Dade’s Local Party Committees From Two Perspectives

By LYDIA BERGLAR
News Editor

Although politics is an ever-present topic in both the media and daily conversations, the Dade County Republican GOP and Dade County Democratic Committee have difficulty growing involvement in the parties, recruiting younger generations, and battling low voter turnout. The Sentinel sat down with a representative from each party to learn more.

Lynn Hartman, currently the treasurer for the local GOP, first got involved with the Republican Party in the late 1970s. Over the decades, she’s been chairman, secretary, and vice chairman, and has served on several district and state committees.

Karen Johnson, currently the first vice chair for the local Democratic Committee, and her husband, David, first got involved at the local political level after moving to Dade in 2019. She recognizes the impact local politics can have on our daily lives, so that is her primary focus.

Hartman explained that a key purpose of the local GOP is to sponsor candidates. “We want to give them a base. We’ve got a strong organization here, and we attract quality people. We have them tell us their positions on issues, what they’ve accomplished, and about their backgrounds. For the most part, they’re real thoughtful people who know why they want to run and what they have to offer.”

The group’s other main objective is encouraging voter turnout and keeping voters informed. This is done through phone-a-thons, email campaigns, and advertising. Hartman explained that they pinpoint registered voters who didn’t vote in the most recent election and target this group.

Hartman believes that churches hold large amounts of this demographic. “I’ve always felt that there are people sitting in churches who haven’t been voting. 60-70 percent of United States registered voters are Christians, but sometimes as much as 30 percent will sit out an election if they’re not gung-ho about a candidate. We may not be gung-ho about a national candidate, but we’ve got to weigh the issues and see who is best representing our values.”

Indeed, according to the Pew Research Center in 2020, “Christians account for the majority of registered voters in the U.S. (64 percent). But this figure is down from 79 percent as recently as 2008.” According to My Faith Votes, 15 million Christians are not registered to vote.

Hartman prefers to help people become educated rather than telling them who they should vote for. “Friends will ask me who they should vote for. I say, ‘I’m not going to tell you who, but I will tell you that if you like what we’ve had or what’s going on right now, this is what I would do.’”

The local GOP also holds monthly meetings and sets up meet and greet/speaking events for candidates and elected officials. They have a presence at events like the 1945 Fair and have helped with community fundraisers (including aiding the American Legion’s military museum and giving Dade County Sheriff’s Office deputies gift cards to take their families out to eat).

Johnson explained that the Democratic Committee operates similarly to the GOP. The committee meets quarterly to handle typical meeting matters and discuss current topics of interest. They also set up meet and greet/speaking events with candidates and elected officials.

The committee chair, Tom McMahan, sends email newsletters out about political topics, and the committee posts on social media. They also host social events so that anyone can learn more in a relaxed environment. In fact, the Johnsons’ first involvement with the committee was attending one of the social events held at Cloudland Canyon.

Johnson has followed political issues for most of her adult life, but she hadn’t been involved in a local committee until moving to Dade. In this May’s primary, she volunteered as a poll watcher, and David was a poll worker.

She said, “Nationally, there’s such tension over the accuracy of the vote and the count. If you’re there, you can see firsthand what’s going on. I’m very confident in our elections. The people here in the community who are volunteering or working, they’re very accurate, honest people.”

Of the importance of local politics, she explained, “The president, of course, decides the direction at the national level, and some of that does filter down to the state levels, but here in Dade, for example, we had the vote for the liquor stores and Sunday alcohol sales and Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax. Those are the things that really impact us. They’re the things we see every day.”

Therefore, she believes it is important to vote in the many non-presidential elections and stresses the importance of ballot questions in primary elections. “That’s how the political parties learn about the community and what it is that’s important to voters. Polls are run by the media or national parties and only reach small populations, and you don’t know who’s really answering them. But ballot questions at the local level, you know it’s the community answering.”

One of Johnson’s key bits of advice for voters is about incumbents. “Rather than looking at all of the incumbents’ campaign promises, I’ll go back and look at their voting records to see if they’re in alignment with their campaign promises.”

She also recommends calling state representatives to voice your opinion and ask questions. “You can call and say, ‘You campaigned on this issue, you said you supported it, but when the bill came up, you voted against it. I’d like to understand why.’”

Hartman, too, recommended calling state and federal representatives. “When I’ve called, they’ve told me, ‘It’s good that you called, because one person speaking up may represent 100 people in my district.’”

During Ronald Reagan’s presidential campaign, Hartman took part in Dade GOP’s beginning. She recalled, “It was really a grassroots movement. People were so outraged with Jimmy Carter’s high interest rates and his inability to rescue hostages in Iran. It’s very similar to what we’re experiencing today. It turned people on to getting involved.”

As she dove deeper into the inner workings of politics, Hartman became convinced that if people had accurate information, they would be stirred to action. She said, “This is a conservative area, so I really felt like if we could get people aware of the issues and the importance of our voter turnout, then we could make a difference.”

In the late 70s, Hartman learned that the Equal Rights Amendment (a nice sounding name) didn’t align with her beliefs. She learned this by reading what was in the amendment. She said, “This amendment had nothing to do with equal rights. It hurt women. It didn’t help them.”

She called her state representative and asked to attend a committee meeting in Atlanta because of her concerns about this amendment, but he told her that she didn’t need to come because nothing important would happen. Not to be deterred, Hartman went anyway and brought two other women with her.

She not only found a major media presence and the National Organization of Women at the meeting, but also, in her words, “They were talking about rewriting laws in Georgia. I began to smell something there, so I started going down to a lot of state representative meetings in the early 80s and saw that we had such poor representation.”

Decades later, Hartman has witnessed things come to pass that she and others involved with the Republican Party warned people about, and sadly, she learned that voter turnout is always a struggle. She said, “You couldn’t convince people of what you had learned. For instance, people thought no one would be teaching something in the schools that would hurt our children. Well, schoolbooks were written with things about abortion. and it’s much worse now with gender identity.”

Of this year’s May primary, (which saw only a 24.65 percent voter turnout in Dade), Hartman said, “The quality of the candidates who ran for these commission and school board seats was outstanding. They were prepared for the debate, each had good reasons to run, and they were qualified. It was hard to make a choice, really.”

Johnson and Hartman may have differing views, but both believe in the importance of gaining a basic understanding of issues and exercising the right to vote. In Hartman’s words, “If you don’t vote, you may be giving up a right that somebody died for you to have.”

Speaking of differing views, Johnson dislikes the division between Republicans and Democrats, saying, “That’s the thing about the national level: It’s turned everything into an ‘us versus them,’ but it’s really a ‘we’ situation. We all want our community to be a thriving place for everybody.”

Key issues for her are the tax code system, climate change, and abortion. She thinks the tax burden in America is regressive rather than progressive, and of climate change, she said, “The democrat platform does address climate change. It’s not a perfect thing, but it does address it.”

She is pro-choice, explaining that while she personally would not choose abortion, she supports people who choose abortion and believes they have the right to do so.

For Hartman, inflation, immigration, human trafficking, and threats to national security (namely from China) are just some of the issues she is concerned about. She added that healthcare costs and the uncertain future of Social Security are major concerns for the elderly.

Another key issue is the way Washington uses taxpayer funds, like funding the war in Ukraine over our own military. Hartman said, “We could use that money to pay our soldiers more. They get so little.” Another example is funding groups like Planned Parenthood. “That’s our money going to something that we possibly do not support. These groups have access to our money that we have no control over unless we have senators and representatives to vote no.”

She further explained, “I’m strictly for government taking care of government, not social issues. This ties into welfare, paying people more money if they have more children, and eradicating and depopulating. They’re not saying, ‘If you want to have this baby, we’ll help you.’ It’s just about getting rid of something. Personally, I just don’t think we should be funding these kinds of groups that we don’t agree with.”

Both women noted the difficulty of recruiting young people to the local committees. Johnson said, “For the most part, we’re all middle-aged or older adults. We would love to see younger people become involved. This is their future, but just like when I was younger, they have a lot of competing responsibilities: families, jobs, a home life.”

Both women invited anyone who is interested in political issues to visit a meeting, social event, or candidate meet and greet, with no obligation to the party. Johnson said, “You don’t have to go big or go home.”

They also recommend reading about issues, even if for only ten minutes a day or an hour a week. Hartman said, “Read. If you’re concerned about the issues I talked about, see which candidate says they’ll do something about it. If you don’t like what’s happening now, go to the other.” Johnson added, “You can always just read your local newspaper and see what’s going on in your community.”

Johnson noted that campaign platforms are easily accessible online, and the Dade County government page is a wealth of local information. Another source she recommends is the bi-partisan organization CommonSense American. This group coordinates conversations between people from all political viewpoints, from far-left to far-right, and then sends a brief of these opinions to the U.S. Congress. Johnson said, “It’s a way to share your opinion constructively and make a difference.”