Politics

Ferguson Voters Go to Polls to Elect 3 City Council Members

Published

9 years ago

April 7, 2015

In this photo made in March 2015, Ferguson Ward 1 city council candidate Ella Jones poses for a portrait in Ferguson, Mo. The city is preparing for an election on Tuesday when three of six city council seats will be decided. (AP Photo/St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Christian Gooden)

JIM SALTER, Associated Press
JIM SUHR, Associated Press

FERGUSON, Mo. (AP) — The next Ferguson City Council will face the daunting task of remaking much of the beleaguered town’s leadership, a process that will begin soon after Tuesday’s municipal election.

Three of the six council seats are up for grabs in the St. Louis County town where 18-year-old Michael Brown, who was black, was fatally shot by a white Ferguson police officer in August. Officer Darren Wilson was cleared of wrongdoing by a grand jury and the Justice Department, but a separate DOJ report blasted Ferguson for racial bias and profiling in the police department and a profit-driven municipal court system.

Fallout from that report led to the resignation of the city manager, police chief, municipal judge and two police officers. The municipal court clerk was fired for racist emails.

The new city council will be tasked with approving hiring of the replacements.

The scrutiny of Ferguson after the shooting found that the town of 21,000 residents has a mostly white police force and city leadership — the mayor and five of the six council members are white — even though blacks make up about two-thirds of residents.

After Tuesday, the council will add at least one, and maybe two black members.

The lone current black councilman, Dwayne James, is not up for re-election. The 3rd Ward race involves two black men, Lee Smith, 76, and Wesley Bell, 40, guaranteeing that an additional black resident will join the council. That ward includes the Canfield Green apartment complex where Brown was killed.

The 1st Ward features four candidates, two black and two white. The 2nd Ward race involves two white men.

Ferguson is not unique in drawing low turnout for municipal elections. Turnout last April was 12.3 percent, said Eric Fey, director of elections for St. Louis County.

A strong push was made after the shooting to register more black voters, but Fey said just 562 new voters were added to the rolls. In recent weeks, the focus has been on getting those who are registered to vote.

U.S. Rep. William Lacy Clay, a St. Louis Democrat, was among those going door-to-door over the weekend, encouraging people to vote.

The election is being watched by international media and is drawing get-out-the-vote volunteers involved with several national organizations, including labor unions, groups such as the Organization for Black Struggle, and Working Families Party, a leading voice of the left that helped elect New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio last year.

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COMMENTARY: President Biden, The Constitution and Race

The Democratic Party needs to pause and reflect on the real issue, which is race and not an aging President. Once again, we see the Kool-Aid of division being swallowed, not by the MAGA Right, but by Democrats who know better and openly profess a love for democracy and the Constitution of the United States. So, the question is how can one love the Constitution and at the same time only obey those sections that agree with our way of thinking?

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July 19, 2024

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Dr. John E. Warren contends that it is the race of Biden’s successor, Kamal Harris, that is the real issue underneath the fearmongering about the president’s age. Courtesy photo.

By Dr. John E. Warren, Publisher
The San Diego Voice & Viewpoint Newspaper

The Democratic Party needs to pause and reflect on the real issue, which is race and not an aging President.

Once again, we see the Kool-Aid of division being swallowed, not by the MAGA Right, but by Democrats who know better and openly profess a love for democracy and the Constitution of the United States. So, the question is how can one love the Constitution and at the same time only obey those sections that agree with our way of thinking?

When President Biden wins re-election, his age or any other issue will only become a problem when there are signs he is unable to fulfill the duties of the Office. The 25th Amendment to the Constitution handles the succession process setting out how the Vice President assumes the Office of the Presidency and how the Office of the Vice Presidency is to be filled. The elephant in the room is Vice President Kamala Harris, who happens to not only be a woman, but also Black.

This is the same Black woman who was Attorney General of the largest state in the Union. She was an elected U.S. Senator from that same state which had given us the U.S. Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren and President Ronald Reagan.

She has been elected by the Democratic Party’s primary process which made Joe Biden the presidential candidate, and Harris the vice-presidential candidate.

So, is the real issue the age of a man who, in the last four years, rescued this nation from the brink of destruction?

Is it the Democrats opposing the President staying in the race who may have Alzheimer’s and memory loss, rather than the President who remembers what he has done and how he rescued a struggling nation?

Is it the Democrats complaining about the President and know that Trump has a better chance at winning against a last-minute replacement than running against a President who has already beaten him before? In knowing all these facts, especially the presence of the 25th Amendment, the only card left in the deck is race.

It appears that some White Liberal Democrats just don’t want a Black woman in the orbit of really becoming President and they would rather disgrace and destroy a good man because of a bad debate than take a chance on a Black woman running the White House.

Let’s not get it twisted. It was a Black Congressman from South Carolina, James Clyburn, who motivated Black America to vote for Joe Biden when it appeared that he was out of the race for the presidency.

It is the Black Vote that put him in office and it is the Black Vote of the Congressional Black Caucus who, in this race for the White House, is standing in unity with the Democratic leadership of the House of Representatives in a Republican-controlled Congress against whimpering calls from a few democrats for the President to “step aside.”

Once again, the clarion call is to stand with the Constitution and not be like the Supreme Court who is now stomping upon all that it stands for in an effort to protect and insulate the convicted felon that we, the people, would keep out of the White House.

A move to oust President Biden would surely guarantee an election victory for Trump.