There's No Such Thing as a Nonpartisan Election

Politicians are known for dodging questions, and one of the biggest they dodge is: “What is your political affiliation?”

Depending on the political demographics, this is almost always followed by: “Local elections are nonpartisan and I’m running to represent my constituents.”

Baloney. This is political-speak for: “I’m too scared to be honest with you about my political views.”

If a candidate is running and the local area they are running in has a political demographic opposite of their own, they will often use this excuse. Why? Because being honest will hurt them. They know they’ll be judged for their political views, as they should, and they’ve got a race to win.

What’s a local voter to do? Stop relying on politicians to be honest about themselves, and do a little searching.

It is sometimes not easy as shown by the following steps to find the campaign financial reports for the city council candidates.

You can find the campaign finance reports by going to records.georgetown.org and then clicking on the link at the end of the first bullet point. This will take you to the Laserfiche web portal. Once there, please click on “Browse” in the top left blue box. Then click on “City Secretary” and then “City Council Finance and Election Documents” on the next page. Here you will see all the districts and the candidates.

For state offices the campaign finance reports can be found at Texas Ethics Commission.

By observing the donors one can deduce a candidate's political philosophy. You can be sure that when elected the candidate will be listening to their major donors and will act accordingly in their official capacity. So political beliefs are important when voting for any candidate.