Small town politics

A town in Arizona recently faced a very difficult conundrum: with only a few days before the first city council meeting, the maybe-heated election for the final council seat resulted in a tie. Oh I know, it’s thrilling, but try to contain your excitement. What is a community to do? Hold another election? Consult the State Supreme court? Aw, fuck it, let’s draw cards.

With the final Town Council seat in the small town of Cave Creek on the line, two candidates who tied with 660 votes apiece in a May runoff cut a deck of cards to decide the race. The winner was 25-year-old Adam Trenk, whose king of hearts beat out former Councilman Thomas McGuire's six of hearts. An obscure Arizona law dating to 1925 says that election ties should be broken 'by lot.' While a first for Cave Creek and relatively rare, such events do happen from time to time in Arizona. Last year, two local school-board candidates rolled dice to decide a winner. In 1992, a game of poker resolved a stalemate in the primary for a state Legislative seat. 'It was pure Cave Creek,' longtime Mayor Vincent Francia said of the tie, and the decision to draw cards to settle the dispute. 'Since we couldn't do a paintball showdown, we did something that is traditionally associated with the West, which is a card deck.' [source:Metro.co.uk]

I’m sorry, I have to ask you to re-read that “pure Cave Creek” quote one more time. Aaaahhh the south-western United States, one of the few places in the world where one’s own ignorance is a source of unbridled pride. In the end, this is one of those who-gives-a-shit moments that could have easily been settled privately, with dignity. But fuck that. Dignity is for pussies, and pussies can’t be on the city council. If you look at it that way, the rest of the world can go ahead and laugh at us. Cause they’re probably all pussies. [For more on the topic of obscure laws, visit http://www.dumblaws.com/].