Ironically, though, having a “contested” city council race in the general election may have done more for Panella and the other statewide judicial candidates than if Ms. Tonya simply supported Lavelle. In the eyes of many voters, there was no reason to come to the polls. One can assume that Payne’s voters were overwhelmingly Democratic, so if they bothered to vote in the other races, the Democratic nominees benefited.

I actually don’t believe that any disciplinary measures should be in place, but I do think that the double-standard needs to end. Committee members are only expected to support certain endorsed candidates and certain nominated Democrats.

What is the point of the county democratic committee even existing at all if there’s no expectation of nominated Democrats receiving their support?

It’s time to scrap the antiquated endorsement process altogether and go to having open primaries. Have the Democratic committee focus on actually organizing in their neighborhoods so that we can turn out more than the obscenely low number of voters that we are getting now.

If the chair of the Democratic city committee was focusing on turning out Democrats, rather than waging a write-in campaign, then maybe we would not be looking at swearing in Joan Orie Melvin, Judy Olson, Sallie Mundy, Paula Ott, Patricia McCullough, and Kevin Brobson to our state courts.

The State Comm by-laws are a different story, but one would still have to prove that Ms. Tonya herself was behind the flyers and emails, not just some misguided supporters acting on their own.
The facebook page seems a little more problematic.