An Ohio sheriff is under fire for a social media post in which he said people with Kamala Harris yard signs should have their addresses recorded so that immigrants can be sent to live with them if Harris wins.
Likening people in the U.S. illegally to “human locusts,” Zuchowski wrote on a personal Facebook account and his campaign’s account: “When people ask me... What’s gonna happen if the Flip-Flopping, Laughing Hyena Wins?? I say ... write down all the addresses of the people who had her signs in their yards!” That way, Zuchowski continued, when migrants need places to live, “we’ll already have the addresses of their New families ... who supported their arrival!”
And this is why popular vote may not be a good way of choosing a sheriff. It produces some truly awful pick me candidates who are more interested in political power and grandstanding than serving their office.
Without a strong code of ethics backed up by the law people can get away with a lot of bullshit.
This guy should resign and if not then disbarred for his conduct. It boggles my mind that elected officials have no oversight. Instead he will probably face no repercussions for othering people and denigrating his office.
Honestly I would prefer it be an appointment but every election there should be a confidence vote where if at least 50% of people don't approve of them they get barred from office
I don't buy that whole trope about how the people that deserve power are the people that don't want it. That may be true for such a person at first, but if they're the sort of good person who can recognize policy failures and offer popular solutions, at a certain point it becomes them to fight against those policy failures. And if that person recognizes that public office is the best way to do it, wanting to run for office would be a perfectly natural desire.
You can't deny that powerful positions attract bad actors though. How we deal with that is probably more important than sweeping generalizations like the one I made.
I like it being an elected position, rather than the police or local government appointing someone. That way if someone is egregiously against the grain of their community the community can act.
However, like so many elected positions, there should be real minimum qualifications to get on the ballot, like a 4 year degree or equivalent experience in a related field, a neutral third party psych eval, etc.