Texas Scorecard By Shelby Williams|February 8, 2020
For an example of grassroots muscle, you needn’t look any further than last year’s Plano municipal elections.Why does the grassroots matter? What does “grassroots†even mean? It means We the People—everyday Texans standing up to demand change in our local communities. And it has made all the difference in my city.
It’s no coincidence that “We the People†are the first words in the preamble to the Constitution. We are where power was meant to ultimately reside. Does this mean that those with money and connections wield no influence? Of course not; we deal in reality. But the Constitution gave us a playing field in which the grassroots have more power than in any other nation on earth.
But as the late Stan Lee immortalized with the Peter Parker Principle: “With great power comes great responsibility.â€
Do we use that power with great responsibility? Do we use it at all? I submit that increasingly over the last century, most Americans have abdicated their responsibility, and with it, their power. Most people don’t vote outside of presidential elections every four years.
Those who do often don’t know anything about most of the candidates for whom they pull the lever, even if they think they know about the party under which those candidates run. Some vote for entirely superficial reasons, such as who has better hair (I’m not kidding, this was actually overheard). And in Texas, fewer than 10 percent of registered voters typically vote in city, school board, and other local elections, despite these officials dictating our property tax bills!
More:
https://texasscorecard.com/commentary/commentary-we-took-back-our-texas-town-by-the-roots/
