At the end of last week, David Landau made another installment in the “Case Against the Courthouse.” This time the department in the spotlight was Data Processing, where 36 out 36 employees are registered Republican. Sounds strange doesn’t it? This is an area where experience would seem paramount in employment decisions. But you have to remember that Data Processing is the department that was run by John McNichol, the GOP boss from Upper Darby, until very recently.

This brings the percentage of Delaware County employees who are registered Republicans in the departments investigated by Landau’s campaign to a whopping 98%, or 250 out of 255.

There is still a slight Republican registration advantage County-wide. And because the Council is exclusively Republican, it’s not a surprise that department heads are Republican.

Certainly one shouldn’t pretend, as Republican Council Chair Andy Reilly does, that party isn’t an absolute factor in employment in Delco. Ask any rank-and-file county employee, even a committed conservative, off the record.

But one has to ask why it is so essential that every clerk and secretary subscribe to a political orthodoxy.

This is a really critical issue to correct now. The demographic shift in Delaware County continues. Within a short period of time, the GOP machine’s dominance will be permanently dissolved. We will enter an era where the two major parties are on roughly equal footing, so that political control will shift back and forth based on the performance of elected officials and the mood of the electorate.

At that point, we need to have in place a stable class of competent public servants. We can’t have a mass exodus every time control of the Council switches. The good employees who are in place should stay, and deserve to be recognized for their performance, not their esteem in the eyes of political bosses. They are essential to the continuity of government–Democrats, Republicans, and all others alike.