is to help offset the costs of running a primary. (My heartburn is intensified by the fact that Virginia does not put party affiliation on the ballot for candidates running below the GA.)
Send a message to the members of the House P&E committee and let them know that restricting those who run for office to the folks that have the money to do so is a bad idea.
VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 
Oh, and yes Vivian that means I do disagree with to the fundemental premise of your article.
You can disagree all you want. It doesn’t change the reality. You speak of party literature; I’m talking about candidates. Not in this article, BTW, but in the original one.
It is the point that it is difficult to get the message out. As I said, it is obvious that you guys haven’t run. You want this to be a perfect world and it is far from it.
I guess both of you would be happy if the only people who voted were the “smart” ones. Sounds more than a little elitist to me.
Oh – and I know you meant to say that one does not have to run for office to understand it. To that I will say that you are incorrect. Ask any candidate – whether it be for local office or further up the food chain – if they didn’t learn a lot of these lessons in the process of running.
Of course we want a perfect world. Who doesn’t? Part of my perfect world would be having educated voters. People who do not even know their party’s candidate when they go into a voting booth are not educated, and should not be voting.
Since ALL candidates down-ticket have the same problem, I think the system is perfectly fair. Difficult? Yes. But fair.
Vivian,
you say
“You can disagree all you want. It doesn’t change the reality. You speak of party literature; I’m talking about candidates. Not in this article, BTW, but in the original one.”
Ones literature really ought to tell the voter what are you positions on the issues of the day that are pertinent to the offic you are running for. No one gets to glad hand every one in the district unless they go door to door through the whole district, “mission unnecessary.” To be honest however the voter does not need to meet YOU the need to meet what you stand for, read the campaign literature, read the editorials go to the town halls (if they happen). Your message is even simpler, “Vote for the party label!!”; something I find abominable.
As for your statement “I guess both of you would be happy if the only people who voted were the “smart” ones. Sounds more than a little elitist to me.” You turned my argument on its head …
To wit:
A. I say any man is more than capable of getting informed to the point where they are not ignorant about who he is voting for.
B. You appear to say the voter is not capable of such and need a party label to help the poor little dears figure out who to vote for.
So, you tell me Vivian, which argument is the elitist one?