Thursday, January 19, 2012

Dealing with COWs

As the city elections approach I again get asked one question from folks that I meet. And that is: “What can I do about a council member who has voted for items that I don’t agree with or have hurt me but they are from another ward?”


OK, the answer is really very easy. Council members are elected by the voters in specific wards. When they sit on the council at meetings they are actually acting for the entire city and as such can be held accountable by ANY citizen. Let’s call these folks COWs (councilmembers from other wards).

Now if a COW votes for something that you don’t approve of or a variety of such items, what you can do is make contributions to their opponents the next time they run for office. You don’t have to live in that ward to contribute to the opponent of a councilmember. You can even live in Los Angeles. The only thing you need to do is to keep the contribution amounts within the limits set by law.

So if you are unhappy with how a COW voted, just look up who their opponent is and contribute to that person’s campaign.