Caucus to be June 12th in Columbia City

FWOb has been told the 3rd District Republican caucus will be June 12th with Columbia City, Indiana being one of the leading candidates for a location.

If you would like to speak with your precinct's committeeperson, you will need to call the Allen County Republican Headquarters during daytime hours at 2650-422-1554.

You would think the names of the precinct committeepersons would be public information available through the Election Board.  That used to be the case but is not the case now.

Your FWOb editor, Mitch Harper, believes the names should be a public record and available to the public. The change to state law allowing, essentially, for the two respective parties to treat the lists of precinct committeepersons as private for most times of the year, is wrong now and was wrong when it was changed.

I wrote the first line of the preceding paragraph in the third person for a reason. So that the line is searchable and my position unmistakeable.  There were numerous changes in the state statutes concerning precinct committeepersons made when I served in the General Assembly.  I opposed those changes then.  More recently, I proposed a change in the Allen County party's by-laws which would have said those lists were available to the public.

The change to the by-laws was opposed by several persons concerned with the public making contact with them and other persons who were concerned with the public being able to identify law enforcement officials who were precinct committeepersons.

The trouble with that is that the precinct committeepersons are charged by state statute with a very public function - choosing persons to fill vacancies in public offices caused the death, incapacity or resignation of an officeholder of the same political party. 

In the present case of the 3rd District, the precinct committeepersons will be performing a party function - that is, the Republican precinct committeepersons will be selecting the nominees to be on the Special Election and General Election Ballot for Congress. The Democratic caucus will be selecting the nominee for the Special Election.

However, in many other cases involving county, township, municipal and legislative offices, the precinct committeepersons don't just pick party nominees - they pick persons to fill the remainder of unexpired terms.

That is a public function. 

And the public deserves a right to contact those who will be making a profound decision on the citizenry's behalf. Period.

Comments

[Elizabeth Wegmann]

I believe that any individual who has concerns regarding the publication of their name and contact information(ie. policemen, firefighters, or officers of the court)should consider other avenues to be of service to their political party - precinct committeeperson not being one of them.

[JT Thomas]

Mitch,

Here is a list of the Republican officials (including committeemen) of Noble County.

http://www.noblegop.com/committees.html