| PERSPECTIVE |
[September 25, 2002] -
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Watch the Perspective segment:| Click Here
Mike Tobias interviews Scott Moore and Judy Monaghan on the missing candidate issue. Moore is a former state senator and Secretary of State who ran as a Republican for U.S. Senate in 2000. He now serves as director of government affairs for Union Pacific Railroad. Monaghan is a political consultant who has worked on the campaigns of numerous Democrats, including U.S. Senate campaigns for Bob Kerrey and Jim Exon.
Watch the entire interview here:| Click Here
University
of Nebraska-Lincoln political science professor John Hibbing talks
about his research on democracy and public perception:| Click Here
Nancy
Escamilla is near the end of a four-year term on the Gering School
Board, and is not running for reelection. Escamilla talks about her
unsuccessful efforts to recruit candidates for the position:| Click Here
Vera
Dulany has served as Scotts Bluff County clerk and election commissioner
for 20 years. She's seen a decline in candidates in her county. Dulaney
comments on why more people don't run for office:| Click Here
Chris
Beutler of Lincoln is running unopposed for his sixth term in the
Unicameral. He talks about why fewer people are running for the Legislature:| Click Here
Hebron
Sen. George Coordson is retiring after 16 years in the Legislature.
Coordson talks about problems finding candidates in rural areas:| Click Here |
Transcript
of Perspective
Secretary
of State John Gale discusses a "coarsening" of politics in America
that causes people not to run for office:| Click Here
Gale says reinvigorating the political
party system would generate more candidates for public offices:| Click Here
Nebraska
Wesleyan University political science professor John Vermeer talks
about the impact of fewer people running for office:| Click Here
Vermeer
comments on one change that would lead to more public interest in
running for office:| Click Here
Watch the May 10, 2002 Perspective story on this subject:| Click Here |
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Transcript of Missing Candidates
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Oakland, Nebraska is crawling with dalas. These carved wooden horses celebrate the town's Swedish heritage. And they're everywhere. On election day, this is the only sign of a horse race you'll see in this town of 13 hundred people. The mayor and one city council member are unopposed for re-election. And no one in town is running for the other city council seat that's on the ballot. They're running away.
[Cynthia Petersen/Oakland Clerk-Treasurer]
The mayor has recruited quite a bit. He's gotten to the point that somebody sees him coming and they turn around and go the other way. And so far everyone has turned him down.
[Tobias]
Veterinarian Stewart Hartwell is one who said no. He's decided six years on the four-person council are enough.
[Stewart Hartwell/Oakland City Councilman]
It's been fun, and I enjoy municipal government. I don't have any aspirations of governorship or anything else. I guess I just, there were other things going on in my life and I just decided that I would make room for someone else. And that wasn't the case. No one else ran.
[Tobias]
No one's interested in Hartwell's spot on the council. In some ways, it's easy to see why. The monthly meetings keep the council here late into the night. There's often a second meeting each month. Each council member oversees a city department like water or parks. This means more time with city workers and sometimes unhappy citizens. All that and more for 150 dollars a month. Hartwell, though, says there are other reasons why no one is running.
[Hartwell]
I think people are just, everybody thinks they're too busy. For some reason I don't think people are interested in serving their fellow man, I guess is essentially what you're doing. You're making decisions that effects everybody's tax dollars and maybe there aren't that many people paying taxes anymore and maybe no one cares where their tax dollars go, I'm not sure.
[Petersen]
First of all if you're a business owner in town and you make a decision that goes against what other people are interested in, there's a risk to your business. If you're not a business owner in town, you work out of town and you have that commute, so you don't have the time to give up to it.
[Tobias]
Peterson says the lack of candidates is a relatively new problem, and one that spreads beyond the council. The city has trouble finding people to serve on various volunteer boards and committees. Like the tree board, which makes decisions about trees on city lands. Right now there are several vacancies.
[Petersen]
We have a lot of people spread thin doing a lot of different things. And when it comes to volunteers, we always have the same people volunteer, kind of.
[Tobias]
You can't blame the lack of candidates on the town's declining population. That's because Oakland is a rarity - a small rural Nebraska town that's gaining people. Oakland's population grew 7 percent in the last census.
[Tobias]
Vera Dulaney has run elections in Scotts Bluff County for 20 years. She's running unopposed for another term as clerk this year. Dulaney has seen a gradual decline in candidates the last few elections.
[Vera Dulaney/Scotts Bluff Co. Clerk]
We have noticed fewer candidates filing this year than usual. We usually have a lot of interest in school board races, for example.
[Tobias]
Like the Gering School Board. In 1994, nine candidates ran for three positions. This year there are just three. Nancy Escamilla works at the Scottsbluff Public Library. She's served on the Gering School Board for one four year term. She's not running again. Escamilla says she's stretched too thin - between work, the school board and a long list of other community activities.
[Nancy Escamilla/Gering School Board Member]
School board takes probably about 30 hours a month, 30 to 40. And that includes your board meetings, your committee meetings, you workshops you attend, your things that you have to read and keep up on, educational trends, so there's a lot of homework for board members to do.
[Tobias]
Omaha senator Kermit Brashear is running for a third term in the Nebraska Legislature. And he'll win in November. So will Matt Connealy, Elaine Stuhr and eight other senators up for re-election. No one is running against them. 11 of 26 Legislative races on the primary ballot this year had just one candidate. That's more unopposed candidates and fewer total candidates than any election since the Unicameral expanded to 49 senators in 1966. In past years nearly twice as many people ran for the Legislature. Lincoln senator Chris Beutler is running for his sixth term. He's unopposed for the second straight election.
[Sen. Chris Beutler/Lincoln]
In a real personal sense, you kind of cheer because there's a lot of work you don't have to do. But if you're looking at it from a philosophical point of view, and a truly objective point of view, you really have to grieve a little for democracy, because people don't have a choice.
[Tobias]
These are three illustrations of a statewide problem, one reaching all levels of government. So why are fewer people running for office? Some blame too much to do, too little time.
[John Gale/Secretary of State]
Our lives are a lot busier than they used to be. And people's commitment to community service and public service used to be a lot stronger than it is.
[Sen. Ray Janssen/Nickerson]
Ray Janssen of Nickerson served on village and school boards before coming to the Unicameral in 1992.
[Janssen]
The commitment, I believe, is something more than what people understand. It's not a 60 or 90 day a year job. You're confronted every day of the year by some of your constituents. It's a commitment that you have to make, and it's hard on your family, and it's sometimes hard on your business, it's hard on your employer.
[Tobias]
A so-called "coarsening of politics" may be another reason. Gale says it's a lot harder to hold a public office than it used to be.
[Gale]
When I first moved out west to North Platte 30 years ago, it was a great honor and a privilege for people to serve on the school board and city council. And it was a mark, a mark of prestige and pride. And now for a lot of people it's a mark of a lot of abuse.
[John Vermeer/Neb. Wesleyan Political Science Professor]
People are more contentious in how they raise disagreements with government. They're not as likely to approach people privately, they're more likely to make a public issue of it.
[Tobias]
Vermeer says an anti-political attitude has grown in the last 10 to 15 years, especially in Nebraska.
[Vermeer]
Ronald Reagan popularized the notion that he referred to quite a bit that government is not the solution, government is the problem. And if there are things that people are concerned about and they believe that, then they're not likely to think of serving in government as a way to address those problems.
[Tobias]
John Hibbing's research shows a lack of public interest in democracy in general.
[Hibbing]
They kind of say they are, but in terms of wanting to spend more time in it, thinking about it, learning about it, there's really not much motivation there. They would like things to work pretty smoothly without them being involved.
[Tobias]
George Coordsen is a farmer and state senator. He's retiring after 16 years in the Unicameral. Coordsen says a declining number of farmers is making it hard to find candidates in rural Nebraska.
[Sen. George Coordsen/Hebron]
In the rural counties, many of the jobs used to be filled by people who were in production agriculture. That profession has changed so much that the few that are out there left in the business simply do not have the time to serve on the county board or the school board or the fire department or whatever is available.
[Tobias]
In the unicameral, some blame the 12 thousand dollar a year salary for lawmakers. DiAnna Schimek has been a state senator since 1988 - the last time lawmakers got a pay raise.
[Sen. DiAnna Schimek/Lincoln]
It's really past time to do something about salaries for state legislators. And if you're living clear out in the western part of the state, there's no way you can afford to do it.
[Hibbing]
If you look at it in real dollar terms, probably from a decade or two ago, they're doing worse than they used to. More than that, you have to keep in mind what these people could be doing if they weren't in the Legislature. Granted it's not a full-time job, but it's an increasingly demanded job and it does wreak havoc with other kinds of endeavors. Only certain kinds of positions, maybe being an attorney or something, permit that kind of flexibility.
[Tobias]
Our educational system may not be doing a good job of cultivating potential candidates. Gale says Nebraska high schoolers aren't getting enough government.
[Gale]
When you find that your seniors are just starting American Government the second semester of their senior year in high school, just starting American Government, and they'll never study state government at all, what can we expect in terms of their knowledge and understanding of state government and the different levels that effect their lives. And if we're not even approaching the study of state government, what can we expect in terms of their level of commitment.
[Tobias]
Gale also says the political party system is rapidly declining in importance, and the major parties aren't generating candidates like they used to.
[Gale]
They nurture and grow them through the county government system and through the legislative system, and there has to be that network of support to say, now, if you move on to the next level, we're there for you. We have a network of raising money, we have people who will help work for you. Only the two major parties can do that.
[Tobias]
Grand Island attorney Dan Thayer helped revive the Hall County Independent Business Association last year. In lieu of political parties, it's the type of group that's playing a more prominent role in cultivating candidates. Thayer says the group recruits business-minded candidates, to run for vacant positions and run against elected officials who they don't feel have the best interests of the Grand Island economy in mind.
[Dan Thayer/Hall County Indep. Business Assn.]
We don't have a University, we don't have state government. Business drives the economy, agriculture drives the economy. And you have to have the proper people in place in local elective office to make the good decisions, to attract businesses to come here, to keep the quality jobs here, to keep families here and to keep the economy growing.
[Tobias]
And are there too many elected offices - spreading the potential pool of candidates too thin?
[Hibbing]
My personal opinion would be yes. In the United States we tend to go a little bit overboard. Certainly in Europe they think we've gone crazy with democracy, to have dog catchers and weed commissioners and all those things elected.
[Vermeer]
It's always worth looking at that structure, but the difficulty is having one's own elected officials becomes a matter of identity for that small town.
[Tobias]
So in the end, does it matter if your election day ballot is full of unopposed candidates?
[Hibbing]
The sky is not falling, but I do think it's a problem. We need candidates running, we need alternative ideas, we need the kind of marketplace of ideas, that's what democracy is based on. If we get to a point where we're not having that, then I do think it's a problem.
[Vermeer]
That means that there are points of views, perspectives, that are not going to be presented, not part of the discussion, not part of the conversation, and therefore can't really be effectively taken into account in government decision making and that means more people are going to be dissatisfied with the results of government action.
[Tobias]
In Oakland they'd be happy with just one candidate for each city council seat. After November the mayor will try to appoint someone to the open position. But since no one even wants to run unopposed, finding someone willing to accept the appointment could be tough.
[Petersen]
I just came across one that shows that you can only water your lawn between 4 and 8 in the afternoon.
[Tobias]
On this day Cindy Petersen is looking through some century-old city ordinances. And wondering if modern-day laws will have to change to make up for the lack of interest in local government.
[Petersen]
We're going to have to change some of our ordinances and so forth, allowing for a smaller number to govern. If it continues and we lose more people on the council, eventually we aren't going to have a city government. We'll have to abandon the city government and I assume the county will take over the jurisdiction. And the citizens of Oakland would be losing their local control of their government.