The Democratic Committee of Lower Merion Narberth (DCLMN) voted to ensure that the School Board Election on May 16 will be non-competitive.
Even before Thursday night’s (March 16) endorsement meeting, there was no possibility for competitive elections in any of the seven ward commissioner races in Lower Merion or for the Narberth Borough Council race because only one Democrat filed to run in each of the commissioner races and only three candidates filed to run for the three Borough Council positions.
However, DCLMN, if they chose to, could have enabled a competitive election for the school board. Six candidates sought the committee’s endorsement for five positions at the Endorsement Meeting. The committee could have chosen not to endorse any candidates. Had they done that, all six candidates would have had to run campaigns and appeal directly to the voters to win.
However, none of that is necessary now since the committee, once again, endorsed the maximum number of candidates and effectively named the four new school board members who will take office in January of 2024. They are Jason Herman, Todd Ridky, Sarah Thomas and Abigail Rubin. The committee also endorsed incumbent Shayna Kalish, whose 2019 endorsement was at least partially based on a promise she made not to support any efforts to negotiate a settlement of the Wolk Lawsuit. In 2022 Kalish voted in favor of settling the Wolk Law. In this regard, the committee is very forgiving.
Some will quibble with the suggestion that the committee chooses the school board members at its endorsement meeting. They will say that an endorsement is just a recommendation and that the voters have the final say. And if the voters ALWAYS choose to vote for the candidates that the committee has chosen for “recommendation,” that’s just the voters’ way of saying that they trust the committee’s judgment. Who can argue with that?
You won’t hear anybody explicitly saying that non-competitive elections should be preferred over competitive elections. What you will hear instead from supporters of the status quo/endorsements are a laundry list of the harms that will result if they don’t endorse candidates and also the benefits of endorsements.
What the majority of the DCLMN ( a committee that ironically has the word Democratic in its name) was telling us on Thursday night without actually saying it, is that when they endorse candidates and remove any element of competition from elections, that’s a good thing – because it eliminates the possibility of bad candidates getting elected. And who can argue with that?