Holding our Elected Officials Accountable for Maintaing our Values

In this installment of Delia’s Corner, Delia tackles the question of holding elected officials accountable and what Democrats need to do to ensure we’re sending people to office who share our values and will protect our most vulnerable citizens.

Interviewer: You have emphasized the importance of electing leaders before holding them accountable. How do we balance trust in elected officials with ensuring they deliver for the community?

Delia: How do you elect leaders, then hold them accountable? I don’t want to say that it’s not important to make sure that they support your values, but I do think it’s important that we as Democrats begin to identify as Democrats the way Republicans do. 

Instead of focusing so much on finding the “perfect candidate” – we’ve done that a lot. We do that within intra-party [and]  counties do that. We do that from emotion. We want to elect the people we think we like the most as opposed to looking for people who support our values. That’s how you get Clarence Thomas, not Thurgood Marshall, because you’re just looking at that person’s identity and not fully understanding what they embrace. That’s how you get Kyrsten Sinema and not someone who’s going to vote in the senate the way you want them to because you think their identity is going to produce a person who is going to vote [with] you. 

So I believe it’s time we start looking at candidates and who they are as a person. If you want to know who I am – we talk a lot about who I am and what I believe, my values.  I believe everyone has the right to individual autonomy. I don’t have to believe everything specifically that every Democrat wants you to believe in order to fight for you and support you. You tell me who you are, I believe you and I believe you have the right to live your life the way you want it. We hold our candidates accountable when we know what values they hold. They get in office and then we go to them and say, “These are the needs we have as a community.” 

It’s backwards when we try to have micro-issues and then try to find candidates who say the things that we want them to say that might not be as inclusive [of the] issues of more Americans and that might prevent them from moving further. So we have to be careful and stop trying to look for the perfect candidate. 

We are all imperfect allies, but we are allies. We have to start realizing and looking and being more intentional with the people we elect in terms of knowing who they are, and their values, and supporting them, and not simply from characteristics they have no control over, but in actually listening to them and seeing what they believe and support.