They never take us into account.
Did you know that primary election day in Baltimore is coming up, three days before Yom Kippur? Of all times of the year, I plan to have more important things to do three days before Yom Kippur than vote in the primaries, particularly when most of the incumbents are running unopposed. That’s right, O’Malley, Ehrlich, Gansler (he’s the attorney general who, by his own admission, can’t wait to be governor one day), Sarbanes, and our state delegates, are all unopposed in the primaries. That is what you get in one-party, incumbent-friendly states like Maryland. As Will Rogers used to say, “We have the best Congress money can buy.”
In spite of all this, we really do need to get out and vote on Tuesday, September 14, 2010. Here’s why: There are three races that are being contested. One is for sheriff. Being one of the few people I know who is neither a lawyer, a landlord, or in trouble with the law, I don’t have much knowledge of that office, which is a good thing, I should think. Reminds me of a story: Not too long ago, I visited my good friend Ellen Lightman, who was sitting shiva for her mother. Reminiscing about her youth in Newport News, Virginia, Ellen read me a letter from her late father recalling the visit to the Newport News shul of a local judge of the criminal court down there many years ago. I think the judge was a speaker at the shul banquet, something like that. In his letter, Ellen’s father recalled with pride how the judge surveyed the audience in the shul and remarked, “I believe I do not know a single person here!”
The second contested race is for state’s attorney, the office that is supposed to prosecute the bad guys. This is the race getting much publicity, because Mr. Bernstein is calling Ms. Jessamy to account because of her poor record in prosecuting our local malefactors. This, of course, affects us all quite directly. The cops can catch someone, but if the City does not bother to prosecute him, he is released back on the street. And what happens next? To tell you the truth, that race is of sufficient importance to bring me to the polls on Sept. 14. How else can I as a citizen register my dissatisfaction with the conduct of my elected official? Is this not what democracy is all about?
But what has really inspired me to write this article is the third contested race, which is the most electorally complicated, but of great personal interest. This is the election on September 14 of the seven members of the Maryland Democratic Central Committee. This is an office my good friend Ronnie Rosenbluth is running for.
What is the State Democratic Central Committee? As best as I can figure out, if a Democrat leaves office in mid-term (now this has never happened in Maryland or Baltimore, right?), the Central Committee chooses the successor to fill in for the remainder of the term until the next election. In other words, a slightly obscure office, as far as I can see.
But that is not the point. Ronnie Rosenbluth is the only member of our community who is running for elective office. The only one. Last time he ran the same office.and lost.by 33 votes. A lousy 33 votes! If another 34 of us would have bothered to go down and vote, he would have won, and he might be running for something higher today. I kind of like that idea. I am not thrilled by having no person from our community in any public office, despite the well-known fact that our community pays more than its share of taxes. That’s right. Ask any official or police officer. Our community is one of the most lucrative sources of tax revenue of any neighborhood in the City. If you really want to know, Ronnie could get you the numbers; so could others; it’s public record. In spite of this, all of the elected officials for whom we vote are members of other communities.
Now, I am not against that in principle. I do indeed think that my vote should go to the most qualified candidate, regardless of race, color, or creed, and I hope you do, too. That is how I always vote. Or are you in agreement with the Mayor’s father, Pete Rawlings, who eight years ago called on Black voters not to support Barbara Hoffman but, rather, to vote for someone, as he notoriously put it, “who looks like them, smells like them, and thinks like them”? But I would like to see one person from my community on the ballot, and in office. In this election, that’s Ronnie.
The trouble with elections to the State Central Committee is that it is complicated. You do not vote for one person; you vote for seven. We elect seven people to the Central Committee. If there were only seven people running for the office, they would all automatically win; by definition, they would be the candidates with the seven highest number of votes. Thing is, there are nine people running this time, which means there will be two losers and seven winners. In order to win, Ronnie needs to be one of the seven.
Here is a list of the nine candidates: Ramona Moore Baker, Angela Gibson, Lisa Gladden, Nathaniel Oaks, Michael Pearson, Thomas Phillips III, Ron Rosenbluth, Joyce Smith, and Neil Vicks.
The only people I know on this list are Ronnie Rosenbluth and Lisa Gladden. So those two are the only people I plan to vote for for Central Committee. (Lisa is a good state senator, as far as I am concerned, and Lisa’s office director, Jacquelin Greenfield, is one of our community’s most precious assets, I have found.)
After all, why should I give my vote to someone I do not know? That is the opposite of responsible voting. And anyway, since the winners are the seven candidates with the most votes, every vote I cast for the other five are votes against Ronnie. In order to win, Ronnie has to have more votes than the others, or to put it the other way around, they need to have fewer votes than Ronnie. Get it?
Anyway, I wanted to get this off my chest. There are many things we do right as a community. There are some things we do not do well, in my opinion. Getting out the vote is one of them. No one should appreciate the advantages of American democracy more than the observant Jew. No one should be more eager to play his or her part is this remarkable political phenomenon. But I do not see that in Baltimore. There is a mentality that places voting somewhere after every other chore, if then.
Years ago, I had a good friend (currently a rosh kollel in a faraway community) who was an enthusiastic Goldwater Republican. This was years and years ago, when Jewish Republicans were rare and strange creatures. Anyway, he used to carry on about politics, in a manner
well-known to some yeshiva-types. To my utter surprise, when I once asked him if he had voted in some election (I think it was Reagan), he told me he had never voted in his life! When I asked him about the dissonance between what he said and what he did, he shrugged his shoulders.
“And what will you say,” I once asked him, “if your candidate loses, and you did not even bother to vote?”
“Well,” he replied, “If the guy lost by one vote, I’d feel guilty.” A great political mind at work..
If we all took that attitude, it would become a self-fulfilling prophecy. How can we expect public officials to take cognizance of our needs if they know that most frum Jews do not bother to vote. And they know. They get the numbers, district by district and block by block. They know. And they draw certain conclusions.
You cannot complain about never winning the lottery if you do not buy a ticket. At the end of the day, as Rav Hutner used to say, “Sof kol sof, Ruba de-ruba, Der Eibishter fiert die welt.” G-d runs the world. But we are not talking about massive hishtadlus here, just voting, the simple civic duty of every good citizen of the republic.
You can bet that the “pols” will be at the polls, zealously guarding their interests. How about “the people”? Will we be there guarding our interests?
Thirty-three votes! Oy!
See you at the polls.
Sidebar
How to Vote
by Gary Poretsky
To vote in the upcoming election, you have to make sure you are a registered voter. If you missed the August 24 deadline to register for the September 14 primary, you can still register to vote in the November general election. The deadline for that is October 12.
You have to fill out a registration form and send it to your local Board of Elections. The application needs an original signature, so you can either mail it or drop it off, but you cannot fax or email it in. You can find applications at the MVA, Department of Social Services offices, post offices, public libraries, and the Baltimore City Board of Elections. You can also get them online at www.elections.state.md.us
You will need to fill in your name, address, and birth date, as well as your license number and the last four digits of your social security number, though if you don’t have a license or social security number you can still vote, as long as you are a United States citizen and a Maryland resident.
You will also need to pick a party. Whatever your feelings about the Democrats or Republicans, pragmatically speaking, it pays to register as a Democrat. That is because, in Baltimore City, and to a lesser extent the County, there is usually no contested Republican primary and often no Republican candidate, so only registered Democratic voters have a say in local elections.
What about voting? The primary this year is on Tuesday September 14, which happens to be in the middle of Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. Between selichos and shopping, there isn’t much time left to vote. Fortunately, there are two alternative ways to vote: early voting and absentee ballots.
For the primary election, early voting centers will be open starting Friday September 3 through Thursday, September 9, except for Sunday, September 5. The centers will be open from 10 a.m. until 8 p.m. each day of early voting. Anyone in line at 8 p.m. will be allowed to vote. For Baltimore City residents, the nearest location is the Public Safety Training Facility (the old Pimlico Middle School) at 3500 W. Northern Parkway, right next to Bnos Yisroel school. For Baltimore County, the closest location is the Randallstown Community Center at 3505 Resource Drive.
Absentee ballots are a bit more complicated. You can request a ballot by mail, fax, or email. To count in the primary, it must be received by Tuesday September 7. If you hand deliver your request, you can pick up your absentee ballot. Otherwise it will be mailed to you. You fill it out with a number 2 pencil, and mail or hand deliver it to your local board of elections.
For more information: Phone: 410-269-2840 or toll free 800-222-8683. Fax: 410-974-2019, 410-974-5415, or 410-974-5126. Maryland Relay Service is 800-735-2258. Email is info@elections.state.md.us , or see www.elections.state.md.us/index.html .
