When Progressive Local Government Goes Unheard: Montgomery County, PA
The Reason We Should Look to County and Local Elections
The Progressive Teen Contributing Writer
This article is part of a series from The Progressive Teen highlighting local government elections ahead of the November 2019 elections. In this article, contributing writer Angelo DePeppe focuses on some of the county level elections in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, a rapidly changing area in the suburbs of Philadelphia.
Last year, Democrats retook the House of Representatives for the first time in 12 years. This “blue wave” was mostly fueled by suburban districts that had swung towards Hillary Clinton in 2016. The demographic shift of college-educated white voters, especially women, away from the Republican Party, and Donald Trump, has been a boon for Democrats in these districts, some of which were once solidly Republican. Orange County, California, was the heart of American conservatism in the days of Nixon and Reagan, but after 2018, Democrats now hold all seven of its congressional districts. Another such county, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, in the suburbs of Philadelphia, was solidly Republican as recently as 1990, but in 2016 it was one of the few counties in Pennsylvania to swing towards Clinton, and in 2018, after court-ordered redistricting, Montgomery County Democrat Madeleine Dean and nearby Delaware County Democrat Mary Gay Scanlon were elected to two previously Republican-held seats in the House. In spite of this encouraging change, little attention is paid to the same kinds of progress being made on the local level. But Montgomery County has for years been making impressive strides towards progressive goals, even if they go unsung.
Montgomery County Commissioners Valerie Arkoosh and Ken Lawrence are not only the first woman and the first African American, respectively, to hold their positions, but they have also built an impressive list of achievements for a pair of local officials most people may not recognize if they passed them on the street. Board of Commissioners Chair Arkoosh is a physician in addition to a public servant, and as such she has made healthcare a policy priority, having served as the president of the National Physicians Alliance, a medical organization that advocated for affordable healthcare for all, according to its mission statement. During her time as chair beginning in 2016, Montgomery County has seen a decline in opioid-related deaths, turning the tide in what may be currently the greatest public health threat in the United States. The commissioners have also made major advances in the area of environmental conservation and protection, preserving farms and improving river trails, while moving county buildings to 100% renewable power in a major step towards sustainability. While achievements like this may seem small when compared with the scale of a problem like climate change, they are a step in the right direction, especially when we consider that the federal government is currently moving in the opposite direction on this issue.
The county commissioners are not the only local officials who have succeeded in bringing about progressive change. Sean Kilkenny became the first Democrat to ever be elected Montgomery County Sheriff in 2015. An Army veteran as well as a lawyer, Kilkenny has nearly doubled the number of women and people of color hired by his office, and his office was the first in the state to implement body cameras for all officers. Another Montgomery County row officer, Register of Wills D. Bruce Hanes, stirred up controversy when, in 2013, he began issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, helping to fuel the movement to legalize gay marriage in Pennsylvania. Two years later, gay marriage became legal nationwide, but Montgomery County had been ahead of the game.
These local officials, and the thousands of others across the country, often receive little recognition or media coverage. But the changes that they make on the county level are important steps in the creation of meaningful change on a larger scale, and can help build momentum by showing that change is not just possible, but effective, and popular. Louis Brandeis, in a dissent in which he defended the rights of legislatures to regulate economic practices, argued that states may serves as laboratories for “novel social and economic experiments.” This power lies also with our local government. If a county can prove that 100% renewable power usage is plausible, or that legalizing same-sex marriage is politically feasible, then that can only strengthen these causes on a larger scale.
The results of the Montgomery county elections this November will likely receive little coverage or notability. With the eyes of the voters trained on the Democratic primaries and a possible impeachment, local politics have never been further from our focus. But we shouldn’t forget about our county commissioners, our sheriffs, or our registers of wills. Sometimes they are the ones who can make the changes that our government need the most.
