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Gerry Nutter to Election Commission?
Gerry Nutter (right) with Cliff Krieger
Nothing official yet but there’s a buzz around that City Manager Bernie Lynch will soon nominate Gerry Nutter to the Lowell Election Commission. Hopefully this is true and that Gerry accepts and will be confirmed. Quite by coincidence, I attended a meeting of the Election Commission this past Monday (and wrote a blog post about it). It was immediately clear at that meeting that the Commission is committed not only to counting the votes accurately, but also to being very active in getting people to vote. Gerry’s knowledge of and passion for the city and his demonstrated ability to take tough stands on tough issues would be a real asset to the Commission. I also assume that if the appointment does come to fruition, Gerry will either curtail or shift the focus of his writing away from electoral issues. That will leave a significant and unfortunate gap in the city’s blogosphere, so the rest of us will have to step up and try to fill the resulting void.
Those of us who know Gerry personally can attest to his commitment to increasing civic participation. I think this is a great appointment. Good for Gerry for volunteering and good for the CM for the nomination.
The Election Commission has four members – two of whom must be Republicans and two Democrats.If memory serves , when a vacancy occurred , the Manager would ask the City Committee of the party of which the former Commissioner was a member to submit three names for consideration- a process similar to that used to select a Labor Representative on the LHA Board.
In some communities this is legally required. In Lowell, it may have merely been accepted practice. In any event it was not followed this time.
The argument seems to be that Mr.Nutter is well suited to carry out some goals such as increasing voter participation.That is not the aim of the current statute.In my view , Encouraging turnout could be better promoted by allowing Greens, Libertarians and Unenrolled voters to serve as Commissioners I believe. That ,however, requires legislation.
A shift in the role of the Election Commission should be done openly and transparently . The process we are seeing now does not meet that standard.
Arthur, is the Democratic City Committee still an active organization? When is the last time it met? Who are its members? I was actively involved in both the Elizabeth Warren campaign last November and the Ed Markey campaign this spring, two critically important Democratic races, and the only times I ever heard the words “Democratic City Committee” they came at the end of a question that began “Where the @*&# is the Democratic City Committee?”
What Dick said!
The “Party” is more like a club. We win without them. And, sometimes, in spite of them.
Warren and Markey weren’t candidates that would get a lot of LDCC folks excited. I volunteered for both, but you’re impression that the LDCC is not active is correct. I am a member of the LDCC and the state committee and it is my feeling that those of us in such positions ought to be first in line to volunteer for candidates. Not everyone is going to have the same interests, availabilities, etc., but do SOMETHING. The City Committee only meets to organize and to caucus though the state party bylaws say we are supposed to meet 6 times in an election year and 4 times in an off year.