Comments on: Cecil Charter Board Reverses Course, Votes for At-Large Council

By: Watchdog

Watchdog — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 14:49:54 +0000

If democrats were smart they’d work their behinds off to encourage major turnout in those districts and then control the majority of the seats.
That being said, I feel Mr Hodge may sing a different tune.

By: ceciltimes

ceciltimes — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 11:42:59 +0000

Watchdog,
Yes, the quote is accurate. Far be it from us to attempt to read Mr. Hodge’s mind.

A few minutes before his remark and comments on Cecil County election patterns, he discussed by-district voting in Harford County, which he claimed went from at-large to by-district voting because Democrats wanted to carve out two districts for their candidates in the mostly Republican county. (Although if Harford is so staunchly Republican, we’re not sure how the Democrats would get such clout to be able to win countywide approval of a representation change that would carve out two districts for Democrats.)

Hodge’s assertion that the 1st, 2nd and 4th Commissioner districts would go to Democrats is not borne out by the last election results, as you point out. So turning that logic around would mean that the at-large system of electing Commissioners has worked well for Republicans who now control a majority of the Board.

So perhaps what he really meant was don’t mess with a good thing, at least from his perspective.

By: Watchdog

Watchdog — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 15:13:15 +0000

Is this a misquote from Commissioner Hodge, or is he making a statement that says it’d be bad if people from a specific party, democrats, were elected to fill certain seats.
Last I checked local elections were decided on issues. In the last election for commissioners, 2 republicans won, but by widely different margins. Clearly we don’t have ticket voters on local races in Cecil.

I don’t want to call out hodge, not knowing what he actually said, but the following verbiage doesn’t look good:

–He said that the current 1st, 2nd and 4th Commissioner districts are largely Democratic in registration and would probably support Democrats. “That’s bad,” Hodge said.