When it comes to dealing with Gilroy voters, we’d like to see
forthrightness and honesty as the first policy from candidates
– and so-called nonpartisan voter registration groups.
When it comes to dealing with Gilroy voters, we’d like to see forthrightness and honesty as the first policy from candidates – and so-called nonpartisan voter registration groups.
There’s nothing wrong with Gilroy First! wanting to register voters for the upcoming City Council election. They have every right to register voters, and in fact, that’s a laudable goal.
Our problem is with the group’s initial efforts to hide its extensive ties to labor unions and cast itself as a nonpartisan organization. Gilroy First! would like Gilroyans to think of it as similar to the League of Women Voters, a group with no agenda other than to educate voters.
That’s simply not the case with Gilroy First!. Gilroy First! has extensive ties to the AFL-CIO through its Web site, its telephone contact information, its meeting locations, and because three of Gilroy First! members are union-endorsed candidates.
We have no problem with any group exercising its free speech rights, with any group encourage debate and discussion on important topics for Gilroy and South Valley, with any group encouraging more Gilroyans to register and vote. We’d say the same thing if the group in question was silently backed by the the National Rifle Association or Greenpeace.
But, like Planning Commissioner Russ Valiquette, who’s also a candidate for City Council, we don’t like the efforts the group has made to hide its union ties.
“I have no problem with the fact they have three members running. I have no problem if they have a partnership with the unions. My problem is with the deceptiveness of it,” Valiquette told reporter Eric Leins.
“(The union) is in the background as a silent partner for Gilroy First!. They have a slate of candidates. I don’t know how they can say they have separation there.”
What it all means for Gilroy voters it that it’s important to become sophisticated consumers of political information. Learning about the source of any political information and the money and manpower which provides that information – whether it comes from the John Birch Society or Gilroy First! or the National Federation of Independent Businesses – is important to successfully and accurately evaluating its veracity. Any group with an agenda will have a slant on the issues and candidates – which is fine – as long as they are open and above-board about it.
Failing that honesty and transparency, Gilroy voters have ample reason to take anything that comes out of Gilroy First! with several large grains of salt.
