The terms “partisan” and “non-partisan” are being thrown around a lot lately. Let’s talk about what it really means and other tactics that progressives use. The local government bodies are called non-partisan because, when an election is held, they do not have party affiliation listed on the ballot next to each candidate. Local governments save a lot of money this way because they don’t need to have a primary election.

Non-partisan doesn’t mean that the candidates don’t have a party or, as some like to imply the phrase means, that they are “neutral” and unbiased and always clearly in the center. This is actually not true of any candidate, as all have their principles and beliefs, and, in fact, that is what the voters are really voting on in a representative republic. The idea is that the candidates communicate what they believe and the principles that guide their political decisions, usually on some specific relevant issues, so that the voters can determine if they will handle their duties as they would like them to. It’s pretty important for it to work this way since you don’t usually know ahead of time what issues they will be voting on, so it lets you know what to expect.

What we usually see here locally are the conservatives, like myself, letting people know that they are standing on conservative principles like limited government, the protection of property rights, and keeping government from making mandates on issues where decisions should be made by the individuals, families or churches. The progressives, on the other hand, seem to use the term non-partisan to hide their principles, probably because they know that their agendas of constantly increasing taxes, frequently restricting property rights, and their love of government mandates don’t play well in a conservative area like ours.

Another example of deceptive phraseology is when someone says they support the tax cap. The tax cap is important because it prevents a spike in government growth in a particular year. It’s not designed to protect against the constant increase in taxation that we’ve seen in Fairbanks, where the records show the budget increasing more than the cost of living almost every year. You need to listen to all that the candidates say to really see what their plans are. If they only talk of all the good things we can have, without mentioning the cost, then watch out; a large tax increase is headed your way. Another way you can really see what people stand for is to look at their donor lists. By and large, conservatives get money from conservatives, and progressives get money from progressives.

Finally, the last bastion of the progressives is to lie. This is usually done by supporters instead of the candidates themselves. Just a few days ago a progressive extremist unleashed a set of lies upon the conservative candidates. His really big whopper is saying that Critical Race Theory isn’t being taught in Fairbanks schools. In relation to me, he accused me of scrubbing my Facebook page, which never happened. I do have privacy settings and have definitely blocked extremists like him as he has been obsessed with me on social media for many years now. I’ll answer his attacks on the conservative preacher in a letter to the editor after the election, as I really hate seeing others slandered.

One more point to think about, the other night at a forum the progressive candidates made it clear that they support the Borough making mandates about your medical decisions, one even insisting that it could use emergency powers to break all the laws against those mandates. That’s not how emergency powers work. Those powers only allow you to bypass some policies in areas that you have already been given powers; they don’t allow you to break constitutional edict, federal statute, state statute or the limited powers of our second class borough.

This year, most local races have two people with completely opposite principles on display. A small amount of research will reveal which candidates care about people (and their businesses) and their God-given rights, and which want government to grow larger and make more decisions for you. In case you have trouble finding enough out there on the candidates, I will list out the conservatives for you in the competitive races: Borough mayor: Bryce Ward or Chris Ludtke; Borough Assembly: Lance Roberts, Patricia Silva and Kevin McKinley; school board: Jeff Rentzel and Andrew Graham; Fairbanks City Council: Jerry Cleworth and Jonathan Bagwill.

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