League of Women Voters Letting Their Partisanship Show

A recent letter to the editor in the Herald Times by Patricia K. Harris, President of the League of Women Voters opposing the County Commissioners plan to redistrict goes way beyond non-partisan advocacy. Rather than remaining objective and unbiased about the redistricting process Ms. Harris’ letter positions the local League staunchly in the corner of the Democrat Party. Taking a position so early in the redistricting process proves without a doubt that Ms. Harris has strong leanings toward the Democrat Party and further solidifies the GOP’s concerns about liberal manipulation of this organization. For the last several years it has been widely rumored that the Monroe County Chapter of the League of Women Voters has been under the control of people with strong ties to the Democrat Party. By taking a biased and slanted position on redistricting Ms. Harris has only further damaged the reputation of the local chapter and provides yet another strong reason for the Republican Party to boycott any future League sponsored events or publications.

For year’s Republican candidates have been faced with a dilemma, confront an all Democrat panel at the League’s pre-election forums with questions and topics that are going to be aligned with liberal ideologies or boycott and be labeled with “no response”. Past League sponsored forums have completely avoided important issues that affect our community by grossly limiting engaged conversation thus evading topics that are not on their liberal agenda.

Until there is some resolution to the Leagues partisan behavior local voters should not put much stock in their viewpoints or processes they utilize to disseminate information. Like most organizations the League is open to anyone that wants to join however when a group of likeminded individuals take control of an organization it looses its ability to remain an unbiased source of information and unfortunately this is what has occurred locally. If the League were concerned about the perception of bias, they would take steps to correct these problems. Don’t expect change anytime soon however as it appears they are quite satisfied with the existing arrangement, all the while utilizing the League of Women Voters’ reputation to add validity to their biased duplicity. Regardless of the make up of their total membership, this problem will remain until the local chapter decides to end this charade by appointing committees that are representative of all three parties. You should let the national office of the League know how a few people with a very narrow agenda are manipulating the local chapter. The link is as follows: www.lwv.org/forms/contactus.cfm