Room to Represent Us
This op ed was published November 9, 2021 in the San Mateo Daily Journal. This version may be slightly different due to editing by the Journal. “Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays instead of serving you if he sacrifices it to your
Trust the Public with Hard Truths
This opinion piece, recently published in Nature, makes a point I think all elected leaders should keep in mind. Yes, a small percentage of the population will panic. But they will be greatly outnumbered by those who heed the call to adapt to a changed world. Moreover, not telling the
What Defines a Good Community Benefit?
A comment on my recent op ed regarding how to increase diversity of our elected bodies made the following point: When you write “public financial assistance for campaigns” that really means more money coming out of taxpayers’ pockets… and perhaps you are OK with that idea. However, if you live
Drawing the Lines
This piece was published in the San Mateo Daily Journal on Monday, October 11, 2021 under the title “Increasing diversity is more than lines on a map“. I appreciated Rudy Espinoza Murray’s recent guest perspective on the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors redistricting process. Both Rudy and I serve
It’s District Boundary Review Time!!!
Once every ten years, after the Federal census is completed, elected bodies that are based on districts1 have to review their boundaries and make adjustments. The County Board of Supervisors are elected on a district basis, so the Board of Supervisors must review and, as needed, modify their district maps.
Requiring IDs to Vote
This post was prompted by a Trump-supporting friend of mine who circulated one of those repost-if-you-agree posts on Facebook, this one targeted at requiring presentation of some form of ID to vote. There’s an aspect to the debate over whether or not IDs should be required to vote which I