Democracy on the ballot: Jake Johnson does some explaining

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Polk County has taken it on the chin this year when it comes to democracy.

Beginning next year, elections for seats on the Polk County Board of Education will be partisan affairs. Anyone who wants to run for one of the three seats up for grabs has to choose between publicly embracing one of the two main parties, or fighting to get on the ballot as an unaffiliated candidate. Which isn’t all that easy to do.

Polk County also lost its off-year elections, which meant that the municipal elections scheduled for this fall were put off until next year. And every term of office at the local level will be four years long from now on.

And the county got split in two as part of Congressional re-districting. Come 2024, the Saluda and Cooper’s Gap precincts will stay in NC 11, while the rest of county will be moved to NC 14. Some of the folks in the White Oak and Mill Springs area will have to check out the board of elections website to find out which side of the dividing line they live on.

Our state representative, Jake Johnson, supported all of these changes. And over the next hour, I ask him why. I also ask him why he had funding for the Saluda Grade Rails to Trails project pulled off the budget negotiating table— at the 11th hour — threatening the whole project, only to reverse course soon after.

Does that sound a little confrontational? Maybe, but we’re now officially into the campaign season, so the questions are only going to get tougher. Our representative had answers prepared for all them. I’ll let you judge whether those answers are up to snuff. He and I talked in the conference room above the House of Flags Museum in Columbus on December 4, which happened to be opening day of candidate-filing for Election 2024.

Democracy on the ballot: Jake Johnson does some explaining

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