What's new is old again

Ed Stanton is retiring as General Sessions Court Clerk. An important position here in the land of the Grit n' Grind. 

Reginald Milton (the likely winner) will run for the seat against a crew of fellow challengers that represent the problem here in Memphis. One is John Ford who delusionally thinks that he can run as a convicted felon whose rights have not been restored and also, really? Fellow commissioner Eddie Jones is also running. There's also Thomas Long, the former Clerk and perennial loser, Dell Gill. Dell is up there in the why are you running when no one will listen or take you seriously lane with Boudini Brown wannabe, Latroy Williams.

I want to stress this, I think Reginald will do an excellent job. I think he is the most qualified and up there on the list of qualified people that I know. That aside, my problem with the candidates we have is that they never seem to change. We have council people jump to the commission and vice versa due to term limits. Once they exhaust that, they run for clerk positions in the city or county. The state Representative and Senate seats turn over less often a car with a dead battery.

Combine the lack of open positions with lack of sheer opportunities due to lack of positions and you see the problem. We have too few positions that are too large in both the city and county. The commission could be twice as big honestly, the council-eliminate the super districts, and the Education Board- double it. 

Why? Because the seats being so large means they don't represent their areas properly. It costs too much to run, leaving candidates beholden to lobbyists and special interests. It makes districts unwalkable. 

Further, too many of the elected officials we have try and pass on their seats to their son or daughter or hire family members to work in their offices, giving them a leg up when that seat comes open. We don't need this. We need fresh people in there running. 

Hell, the Republicans do it. Why can't we? You know how they took so many seats from us throughout the South in the 70s through the 2000's? Replacing their members frequently. Notice how very few of them transitioned laterally or down? No, it was always up or out. Nepotism was cut way back until the Trumps with the exception of the Bush's. 

We'll never progress unless we start making the new the new.