I had a brief and cordial correspondence recently with Port Townsend City Councilman David Faber about the way commissioners are elected in Jefferson County. With the race for District 3 County Commissioner perched atop the local ballot, I asked him how he felt about a system in which people who do not reside in District 3 can determine who will represent the people who live there. 

 Mr. Faber replied (I’m paraphrasing here) that he was basically okay with that because the county commission represents all residents of the county. That’s his opinion and I absolutely defend his right to it, but the logic struck me as quizzical. It’s analogous to allowing the people of Jefferson County to elect a member of Congress in the 14th Congressional District of Ohio or to decide the US Senate race in Montana because, as the logic goes, Congress represents all residents of the United States. 

 The fact people from Port Townsend or anywhere else not in District 3 having the power to vote for a commissioner to represent the people of Brinnon, Quilcene, Port Ludlow and other far flung corners of District 3, amounts to disenfranchisement of the people who live in District 3.  

 Primary elections for county commissioner are decided by voters who actually live in a particular district, but the winner in November is determined in what boils down to an at-large election. It’s farcical for District 3 citizens to determine the primary, only to have their decision potentially overturned in the general election by voters who do not live in the district. 

 This is fake democracy. If you’re happy with the status quo, stop reading now. But if you believe the current system for electing commissioners is flawed, it’s time to start thinking about how to bring representative democracy to Jefferson County.

 It’s difficult to fathom the idea that citizens of 21st century America must labor to establish for themselves something called Home Rule. Requests for Home Rule are a relic of the colonial era, when peoples scattered across the continents, hardly any of whom were white, had to petition an emperor in London or Paris for the right of self-determination. Yet we in Jefferson County find ourselves in the position of drafting entreaties for the right to determine who will represent us within a governing body. 

 It begins with a petition for a Home Rule Charter, and the collection and submission of signatures of people who live in Jefferson County. Gathering the requisite number of signatures qualifies the issue to appear on the general election ballot. Voters are then asked whether they wish to proceed and elect a slate of fellow residents to deliberate and prepare a Home Rule Charter for the county. 

 If it sounds complicated, that’s because it is. It was tried in 2013 and the effort went down in flames with 70% of voters opposing the idea. It lost in every precinct in the county save Precinct 600, where 24 voters in Hoh supported Home Rule while 20 opposed it. 

 Would Jefferson County voters want to reconsider the issue? The process is onerous, labor intensive, time consuming and costly. It demands asking our neighbors to support liberty and restore the fundamental precepts of representative democracy. 

 No doubt the complexity of the matter turns off many voters. Even if a Home Rule Petition were approved, it would take years before we could properly enfranchise all the people of the county. Laden with so many steps over so long a period of time, the process of establishing Home Rule can easily cloud the larger idea: the idea of individual liberty, of the opportunity for people to determine their own destiny through the act of allowing people to vote for their own representative on the county commission. 

It’s easy to dismiss these arguments as overly dramatic but they are real and fundamental to the character of America.

 For whatever reason, Jefferson County voted five years ago to deny themselves the right to determine their own local representatives on the county commission. Has the time come to change how we elect our commissioners? The 2020 election cycle is not far away. It’s not easy, but nothing worth doing is ever is.