Blawgletter's hometown newspaper, The Dallas Morning News, editorially warned on October 17 against straight-ticket voting because, it said, that "can be a dangerous thing; it might make you miss important issues."
The editors cited, in support of their opposition, the referendum on a $747 million bond issue for a new Parkland hospital, which provides essential health care to people who can't afford it.
Did the proposition pass on November 4? Only by an 82-18 percent margin, the same paper reported.
Now TDMN recommends doing away with straight-ticket voting altogether. Throughout the Lone Star State. And it cites the fact that, in the 2008 election, 64 percent of Dallas County voters chose the "lazy" way.
We wonder what manner of laziness prompted ballot-casters to approve, by a huge margin, the very proposition that TDMN feared would fail because of straight-party voting. We marvel even more that the newspaper would, post-election, propose ending a practice that failed, despite the editors' dire warnings, to defeat the one proposal that won a landslide victory.
Had TDMN railed against pulling the one-party lever years ago, when another party seemed ascendant, we might sympathize with its warning against voter laziness. But its post-election support of a Texas House of Representatives bill that would prohibit straight-party voting — in Dallas as well as state-wide — strikes us as, well, without principles.
