‘A huge shift.’ Election could bring historic diversity to Jackson County government
The nine-member Jackson County Legislature is likely to become more diverse than it has ever been after Tuesday’s primary election.
Two-thirds of the legislature’s members seated at the start of 2023 could be people of color, if historical voting patterns hold in the fall general election. This in a county where only one-third of the population is non-white.
Five candidates who advanced Tuesday are Black and one is Hispanic. Black and Hispanic legislators have never previously commanded a majority in the legislature. Seven of the current members of the legislature are white, and two are Black.
“It’s historic,” incumbent 1s District At-Large legislator Jalen Anderson said Wednesday. “A huge shift.”
Anderson is a Democrat seeking re-election and one of two Black members of the current legislature. Jackson County has not elected anyone but a Democrat to an at-large position in more than a century.
Anderson could be joined by Donna Peyton and Megan Marshall, who won their Democratic primaries for the District 2 and District 3 at-large seats. They are both Black and if they beat their Republican challengers, they would replace Crystal Williams and Tony Miller next year.
Williams retired her seat and Miller lost to Marshall by a wide margin.
Two others Black candidates, Venessa Huskey and DaRon McGee, won their Democratic primaries for the 2nd and 4th districts, respectively, and face no opposition on the fall ballot.
They fill seats vacated by legislators who chose to retire this year
Then there’s the 1st District seat, which did not have an incumbent running for the first time since 1998. Manny Abarca won that Democratic primary and would be only the fourth Latino on the legislature, he said, since the current form of government was established in 1973 to replace the old county court system.
That assumes, of course, that he beats his Republican opponent in the fall for a seat that has always been held by Democrats.
County Executive Frank White, who in 2016 was the first Black person elected to that job, issued a statement Wednesday celebrating the possible changes within the legislature.
“Last night, the voters sent a clear message that it’s important the officials elected to represent them should reflect the communities they serve,” he said. “Having people of all backgrounds and experiences on the Legislature will allow the county to continue to meet the needs of residents in new, innovative ways. I look forward to the opportunity to work with them and remain committed to building a better and more equitable community.”
White is running for re-election against Republican Theresa Galvin, who is on the legislature now.
In addition to the diversity the new crop of legislators could bring is, according to Abarca, a common belief that county government needs more transparency.
“A lot of change is going to come to the county,” Abarca said. “If it (county government) was a building, I would dig it all up and start at the foundation because, realistically, it truly is foundational issues (that need to be addressed).”
Abarca and some of the other newcomers complained during the campaign about the legislature’s reputation for lacking openness in how decisions are reached. There’s more transparency now than in the past, when legislative meetings might take less than a half hour and almost no public discussion took place prior to votes being cast even on major issues.
But there’s still a ways to go, Abarca said.
However, it’s too early know if the legislature will change how it operates simply because of a shakeup in membership, notes Williams, who is finishing up the last of her three four-year terms.
Williams was often frustrated when her male colleagues left her out of those backroom discussions, but she said the new legislature should also bear watching.
The Black and Hispanic Democrats who won their primaries all were endorsed by Freedom Inc., the 60-year-old Black political club. While Williams welcomes the increased diversity, she worries that Freedom might use its success at the polls to influence decisions at the courthouse more than it already does.
“The woman who won my seat, I endorsed her, and she did get Freedom and a bunch of other support,” Williams said, “but Donna Peyton is very much her own person. I would not have endorsed her otherwise.”
Will others fit that mold? Williams and others say they have already heard rumbling that the political club is jockeying to influence who will be the chair and vice chair of the new legislature five months from now.
“My biggest fear right now is that after years of pulling this legislature out of the patronage game, I think Freedom thinks they’re gonna drag it back in,” Williams said.
But Freedom Inc. president Rodney Bland said those concerns are overblown. He said he has not heard of any campaign to install Freedom-endorsed candidates in leadership roles on the legislature. And he said Freedom has no set agenda it wants carried out.
“All we are interested in is good government, constituent services being met, the budgetary needs of the county being met, and procurement programs and services being met across the county,” he said. “These independent folks who ran and won their offices in a primary are going to carry out their duties as a county legislator for the county or district post they represent, independent of anything we say or do.”
This story was originally published August 5, 2022 at 11:23 AM.
