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[Lifetime]

Maybe a hole in the "Fabric"... a loophole in which write-ins might be determined to allow ALL Commissioners from ONE party??? Sorry for Copy/Paste...

Source: http://www.newpa.com/webfm_send/1542 page 6

Role of the Majority/Minority Member Under Pennsylvania’s county structure, each party nominates two individuals to the office of commissioner,
 
the electorate votes for two, and the top three vote-getters form the three-member board of commissioners.This mechanism assures that each county has minority party representation on its board, and by creating a defacto check-and-balance within the board it can engender a setting that poses philosophical and political challenges. The manner in which commissioners express their views and vote on issues will normally reflect the philosophy of their political party. This does not mean that the board cannot have unanimous decisions and in fact, most votes are unanimous. However, there is an errant opinion held by some minority members, that the role of the minority member is to take the opposite view of the majority members on every issue. This is unnecessaryand the county will suffer if there is no spirit of cooperation and mutual respect.Successful boards, measured by the public perception of the ability of the county to function and the ability of the members to relate to each other, are those where the majority respects the entitlement of the minority members to participate, and the minority recognizes the need to provide responsible, rather than reflexive, counterpoint.
This relationship results in the ability of individual members of the board to adequately represent their constituents and to achieve reasonable success in individual agendas. Divided boards, caused by the failure of the majority to include the minority in governance or by the strident opposition of the minority to any action of the majority, regardless of relative importance, lead to public mistrust of the board as a whole. At the extreme, this leads to an inability to function in a responsive manner as the public agenda is being incessantly sidetracked by political in-fighting.

It should be noted that, as in the Parliamentary systems, the majority/minority role is not determined exclusively by party. Often, personalities and personal philosophies dictate who forms voting blocs.

[Jayhawk]

i seem to recall reading something not that long ago that someone was trying to determine whether multiple write-in votes for the same person would count. I think it was ruled not.

The office of county commissioner in pa is the only place i've ever seen this wacky guarantee that one party can't hold all 3 seats. You don't see this with county row offices, school boards, city councils or the state row offices or legislature. If the voters in those instances choose everyone from a single party, that's just the way it is. And ought to be.

This 2:1 minority setup often does inspire one member to be the vocal minority, the party of no.

It's also interesting that the implication is that it shall be 2-1 or 1-2 Democrat/Republican as if third parties don't exist. I guess it means that no more than 2 shall be from a single party.


More importantly, if it must continue to be no more than 2 from one party and there are 2 from each party in the fall election, let us vote for the 3 of the 4 that we want, not just for any two. Being allowed to vote for only 2 just reinforces the partisan ruling-party concept (well, darn it, if one party has to rule, i'm voting for the 2 from my party) and basically lets the other voters decide for you who the 3rd member is.

Voters are smart enough to choose who the third should be even if he's from the "other" party. After all, the primary was for party-only choices. If i want candidates R-1, D-1 and D-2 in office, let me vote for all 2. Otherwise, if i vote only for D-1 and D-2, i have no say in whether it's R-1 or R-2, even if R-2 is a nitwit.

I wish efforts would go somewhere to allow voting for 3 of 3. Otherwise, it's like having 4 seats on council open but you can only vote for 3.

And besides, at the county level and below, R and D mean diddly squat. Republicans don't run Children and Youth Services better than Dems. Dems don't record deeds or sell dog licenses better than Reps. So party affiliation is irrelevant in the overall operation of good government.

[lifefeedsonlife]

I disagree with the R and D assessment in regards to what happens at a local level. In party politics - the old boy network and going along to get along happens just as much at 'home' as it does nationally. There is just as much favoritism and cronyism there as anywhere else.

[Lifetime]

I see past DEM party head, Bob Lark is filing to allow 3 votes for County Commissioners if 3 seats are open. We shall see. I can't wait to see when 3rd and 4th Parties vie for those seats. I think it will press people to be more active in the voting process.. 4 parties trying to get at least ONE seat... MUSICAL CHAIRS.
 
Now, what is offensive to me is the use of terms that are totally false and even viciously insulting.
 
To call one Party the "Party of NO" is simply not true. I can, intelligently, go through my list and find that BOTH Parties have been the same...just on different agendas or interpretations of such. I know this to be true from actually "walking the walk" with legislation I have worked on and did my best to encourage the approval of.
 
Now to my favorite... To call people TEA BAGS or TEABAGGERS is at best, derogatory to the Nth degree. It is used to call opponents, friends and even relatives a name that the user has no real business calling and can...if pressed, lead to physical contact if the receiving party knows the true meaning..
 
Below is a web site for those who want to learn a little. I warn you, don't open it and read if you are easily offended, but if you do, you may be more careful of the use of those words...especially if it is a family member. In any case... be prepared if the receiver is sensitive enough to "correct" you.
 
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Tea-Bag
 
 
 

[Jayhawk]

To call people TEA BAGS or TEABAGGERS is at best, derogatory to the Nth degree.

That was their original, self-selected name at first (till they looked it up, of course).

It's a little like calling a Democrat an Anti-Federalist.

[Jayhawk]

If you want to talk about raging stupidity in this week's election, not only did about 1/4 of all mercer county voters choose a straight-party ballot, but something like 100 Independents also voted straight-party.

If i'm not mistaken, there were roughly zero Independent candidates on the ballot that such a vote would be cast for.

[Lifetime]

You will have to show me where the Tea Partiers coined those derogetory names for THEMSELVES... I have not heard them refer to themselves as such... I recall it coming from the Liberal Camp. Just the same.... it is not an endearing term and to use it shows lack of knowledge on its meaning.... and disrespect at the very least.
 
And I agree on the "Idiocy" of the Balloting in Mercer County. I have bitched about removing Straight ticket choice for EVERYONE. At least know who in hell you are voting for... Love it when a Candidate is set as both a Dem or Rep. Not a clue.... meaning clueless as to what they did.
 
My biggest bitch is this.... In my precinct there are 505+- registered voters. 73 even botered to vote... less than 15%. My prcinct is loaded up with those who are endeared to DPW with a minority who work, disabled for a "miriad" of reasons or retired. Very few even pay Income Tax. So... straight ticket for the hand that feeds them. I do NOT like people who do push one button....
 
I had a campaign sign for 2 people in front of my home. I was the only one who had one in front of their home. It seems it is safer to post them on abandoned property or empty lots. I had one from each party... I vote the person...

[lifefeedsonlife]

If i'm not mistaken, there were roughly zero Independent candidates on the ballot that such a vote would be cast for.

Funny ain't it? From what I understand, getting on a ballot at the county level for a person who ISN'T an R or a D is more laborious than for a person of the R or D persuasion. It's almost like they have it rigged in their favor . . .
 
Imagine that.

[Jayhawk]

You will have to show me where the Tea Partiers coined those derogetory names for THEMSELVES...

http://theweek.com/article/index/202620/the-evolution-of-the-word-tea-bagger

EXCERPTS:

The evolution of the word 'tea bagger'
Tea Party activists are outraged by the revelation that Obama once used the term "tea baggers" to describe them. But the coinage wasn't always considered an insult

Was President Obama speaking derogatively when he referred to the Tea Party as "tea baggers"? That's the topic of some debate after a review of Jonathan Alter's book, The Promise: President Obama, Year One, revealed that Obama used the term in November 2009. The grassroots movement didn't always consider "tea bagger" a slur: Early Tea Partiers innocently embraced the term until they discovered its vulgar connotations

Feb. 27, 2009
At the first anti-stimulus "New American Tea Party" rally in Washington D.C., a protestor carries a sign reading "Tea Bag the Liberal Dems before they Tea Bag You!!" The Washington Independent's David Weigel calls it "the best sign I saw."

April 1
Several Tea Party protest sites encourage readers to "Tea bag the fools in DC." Jay Nordlinger at National Review Online later admits: "Conservatives started [using the term]... but others ran and ran with it."

[Puffin]

You will have to show me where the Tea Partiers coined those derogetory names for THEMSELVES...

What would Bill Buckley say?  The National Review, commented on it, and there was this photo posted, that was taken at a tea party rally
The article:http://www.nationalreview.com/nrd/article/?q=Mjk1YmRjNzIxNmUwMTI0ZWYxZWU4OWU2MzFiOWJmNDE=

[Lifetime]

I think you said Obama coined the phrase...showing that HE didn't know the perjorative meaning himself. And those signs are carried by who??? Anyone who doesn't know the meaning ...along with the POTUS. So now some know the true meaning after someone informed them but yet it is ignorantly continued and ok to do such??
 
My whole premise on this, is, it continues to be used in a disgusting manner, by people who both don't know better and even worse... people who do. Which one would you say you were?
 
I am not a member of the Tea Party although I have been to a few rallies... I I carried those signs, would that make ME a Tea Party Member who was ignorant? .. or just someone attending the rally? But it is hard to say the same about the POTUS, who heads the DEM Party. To his credit though... I haven't heard that word out of his mouth in quit a while. Could someone have informed him of the disgusting meaning? So it really doesn't mean who said what but why? A quick chuckle?

[Jayhawk]

I think you said Obama coined the phrase...showing that HE didn't know the perjorative meaning himself. And those signs are carried by who???

i'm not even seeing in this thread where anyone even brought up teabaggers or obama.

The signs are imprinted with "freerepublic.com" which calls itself "America's exclusive site for God, Family, Country, Life & Liberty conservatives!", so it probably isn't funded by the Hollywood elite.

Just to be fair, there are similar epithets from the conservative side that blanketly label Occupiers as various bands of ancharists, dirty hippies, crazed rioters and the like.

Whatever people call them, at least they aren't stupid: They had the smarts enough to pick a name that didn't also mean a mild sexual assault.

And, of course, then we have candidate Santorum...

[Lifetime]

 guess I assumed you don't read the Herald but the name came up in Letter to the Editor along with reports of the poor showing of voters... Part of this was from those things and the idea that the "TEA BAGS" were also mad about SS COLA for next year. It is politic in total.
 
And it was you who brought up that Obama ...
 
"The evolution of the word 'tea bagger'
Tea Party activists are outraged by the revelation that Obama once used the term "tea baggers" to describe them. But the coinage wasn't always considered an insult "
 
It was ALWAYS considered an insult...to people who understood the meaning....
 
I saw the Free Republic imprint and at one time...even Drudge banded them from his site for a while for crap they offered up. So...those signs made them Tea Party? Those rallies are open to anyone... even the KKK tried to push in but were admonished and removed.
 
Love this too... "ancharists, dirty hippies, crazed rioters and the like."

This may not be all accurate but... they have problems in places like Zuccotti Park that has lead to doctors naming a medical disorder after them.
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/editorials/now_it_health_hazard_nSOEcvMS42rXGnJFvv9FCL
 
This article mentions deaths in the camps and I even read where a Policeman was slashed, women raped and human waste strune all over in some encampments. This is documented stuff. All the Tea PartyRallies I have been to ....had NONE of these problems.
 
And no I don't compare this to the Hippies..it would insult the Hippies. At least they tried to drop out and go to the communes. They had a basic mission. Thesepeople can't even agree with why they are even there. It is what we called in the military as a CLUSTER "FRACK". So... find us some people who actually present their problems and an HONEST solution offer. To forgive EVERYONES debt is not possible and if they have any degrees in Economy in there...they would know. I don't do well when someone tries to baffle me with BS. 99% is the number they quote... Well I quote the 50% that pay 100% of the income taxes. I am not rich.... and I don't think I am stupid but When you have the likes of ichael Moore and Alec Baldwin trying to rub elbows with them and Moore even saying he wasn't part of the 1%, I just shake my head.
 
My stand has always been and will remain... It ain't the Gazillionares who are the cause of this. It is the LAWS that the Legislators passed that allowed his and it is the fault of EVERY voting age American who failed to watch the Hen House in the first place. We saw this apathy in this election cycle in Mecer County and I bet Nation wide. When you figure some elections were decided by 12% of the registered votes...that is pure BS. WE should take the blame for our decisions and non involvment until the Horses are all out and running.
 
Oh And I have been to Haight Ashbury in the 60s...wasn't impressed but that is me... Been to Washington for Big Protests... Not all that either... And I went where my Country told me to go for 6+ years... After all of that...I did what I needed to in order to care for myself and my family.... even when jobs were hard to find in the 70s.. So, this all doesn't impress me much as well. Like a kidney stone... this too will pass and be relegated to history... Same crap...different day.
 
Mild Sexual Assault.... just what to hell is THAT??
 
 
 
 
 
 

I think you said Obama coined the phrase...showing that HE didn't know the perjorative meaning himself. And those signs are carried by who???

i'm not even seeing in this thread where anyone even brought up teabaggers or obama.

The signs are imprinted with "freerepublic.com" which calls itself "America's exclusive site for God, Family, Country, Life & Liberty conservatives!", so it probably isn't funded by the Hollywood elite.

Just to be fair, there are similar epithets from the conservative side that blanketly label Occupiers as various bands of ancharists, dirty hippies, crazed rioters and the like.

Whatever people call them, at least they aren't stupid: They had the smarts enough to pick a name that didn't also mean a mild sexual assault.

And, of course, then we have candidate Santorum...

[Jayhawk]

guess I assumed you don't read the Herald but the name came up in Letter to the Editor along with reports of the poor showing of voters... Part of this was from those things and the idea that the "TEA BAGS" were also mad about SS COLA for next year. It is politic in total.

i must have missed it. If the reference was just to "teabag" then i guess it's saying anyone who sends one to the IRS is a perv, too.

meanwhile, the writer is correct that these are the same people with liberatian-like signs and statements demanding that the federal government keep its hands off their medicare and SS.

It was ALWAYS considered an insult...to people who understood the meaning....

Whereas those who called themselves that, well...
 

I saw the Free Republic imprint and at one time...even Drudge banded them from his site for a while for crap they offered up. So...those signs made them Tea Party?

Wow, what kind of a dirtbag conservative do you have to be to get Drudge mad at you?

I won't waste my time looking, but i'm sure there were many other signs at rallies and statements that took the name but didn't involve free republic.

This article mentions deaths in the camps and I even read where a Policeman was slashed, women raped and human waste strune all over in some encampments. This is documented stuff. All the Tea PartyRallies I have been to ....had NONE of these problems.

That's because most of them didn't stay long enough to make it into an encampment because they don't like to drive after dark anymore.
 

hesepeople can't even agree with why they are even there. ... To forgive EVERYONES debt is not possible and if they have any degrees in Economy in there...they would know.

This is where you and i actually solidly agree. I believe most of them are nitwit hippy-like simpletons who suggest socialistic, communal things like relieving all debts, to level all the inequities.

It ain't the Gazillionares who are the cause of this. It is the LAWS that the Legislators passed that allowed his and it is the fault of EVERY voting age American who failed to watch the Hen House in the first place.

Again, we agree. (60 Mins tonight pointed out that what in any other context would be considered insider trading is perfectly legal if you are a congressman trading on inside information.) The root of what the Occupy protestors seem to believe is true. The top tier's wealth as a factor of what the rest of us make has been growing in multiples in part thanks to policies -- generally espoused by conservatives -- that do little more than make the rich richer. Any increase in marginal tax rates hardly begins to tap the growingly unequal and, some would say, undeserved, share that the top have attained, and not through harder work.

Mild Sexual Assault.... just what to hell is THAT??

Another name for the silly, innocent fun the defense says is "just boys just being boys" that jocks do with their teabags all in the spirit of building team spirit (SEE: Greenville HS case of a few years ago), or for what you lessor incident you later claim you were told about when someone reports to you having seen full sodomy in a State College shower (SEE: Any news report from the past week).

[Lifetime]

Jay....
 
Guess we are going to pick here..
 
Although we agree on some things...
 
I am not going to infer that you do or don't know the actions of the Boston Tea Party but the teabags ...and in some cases..loose tea was sent to legislators to remind THEM of the BOSTON TEA PARTY...not a sexual act.
 
 
I don't care for anyone who calls anyone a TEA BAG or TEA BAGGER. and I don't care for anyone calling even themselves or close friends a N_gger like some comedians do. But I don't hear this term out of the mouths of the Tea Party as much as it spews out of the mouths of those that oppose them. Idiots come in all shapes and sizes...
 
Because someting doesn't fit the mold of say.... the Liberal agenda...it automatically becomes..CONSERVATIVE?? Please.. that is saying the KKK is accepted as Conservative? Like the NBP are Liberal? Drudge has many Liberal Leaning sites on his..such as Huffington..and Left leaning Newspapers. He booted the Free Republic because of them running a story on a supposed Black Love Child of Clinton's. Again.. label if you mus,t but there are degrees in both camps.
 
I had to laugh at the "couldn't drive after dark" remark. I wonder just how many Tea Party Rallies you have been to. I agree there are many Gray Hairs there...because..the younger members either HAD JOBS or looking for them. And there were younger people there because most of the local ones were slated on the weekends. Also I think they don't stay overnight in tents and crap is because, they can get their messages across in the few hours needed and not in the squaller we see WORLD WIDE in these so called camps. They want to kill the Rich Business People but right now..they are costing the Working Person in the form of extra tax money to municipalities as well as killing the businesses of the little guy in those areas... their actions have the little business person constantly resupplying stuff STOLEN from their business like soap, toilet paper, condiments as well as their businesses are drop off point for bags of human feces and over use of their public facilities. Maybe their orgasnizers never heard of Porta Potties. For many, their regulars don't even come back in. So please tell me again... just who this hurts??
 
When I said their target needs to be Law Makers ..I did NOT say Liberal or Conservative..I meant ALL. It took ALL to accept those laws and vote them in. I still have visions of Dodd and Frank with Fannie and Freddie. Again...WE...WE allowed them to act in this manner and now... we pay and have pain. We are the cattle who were well fed and cared for and not a care in the world until that "THUNK" on our skull. Apathy was and still is ...the word of the day with the voting rate the way it was here just in Mercer County. We should be ashamed of ourselves.
 
 
So "Tea Bagging" is silly and cute to you? Maybe some slime bucket doing that to YOUR son of even your DAUGHTER? Here is a good one... somebody fondling your daughter's breasts or pinching your wifes rear... Cute Huh? Ahhh JUST Mild Sexual Assault. To me this amounts to a physical confrontation in my family... not so mild. If this is the norm of our present society... that Dirt Nap doesn't sound so bad. Sorry, I wasn't raised that way and neither was my wife or son. My son ends up arresting these dregs or filling out reports because of them. Some fun Huh??