The Problem with City Rep Holguin's Philosophy

I usually agree with City Rep Eddie Holguin, and I probably hold him to a higher standard than the other city reps because he represents the barrio.

Yes, I know, Rep O'rourke and Rep Acosta have barrios in their districts, but Holguin's district is basically entirely barrio.

If you don't understand why that's important to me, there's no way I can explain it to you, so go ahead and stop reading now.

But Rep Holguin is wrong this time...dead wrong. He was wrong for flip-flopping.

I give him credit for standing up and engaging in a debate over his flip-flop, but no matter how you slice it, Rep Holguin flip-flopped like a fish in a boat.

One week he's going to propose the reversal of the controversial city ordinance that took away health benefits from domestic partners and retirees, the next week he's echoing his mentor, Jaime O. Perez who not-so-coincidentally released a statement with similar language to Rep Holguin's own “respect the will of the people” line.

Representative Holguin is for equality for the gay community. He has been clear on that for quite some time. Which is why I think his defense to his recent flip-flop is all the more a cop out.

Holguin believes that his role as a city rep is to do only what the constituents want. No more, no less. He says he doesn't subscribe to the idea that he is a trustee, meaning the idea that a rep is elected to make decisions on behalf of the constituents, regardless of what they may want.

In general, Holguin's position seems reasonable and certainly in line with “the will of the people”. But all too often the philosophy is simply cover for having one's political cake and eating it to. The philosophy allows a rep to say, I am personally for gay equality, but I had to vote the way I voted because of the will of the people.

That philosophy doesn't hold water when you are talking about something like social justice. Social justice issues rarely enjoy popular support and its almost always been the case, going back to the days of slavery. The only reason that codified changes to social justice have occurred is because elected leadership showed the courage to stand up for what's right, as opposed to what's popular.

The easy way to govern is the way Holguin appears to want to lead. The idea of being a representative who does only what the people want is you have the convenience of having cover for whatever political decision you make. You can say something along the lines of “well, my personal feelings on the issue are...” and then turn around in the same sentence and say, “...but my constituents don't want it and I will do what they want.”

How do you really know what your constituents want? How do you know unless you poll your district on every issue? Who is a constituent? A voter, someone who's registered to vote, a citizen, a resident, etc? How exactly do you make that distinction?

The answer is, you don't. Which means that basically any decision can be made and can be defended by saying its the will of his constituents.

There's a saying for that in the barrio...puro pedo!