News Journal and ACLU join forces to disenfranchise Wilmington voters: Lawyers, Newspapers and Pols, oh my!

I was recently reminded of an unofficial legal precept called the “DUH” test. It’s goes something like this: if you know that the end result of a policy or law will violate a law that has primacy over that result, then enacting said policy or law knowingly violates the “DUH” test.

Today the News Journal declares it’s:

Time to consider new school board statute

The ACLU legal counsel adds to the hot mess editorial this way:

“Since most of the residents live outside the city, it lets people who live outside the city determine the city representatives,” explained Rich Morse, legal director of Delaware’s American Civil Liberties Union chapter”

Wherever an injustice lies, the ACLU is there to fix it right? (Parenthetically, Mr. Morse, your outrage appears selective in this case:where is your anger at Wilmington residents’ votes selecting independent suburban board members?) Well, let’s dig deeper. Something the News Journal’s Editorial Board equates with drinking castor oil,  even though that’s their job. Here are a list of facts about voting at large in Delaware school board elections:

• Voters do not have to be registered, just 18 and a resident.
• Voters can vote at ANY polling place in the entire school district, enabling working Wilmingtonians to vote in Newark, perhaps if their children are in High School, they can vote in their own school!
• Voters in Newark who work in Wilmington can vote in the city.
• VOTES CAST AT WILMINGTON BALLOT LOCATIONS ARE NOT NECESSARILY WILMINGTON VOTERS AND SOME WILMINGTON NOMINATING DISTRICT VOTER’S VOTES ARE CAST OUTSIDE THE CITY OUT OF NECESSITY OF SCHEDULE, CONVENIENCE, ETC. (Mr. Morse, you are welcome for the electoral lesson, and if you check the 2012 election you WILL find my voter card at Quaker Hill Apartments, IN WILMINGTON)
• All school board members are elected at-large, forcing suburban candidates to earn the votes of Wilmington residents and then become inexorably responsible to represent their interests in the course of their duties as a school board members. The reverse is true of the Wilmington representative on the school board, again forcing the desired effect of being responsible to represent ALL children. This is a fundamental tenet of school boarding, representing all children. (News Journal ed board writers, you are welcome for the lesson on civic duty and disenfranchisement)

Here are some questions for Mr. Morse and the News Journal Editorial board (Judge Silverman clearly does not care):

• When proclaiming that:

The attorney is a Wilmington resident, where the bulk of the district’s minority students live. He initially won 70 percent of city residents’ vote last spring. But he lost the race, because of a 1981 law requiring at-large voting in the four New Castle School school board elections.

• Did either entity pull the records of the elections in question dating back to 1981 to research all votes from ALL polling places to tally the residents of Nominating District A to determine that Mr. Evans in fact had 70%, or did you use the crass and demonstrably misleading method only using the polling locations merely located in Nominating District A to make your pitch to sever voters from their supported candidates?

• Does the ACLU and News Journal feel that it is their responsibility to understand the system of voting of which they are seeking to be activist “healers”?
• Does the ACLU and News Journal think that suburban school board members, elected in this utopia presented in the form of an editorial, will do anything other than sideline the interests of Wilmington (some would say even worse than now) since they have no electoral responsibility to ensure its success and now that Wilmington voters have no voice in vetting suburban candidates to ensure their views comport with equity and justice for all children including our precious Wilmington children?
• Does the ACLU and the News Journal understand that “fixing” the “broken” electoral process for school board members will have the likely “unintended” consequence of returning Wilmington to pre Evans v Buchanan?

Wait, I’ll answer that last question: the ACLU and the News Journal, with their irresponsible editorial, are joining the unwitting, activist Judge Silverman in sending Delaware back to 1953. Today, though, they are merely at the beginning of that slippery journey, they failed the “DUH” test.

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