With only a few weeks left in the campaign, Delaware County Council candidate David Landau has already delivered five installments in his “Case Against the Courthouse.”

In a nutshell, what Landau has been explaining to voters is that their invisible County government is nothing but a pure patronage mill. It’s not just that elected officials are under the thumb of party bosses–the partisan lockout extends to almost every job at every level of our local government. Almost everybody who works at the courthouse is a registered Republican, and many are donors and party activists.  There is no civil service class in Delaware County. You want a job? Pay homage to the bosses, big and small.

My whole reason to get involved in local politics has been to participate in the struggle to break the machine. I’ve been grateful and proud that David has been so steadfast and effective in highlighting the extent of the problem with Delco government. Methodically, his case has marched through offices that should be run in an open, non-partisan way, but aren’t. The controller’s office, sheriff’s office, election bureau, voter registration, tax claims, tax assessment–the list goes on and on.

All are open to abuses of power by unchecked partisan control.

Some Republicans are taking offense to Landau’s use of the term “corruption.” And to be honest, that’s a term I feel a little uncomfortable in tossing around. I have no personal direct evidence of wrongdoing by any particular member of County government. It’s a broad brush to use, and I don’t like to use words with criminal implications to describe things I cannot prove.

But here’s what I will say:

The Republican-only Delco government is broken.
The GOP Delco machine is coercive.
The all-Republican Delco government is inefficient.
One-party rule in Delco lacks sufficient checks against abuses of power and revenue.

And that should be bad enough in any functioning democracy.