In a few days people will be rushing, OK trickling, to their polling places to vote for the master whose boot they wish to be under. But selecting masters isn’t the only thing on the ballots. Denizens of Minneapolis will get to decide how much democracy is too much democracy:
It costs just $20 to put your name on the ballot for city races. The proposed charter amendment would raise that fee to $500 for mayoral candidates.
Other offices would see smaller increases, although candidates could avoid paying the fee altogether by collecting at least 500 signatures.
The change is designed to keep candidates like Jeff Wagner off the ballot. His quixotic run for mayor last year was built around a series of web videos showing him in varying states of undress. The videos were a hit. Blogs all over the country linked to them. But Wagner ended up with fewer than 200 votes.
Everybody loves democracy so long as there isn’t too much of it.
If you’re one of those people telling all of your friends to get out and vote and also supports measures like this please kindly shut the fuck up. What you’re telling people is that voting is important but only if the list of potential masters is carefully curated. In other words you don’t want people to use the voting process to express their opinions but to acknowledge the opinions of those who get to decide who can and cannot run.
As an aside the fact that the curation process is based on money, which puts a nice barrier between poor people and political office, is telling. I guess people want to be under the boot of a master but not the boot of a poor master.