Stay in Your Lanes, Candidates

It's campaign season. If you are a regular reader of The Wheel you know that I don't like political parties getting involved in nonpartisan local elections. I also don't like campaigns mixing up city politics with school politics. Stay in your lanes, candidates.

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Thankfully, I'm not here today to point out any instances of political parties or PACs associated with parties getting involved in local nonpartisan politics. If it's happening, they are keeping it low key. To individuals, I say knock yourself out. Endorse candidates, display yard signs, knock on doors. Just do it as individuals, not as Democrats or Republicans.

As for my second rule of local politics, I don't like city council members (or candidates) injecting city politics into school elections or vice versa. I've covered this issue before, way back in 2014, when Richardson Mayor Laura Maczka found herself in some hot water for recording a robo-call endorsing one candidate in the Richardson ISD school board race.

Unfortunately, there's a similar violation of that unwritten rule in this year's race. Dan Barrios is a candidate for Richardson City Council. In my opinion, he should stay the hell out of the Richardson ISD school board election. He should not be hosting a campaign kickoff event for Debbie Renteria, a candidate for RISD Board of Trustees. And Debbie Renteria should have found someone else to host her event. She should keep City of Richardson politics at arm's length from her RISD political campaigns.

Note that I'm not claiming there's anything illegal going on here, or even anything unethical. It's just that local government works only if it's kept local — that means city and school government kept separate from each other and both independent from state and federal politics. The "I" in ISD means independent for a reason and should be protected vigorously. The tradition of keeping local elections nonpartisan and keeping city and school politics separate from each other has served our community well. Let's keep it that way.

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Update February 20, 2023: Dan Barrios not only inserted himself into the RISD elections, violating one of my informal rules for campaigning for local office, he's now holding a fundraiser with a Democratic organization, violating another of my informal rules that's even more important: keep party politics out of local non-partisan elections.

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Update February 21, 2023: Correction: Dan Barrios is NOT having a fundraiser with a Democratic organization nor is a Democratic organization hosting one. Zachary Bullard used the Stonewall Democrats of Dallas Facebook page to invite the Stonewall Democrats to a Barrios fundraiser in the Dallas Design District. I regret the misleading language.