Ted Downing, the former Democratic lawmaker who is running as a independent against Democratic Sen. Paula Aboud in midtown Tucson’s Legislative District 28, has decided to forgo Clean Elections, saying it’s stacked against him.
Downing, who lost to Aboud in a Democratic primary for the Senate seat in 2006, avoided the Democratic primary this year by running without party affiliation. He’ll face Aboud and fellow independent Dave Ewoldt in November general. Downing says he decided to run as an independent to show his commitment to his new crusade against partisan elections.
Here’s Downing’s letter to the Clean Elections Commission:
I am running for the State Senate as a nonpartisan candidate, stressing the need for fundamental political reform to end to legislative gridlock, specifically downsizing the state legislature to a 45 member, nonpartisan unicameral.
I wish to point out how the Citizens Clean Election Law and subsequent rules contributes to the furtherance of partisan legislative gridlock by making it very difficult for nonpartisan candidates to participate on a level, financial playing field with partisan opponents.
As background, please recall that in 2000, I was
Arizona’s second Clean Election’s candidate and its first for Southern Arizona. I enthusiastically supported the campaign finance reform, hoping it would change dysfunctional Arizona politics by giving us a broader spectrum of office holders. This did not happen.
My original request to be a Clean Elections participating candidate occurred while I was a partisan candidate.
Only as a nonpartisan candidate did I become fully aware that the Citizens Clean Elections Law and the subsequent Commission rules gives an unfair, if not arguably unconstitutional advantage to partisan candidates. Nonpartisan candidates receive 70% of a partisan candidate’s funding, even if the partisan candidate is unopposed in his/her primary, as is the case in my race. A partisan candidate who is unopposed in a Primary obtains government funding for their primary race, but need not debate nonpartisan opponents. And, were matching funds in place, Party assistance to partisan candidates as not counted as a financial contribution, compared to nonpartisans who, by definition, are excluded from access to external funds. Moreover, the nomination process and membership on the CCE Commission sets up a supermajority, partisan Commission structure.
The result, on the ground, is that nonpartisans are less likely to run. Only 4 of the 244 legislative candidates this year are nonpartisan. This pattern has repeated itself year after year. Consider that, Statewide, 30 percent of registered voters give no party preference (cf. Republicans 32.7 percent and Democrats 30.5). Not a single nonpartisan candidate has been elected in the last decade.
We must give Arizona citizens the right to vote on a Constitutional amendment for a “top two” nonpartisan primary election system which gives all citizens the freedom to vote for any candidate for political offices, regardless of political party preference. If this change were to come about in 2012, as I working to make happen, the Citizens Clean Elections Law would need extensive revision or repeal.
Even without this change, the Law needs fixing. I request the CCEC forms a study committee to make recommendations to the next session of the legislature to correct these fairness issues in the law.
Finally, coupled with other serious reservations that I have developed about clean elections, I have decided, effective immediately, to withdraw as a 2010 participating candidate.
This article appears in Jun 24-30, 2010.
Know what legal argument Ted Downing tried to use to get Dave Ewoldt off of the ballot?
Some petition forms did not have the word ‘Tucson’ listed in the forms that were filled out. They had the District number, the county, the street address and the state – all sufficiently identifying Ewoldt as a citizen of Tucson. His actual legal argument was that some forms did not have the name of ‘Tucson’ on them. Hmmm.
Goodness, LT. Waldron is so concerned with petitions that he has ignored the issues of creating a functioning legislative system that Downing proposes. By the way, who is this Ewoldt? He claims to be a psychologist, what are his credentials? He claims a Stanford connection, could this be documented? If he is a psychologist, who are his clients? Aboud is assisting him in gathering signatures. Does this mean he is a serious candidate or just a stalking horse for Aboud? He claims he wants to reduce Tucson’s population. How is this possible? Am I on his blacklist? Do I get a one-way ticket out of town? Please stand up Mr. Ewoldt, tell us who you are! I know who Downing and Aboud are so help the voters out by describing and explaining yourself Mr. Ewoldt.
Still no answers to my questions, even after a visit to Dave Ewoldt’s blog. As far as the comments about growth, etc., we know that the current practice isn’t sustainable. We know that the contemporary paradigm of industrial economic development has facilitated the generation of many material benefits for humanity. At the same time, these have come at a cost from resource extraction and exploitation. What’s not shared is what vision Ewoldt will use to replace that growth vision of the world.. We know that classical economics is largely without solid ethical and moral values. How is Ewoldt going to change this? To be a critic doesn’t solve problems. What is his program of change other than to point his finger and say, “wrong, wrong!”
Who solicits people to come to Tucson? The chambers of commerce, the builders, etc., all see growth as a way to increase their own incomes. How are you going to change their minds?
Finally, what is relocalization? Who decides who gets relocalized? You’re playing with words my friend. Let’s get down to the real skinny, let’s talk about Ewoldt’s program to transform the community, let’s spell out his starting point, and how he plans to get people to follow along? What is the first step? And the second? How is he going to muzzle the chamber of commerce, the builders, etc., who want to bring more people in? Are these people to be relocalized?
Uh, zookeeper/Ted/anonymous/whatever, they’re called links. They are these words that are highlighted sometimes on the sides of the page. Click those and voila! Suddenly a new page comes up. Cool, huh?
Who gets relocalized? Sometimes, like in a wikilink, words will be highlighted to identify a potential link. That way you could get the definition of relocalization. Seems there are references on how to implement this plan, too. Yep, nobody is playing with words unless you’re going to misuse the contextual meaning of “relocalize” as another way of threatening to move somebody from one place to another.
If you are just attempting to report back misinformation about the campaign and its site, I can only suggest that it’s not going to be easy being cheezy.
Oh Mr. L.T., I know links. At the same time, I’m a practical soul who needs to know exactly how Mr. Ewoldt plans to proceed. I’ve seen the definition of relocalization but the definition doesn’t tell me how relocalization is to occur.
There is a need to explore some of the philosophical underpinnings of relocalization so that it can be presented in a more cogent (logically compelling) way. Korzybski, the semanticist noted, “If words are not things, or maps are not the actual territory, then, obviously, the only possible link between the objective world and the linguistic world is found in structure, and structure alone.” By structure, Korzybski means the relationship between map and territory and the “pattern” of representation, one for the other. The logicians in their definition of model say much the same thing, that models are statements that hold within structures, e.g., that can be shown to be false if inadequate. And this, dear sir, is why I want to know how Mr. Ewoldt is going to relocalize us showing the relationship between relocalication and how it is to be accomplished.
Allow me to go further, your inability to spell out the actual implementation of Mr. Ewoldt’s ideas can be referred back to a very old discussion betweem Plato and Aristotle and their insistence on defining an object or term and the difference between “nomina” (names) and “res” (things). Plato was concerned with universals and argued that “universals” have an objective existence, e.g., that the concept of man is an ongoing objective existence through time. Said another way, men come and go but man goes on forever. Aristotle, on the other hand, responded that the universals have no objective existence but rather represented a class or abstract category. Yes, men come and go but man does not go on forever. Aristotle called for a return to the “unwithered face of nature.” Their disagreement was over the relationship between generalities and particulars. I want Mr. Ewoldt to talk about the particulars.
Now, please take your abstract notion of relocalization and tell me in practical everyday terms how this is to occur. What are the mechanisms that will make this happen? What must change to make relocalization a reality? How is Mr. Ewoldt going to do to make the change occur?
Further, after going through all of the links, I still don’t have a clue as to Mr. Ewoldt’s credentials. On the website, I’m informed that Mr. Ewoldt “. . . speaks regularly at local, national, and international conferences on topics related to global climate destabilization, energy issues and sustainability, and his essays and columns have appeared in academic journals, regional publications, local weekly and daily newspapers, and in Rachel’s Democracy & Health News.” Now if some of this writing was made available, the voters would have a better sense of his capacities and ideas about the future. Can you give me some references to his works in academic journals? Why all of the mystery? Why not directly answers my questions? By the way, I’m not Ted/anonymous/whatever but rather someone trying to figure out who is running for the senate post. I know about Aboud and Downing but I don’t know about Mr. Ewoldt. Given that you cannot/refuse to answer the questions, my choices are narrowed to two.
I see that Mr. Ewoldt is into sustainability but now science has moved on to resiliency. The economic thinking has moved forward to rethinking economics as a life science. I’m disappointed that he isn’t more up to date.
Finally, how can I report back misinformation about the campaign if there isn’t enough clarity to makes heads or tails of Mr. Ewoldt’s positions and past experiences? Without clarity, there is little possibility of reporting back on misinformation. Please sir!
Curiosity’s good. Let’s face it, if you’re willing to spend so much time on this blog without being a flunky for Downing, then you have enough time to spare to keep an eye on Ewoldt’s blog, look for public appearances and pose these questions to him face to face.
Let’s assume you are not raising the specter of people being forcibly “relocated” and that you are genuinely confused, not fear-mongering (that’s kind of a leap for me, but let’s go for it). Then Ewoldt’s campaign is a chance to educate in these next few months as well.
Helpful hint: Nothing you are saying offers enough substantive controversy to require that you remain anonymous. The fact that I am dealing with somebody hiding behind a pseudonym does affect my perception of your credibility and your motivation. But that’s just me. Maybe you’re supposed to be at work or something.
My dear Mr. Waldron, I’m neither confused nor am I fear mongering. I’ve just responded to Mr. Ewoldt’s response to my earlier comment on another blog in the Tucson Weekly. There you will discover my concerns about Mr. Ewoldt’s campaign and how he could better serve neighborhoods within Tucson. He’s certainly not going to educate the legislature and, given the limited attention span of our communities, it is equally difficult to influence the people through the usual channels used in political campaigns. We require examples on the ground. How are we to create those positive examples to demonstrate what Mr. Ewoldt proposes will serve our needs?
I deal with farmers and ranchers and, when something is proposed, the first question is “where has it worked previously?” Then they want to go visit and see with their own eyes. As is the case with most people, changing increases risks and most people live on a pretty tight margin and are risk adverse. We can say all we want to say about the coming environmental collapse, about the fragility of our economy, about the increasing disparity of wealth, about the increasing control over the economy by fewer and fewer people, etc., but until we can show a practical successful solution, we’re just whistling as we past the cemetery.
Don’t worry about the pseudonym, I have another life in a sensitive position and some of my colleagues find my points of view challenging.
So I went back to look at your response to Ewoldt and saw that you were attempting to discourage him from pursuing these changes on a statewide level. The points of yours that you view as challenging are supporting the status quo.
Sorry, but Ewoldt’s plan to better serve Tucson must start on a statewide level. First concrete legislative goal – the foundation – adopting an ecologically sound and legally defensible definition of sustainability. Same for supporting community transitions to relocalization. It’s not just our own community that needs this type of backing statewide, but all communities in Arizona should have this support. In addition, calculating our carrying capacity for water has to be done on a statewide level and it has to be legally defined on a statewide level. What kind of nimrod senator/congressman would oppose that? You can’t sit in a vacuum in your own local community and say, “within our community, we are going to affect statewide use of the CAP water that will come our way.” How are we going to reduce the risk of a dangerous sewage recycling program if we don’t know what the rest of the state can do to help all the communities within the state avoid the need for recycled grey water? We still have the very reckless 100 year old water laws that must be brought into alignment with 21st century realities and will require changing the AZ State Constitution, Article 17, Section 1. Tough battle? Maybe. Worth trying? Need I ask?
There are a lot of issues that need to be handled on a statewide level, like education. Tough time duking it out with state reps and senators tied up with charter school schemes? Perhaps. Do we need to support public education? Yeah. How was funding for public education screwed up? Oh, on a statewide level? Right.
Look at the shenanigans surrounding the state budget and all of the dumb laws that managed to squeak by the status quo these last couple years. SB1070 and the Obama Birther Bill are prime examples of state politicians spending too much time in the pulpit, and you suggest that the only thing Dave Ewoldt will do is use his Senate position to emulate these nimrods? Sorry, but there’s an entirely different direction for a lawmaker to take and much more common ground to work with.
Since I’m not the candidate, I suggest you follow the campaign (for working examples, specific details, etc.) and be thankful for whatever time is wasted on you (this could be a much longer post). There are some good questions but, for the most part, you’re pushing to maintain the status quo and attempting to discourage a candidate who actually “gets it” and has a real, viable strategy to deal with the issues. Could your pseudonym be hiding from us your real motivations? Until I know for sure, I’m just going to move on.
After serving as a consultant to state government (California), federal government, foreign governments, UN, NGOs, and private firms; my experience tells me that it’s near impossible to start at a state or national level to accomplish anything that is beneficial to people and protects the environment. Think a bit, the role of the legislature is to collect and spend money and to place boundaries on the behavior of citizens. My challenge to you is how are you going to create a statewide movement? This is the naivety that is difficult for me to understand.
If communities change themselves, as local food movements increase in number and influence, as more people participate in local currencies, etc., how is this more of the same, supporting the status quo? Seems to me you don’t have a clue what goes on in the Arizona Legislature. Have you ever visited, met with the members and their staffs, talked to the lobbyists and press? Have you seen a Republican member of the house come from an office of one of the party leaders in tears because she was verbally abused for not following party dictates? Have you seen a Democratic member rebuked and threatened with no party support in the next election for voting his conscious? In another state, have you seen an independent who wouldn’t be recognized by the chair of the chamber? The name of the game is protecting the special interests that landed you in the legislature.
The real issue, if Ewoldt is going to the legislature, is how does he plan to change it? Give me practical step by step methods of gaining support within the legislature so that there is a force that will change the rules, forbid the acceptance of money from the lobbyists, ensure that universities are open to all qualified students, etc.?
I’ve been following the campaign searching for working examples, specific details, etc., and I find none. It’s simply words without any practical steps that might make a difference. I think many of Ewoldt’s objectives are worthwhile but for the life of me I cannot see any likelihood of him winning the election with the current platform.
If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.
Downing’s letter is insightful and true. He should read the AZ Revised Statues to see that it is not just legislative candidates this impacts, but anyone who runs for any office in the state…and even the Presidential office (ask Nader). What the Democrats and Republicans have done is ensure that anyone who is not part of their duopoly is prevented from running due to all the roadblocks, if and they manage to jump those hurdles, they can’t get their voice out because of the financial fix. They write and pass the election laws.
With 30% and growing considering themselves something other than R or D in this state, it is how the pretend two-party, corporate dominated politicians ensure real democracy and real choice never happens in this state.
However, Downing isn’t exactly “clean” on his motivations. After what Aboud did to him when he ran against her last time, he should not resort to similar dirty politicking and try to block Dave E. from ballot access. Really makes you lose faith in ALL these politicians who never seem to understand they are supposed to be PUBLIC SERVANTS!
Uh, that should be with a “t”, STATUTES…not those pretty cherub statues. ;P
Mrs. Red Star wasn’t home from work when the “Citizens Clean Elections Commission 2010 Primary Election” mailing arrived today in the mail. The Two Little Red Stars are figuring it weighs approx. 0.75 lbs., according to her kitchen scale.
Developing…
Does that make Downing a “Iino” ??