This morning the Marion County GOP chooses its chair person. This offers an opportunity for a major political party, as defined by Indiana statute, to make inroads, even if only symbolic, on the systemic corruption of our political system. I challenge the 3 candidates to promise:

1) To seek an end to slating fees for candidates who seek nomination for local office. Slating fees are a form of tribute people pay to be considered as a candidate for local office. Few see any return on that money, it hasn’t helped win local offices and it symbolizes corruption.

2) To push to require that local elected GOP officials refuse to accept tickets to professional or NCAA (little difference between the two) sports events. Local government decides whether to give local sports franchises money. To accept tickets has the appearance of a bribe.

3) To advocate one hundred percent (100%) registration of eligible voters in Indianapolis. This should not have to be mentioned, but it appears to have gone by the wayside for this iteration of the GOP.

4) To advance measures that make voting easier. People have died for the right to vote. Early voting, satellite voting sites, and mail-in voting make exercise of the franchise easier. Security of our voting system is critical - and easily accomplished even with these methods.

I shall e-mail, in PDF format, a copy of this blog post to candidates Joe Elsener, John Schmitz, and Alex Henby. Yesterday I was surprised to learn that Mr Elsener’s running mate, Mindy Westrick, is pro-choice. I now have to seriously consider voting for that ticket.

Nonetheless these four challenges aim to reduce (I wish we could completely eliminate entirely) the appearance of corruption in local government For the time being appearances will have to do, and they can be very important.