Should Scarsdale's CNC Deliberations Be Confidential?

Below find a letter from Scarsdale resident Harry Reynolds concerning Scarsdale's Non-Partisan Resolution: In accordance with the provisions of the Resolution of the Non-Partisan Party, I have formally objected to the proposed amendment in November, 2011 of the Non-Partisan Resolution insofar as it provides for secrecy in new Section 7 of Article V:

“Section 7. CONFIDENTIALITY POLICY. Each member of the Citizens Nominating Committee shall observe strict confidentiality at all times, whether during or after the deliberations of the Citizens Nominating Committee, as to the identities of persons seeking positions before, sources of information provided to and discussions, determinations, decisions and votes of, the Citizens Nominating Committee.”

Scarsdale’s Non-Partisan System, as regulated by the proposed amended Non-Partisan Resolution, keeps secret the identities of persons seeking the system’s nominations to electoral office. It bars voters from learning the identities of persons seeking nominations and facts concerning their qualifications. It also keeps secret what those applicants said, or failed to say, when they appeared before the nominating committee, and what members of the committee said to them.

The system’s curious argument for keeping secret the identities of applicants is that applicants would be lower in number if they foresaw their embarrassment upon the public learning that they had not been selected. There is no electoral system in the free world that advances that laughable, mindboggling argument. Are these applicants adult women and men or fretful little boys running around in knickers and little girls in frocks of silk? The public should know the identities of the applicants who were rejected in order to determine the integrity and electoral judgment of the nominating committee. Why should that knowledge be denied the public? The system's pressing for that secrecy is evidence that it regards itself as less a political party than a shuttered, closed-end social club with a village, ignorant as they are of the Non-Partisan system, looking on as spectators who move their lips as they read.

A claim for secrecy must be supported not by bizarre reasoning but by a supervening cause consistent with, and in support of, the public good. If the rule were otherwise, we would risk living in a society governed by secrecy laws. Incredibly, the secrecy given to nurse the anxieties of a very small number of applicants denies all voters of the knowledge of the identities of all persons who are seeking the power to govern them, surely an irrational inversion of electoral values in a democracy.

Further, there is no rational justification for keeping secret the statements made by applicants before the nominating committee and the statements of committee members made to the applicants. The only place on earth in which that justification could be made with a straight face is in a poorly lit asylum late at night. Do you seriously tell Scarsdale’s voters that they should not be told what an applicant knows, thinks, believes, plans, or desires concerning the public office he seeks? Do you tell the public that they should not know how honestly and diligently the nominating committee applies itself in questioning applicants?

If we have been taught anything about government, it is that secrecy is the refuge of the hypocrite and the curse of the persecuted. In the 1930’s, 1940’s, and 1950’s, the secrecy in the conduct of the then essentially Protestant Non-Partisan system was used successfully to keep Jews out of Scarsdale’s public offices. (See, O’Connor, Carol A., A Sort of Utopia, Scarsdale, 1891-1981, pp. 98-100) Would you be surprised if anti-Semitism or some other group hatred returned again to the Non-Partisan system through its rear door of secrecy? Are you aware that the secrecy that the Non-Partisan system desires will enable it to conceal the system’s incompetence, prejudice, ignorance, or corruption, should it be present but hidden? Why should you ask the public to give you that secrecy? What is it that so attracts secrecy to a Non-Partisan system that was created in reaction to the deceits of organized political parties?

Harry Reynolds
Bradley Road