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Dogcatcher

by: DavidNYC

Mon Mar 16, 2009 at 2:00 PM EDT


We've all heard the phrase before - so-and-so couldn't get elected dogcatcher. I have two questions, though:

     1) When and where did this phrase originate?

     2) Has there ever, ever been a contested election for dogcatcher anywhere?

I really hope the answer to number two is yes.
DavidNYC :: Dogcatcher
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Dogcatcher | 48 comments
Office of Inspector of Hides and Animals
Til 2007, we had this as an elected office.  As late as 2002 there was a contested election for it in the Democratic primary in Jefferson County (Beaumont).
I'm sure...
... animal control is an elected office in some jurisdictions.
The question is
Where? I've seen speculation, but never any hard evidence.
[ Parent ]
I'll have to do some digging
But I do believe there are rural counties in Florida where animal control is an elected position.    
[ Parent ]
digging?
pun intended?

40, male, Democrat, NC-04
[ Parent ]
I'd bet it goes back ages,
maybe to the humor of Mark Twain, or some other 19th century humorist.
[ Parent ]
It's not quite dogcatcher...
... and I actually don't know if it's elected or not, but I always enjoyed hearing about the North Shore Mosquito Abatement trustees in Cook County, Illinois.

I mean, in reality, mosquito abatement is incredibly important. But I just can't bring myself to imagine calling someone a North Shore Mosquito Abatement trustee. Or, better yet, the President of the North Shore Mosquito Abatement Board.

But sorry, no dogcatcher.

Mosquito control
With as many mosquitos as we have in Florida that is a very commonly elected position.  A large number of counties and cities have Mosquito Control Boards which are often elected positions.
[ Parent ]
I believe...
...we need a Constitutional Amendment to end the corrupt practice of dogcatcher appointment.
And barring that,
I propose we primary any governor-appointed dogcatcher!!
[ Parent ]
At the very least
The DDCC (Democratic Dogcatcher Campaign Committee) has to pledge to stay neuter-al.
[ Parent ]
Lest a litter of congresspersons
start growling about the lack of impartiality.

party: Democratic, ideology: moderate, district: CT-01
[ Parent ]
I'm trying to decide whether ...
... I think that's really clever, or so incredibly bad that you should have your blogging rights taken away for a short period of time as a warning  :)
[ Parent ]
I think that's excusable.
After all, he didn't pee on the carpet or track mud into the house.

party: Democratic, ideology: moderate, district: CT-01
[ Parent ]
Of course he didn't
It's not like he's a dog or an infant or a diaper-wearing Senator from Louisiana.
[ Parent ]
I like this one
Halberstam, in The Best and the Brightest, describes Vice President Johnson's reaction to his first meeting with President Kennedy's cabinet:

"Stunned by their glamour and intellect, he had rushed back to tell [Speaker of the House] Sam Rayburn, his great and crafty mentor, about them, about how brilliant each was, that fellow Bundy from Harvard, Rusk from Rockefeller, McNamara from Ford. On he went, naming them all. 'Well, Lyndon, you may be right and they may be every bit as intelligent as you say, ' said Rayburn, 'but I'd feel a whole lot better about them if just one of them had run for sheriff once, '"

Is that the Rayburn
who's the Rayburn Office Building namesake?

party: Democratic, ideology: moderate, district: CT-01
[ Parent ]
Yes
n/t
[ Parent ]
That is precisely the problem with Geithner
I think Obama made a mistake (at least in the short term) in not choosing Summers.
[ Parent ]
How's that?
Summers is an academic.  I'd assume that a bureaucrat (like Geithner) would be closer to what Rayburn was looking for.  An elected official fitting a similar role would be, i.e. Corzine.

I think Obama's problem was that he chose the wrong bureaucrat.  The FDIC, not the NY Fed, was the institution with a clue, so it should've been Bair.

[ Parent ]
Yup,
She would have been an ideal token Republican, too.  
[ Parent ]
For those who do not know
Summers had already been the treasury secretary. He would have no trouble dealing with the press.

Geithner - everytime he opens his mouth, my 401K loses 10%

[ Parent ]
For those who do not know
Summers also has a serious problem with his mouth.  
[ Parent ]
Summers' mouth
never got in the way of working as the treasury secretary.

Geithenr's mouth is a black hole - so far.

[ Parent ]
Summers' track record
Made him unconfirmable.
[ Parent ]
I agree.
The purists in our party, who defeated the LI congressman who switched to our party, would have caused a big problem.

Chris Dodd, who voted to confirm John Tower, would not have had a problem with Summers.

[ Parent ]
Huh?
Dodd voted to confirm Tower because in 1967, Tower had voted against censuring Dodd's father and he felt he owed him a favor. As for Summers, why shouldn't we have reservations about returning him to the cabinet after his boys-are-smarter-than-girls flub at Harvard?

I'm also not really sure why rejecting Mike Forbes in favor of a real Democrat was such a bad idea. (I know we lost that race, but it's worth noting that we won the next time out, despite the prevailing tide in 2002 being against us. Point being, that district was headed in our direction, so why settle for a DINO?)

[ Parent ]
A position that should not be elected
I'm of the opinion that positions like animal control officer and sheriff should not be elected. I'm perfectly fine with electing DAs and AGs, but when it comes to other types of law enforcement, elections are not the way to go. Animal control is serious business, not only with pets but in areas with large wild animals (gators, bears, cougars, coyotes), and I'd rather have someone with a great deal of experience in dealing with such animals rather than some elected hack.

I'm also not keen on the idea of electing sheriffs. Now I know that there are requirements for actual law enforcement experience, but it has been my experience that electing sheriffs only leads to trouble. Look at Jim Traficant and Phil Chance (Mahoning Co. sheriff who went down in a big organized crime probe in the 90s).

Large anmials
Do we ever have those in Florida.  Every kind imaginable.  Gators are the biggest troublw with about 1 million of them in the state.  Even cities and Fish and Wildlife Departments don't deal with those.  Usually wildlife specialists (backwoods people) are contracted by the government to deal with gators and such.  

One time a 10 foot gator was crawling around in my friends driveway while I was there.  A guy named "Alligator Bob" was dispatched to capture the gator.  That guy could have given Steve Irwin a run for his money in taming gators.

[ Parent ]
Well...
As you noted, there are gators. I believe there are also black bears, panthers, and crocodiles. However, the last two are so rare and shy that they seldom come into contact with people.

With Florida, there's also ocean animals that may need monitoring. Whales or dolphins may beach themselves, manatees hit by propellers or entangled in fishing lines, etc.  

[ Parent ]
As far as those animals that live in water go
We actually have a fantastic network of nonprofit aquatic groups who help those sorts of animals in need.  Especially dolphins and manatees.

As far as panthers go, don't get me started.  Many years ago the state actually spent millions of dollars building tunnels underneath highways to aid the dozen or so Florida panthers in crossing the road should they ever encounter a highway.  No idea if one has ever used them.

[ Parent ]
That is probably
the first environmental cause I've ever heard of that I would not support.  That is really quite dumb and a huge waste of money.  Especially since panthers are super fast and can run across freeways, duh.
[ Parent ]
Haha
Is there a panther in the head lights problem?
[ Parent ]
You know those "watch out for this animal roadsigns"?
The ones with the picture of the animal you need to watch out for?  Here are some of the signs I've seen here in Florida.

Bees - Yes I actually saw a sign warning of swarms of bees in the area
Panthers
Bears
Packs of turkeys
Flamingos
wolves
Eagles - I still don't quite get this one.  Maybe eagles fly low near the road and someone hit one with their car.  Who knows...

[ Parent ]
Bees are quite serious.
From an episode of Rescue 911: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

On the other hand, for the lulz: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

That'll teach you to mess with falling rocks and deer!  And something else!

party: Democratic, ideology: moderate, district: CT-01

[ Parent ]
But does Florida have falling cow signs?
Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us

QuickPost
[ Parent ]
Here's a 1906 citation
Dogcatcher Debate
Reminds me of a parody I did once on a college radio show. I played Bob Stevens, the GOP dogcatcher candidate who promised to round up all stray animals and kill them. I portrayed my opponent, who was campaigning on a slight increase in the animal shelter budget, as a tax and spend liberal who put the welfare of stray pets above hard working Americans.  

33, male, Dem, OH-13
ROFL
That's awesome role-playing.

party: Democratic, ideology: moderate, district: CT-01
[ Parent ]
Duxbury, VT has 1
Duxbury, VT has the elected position of dogcatcher.  Zeb Towne is listed with the note that his position expires in 2009 so there may be an election for dogcatcher this year.
At this point
After all of this discussion, I expect some liveblogging of those results!
[ Parent ]
The question remains
Is dogcatching a partisan position and if so how do republicans and democrats differ on dogcatching related issues?
[ Parent ]
I also use...
"couldn't get elected third grade milk monitor."

As in this quote from would be Ohio governor Kasich

"I am convinced (teachers) are a lot more concerned about their own situation rather than the situation of our children," Kasich said.

Do you have any idea what a CRUCIAL constituency teachers represent in this state? Just the RETIREES are enough to ensure that ... well...

see above.

was common once
Especially in the original 13 colonies and the states carved out of their original claims to lands in the Northwest Territory and the Southeast. Since Virgina more or less claimed the entire continent, most of the states east of the Mississippi simply grafted the English county structure onto their new jurisdictions.

Basing government structures largely along lines of English counties, there were lots of elected positions which are now generally appointed patronage or civil service posts. Magistrates were elected for local courts (with law degrees not being a requirement) and sheriffs whose positions largely devoted to collecting revenue instead of law enforcement.

West Virginia being carved out of Virginia during the Civil War, we simply kept the old English system inherited through Virgina. When I was a kid in the late-60s and early-70s, we had countywide (and districts within the county) elections for dogcatcher and county surveyor and the like along with the ones for magistrate, sheriff, and the like.

Inertia and the push for popular sovereignty (as well as the later populist and progressive movements push for maintaining and expanding the number of offices open to election) led to this structure surviving long into the 20th century.

Post-WWII local governments began reorganizing to centralize executive power in elected county commissions but the process was slow and went by fits and starts.

In Nicholas County (WV), dogcatcher became a civil service position in the early 70s. However, several offices (like county surveyor) remained elected until the late-80s.

In the first ballot I cast (1984), there were several of these posts still on the ballot... most of which had no one running for them. I wrote in my own name for county surveyor. I lost to some guy who got three write-in votes, ending my political career in its infancy.

In the late 80s, WV counties did another series of reorganizations and eliminated these posts. But I have seen these positions still on the ballot in southern states like Georgia and Florida as late as 1998. Might still be there for all I know.

Wow.
In the first ballot I cast (1984), there were several of these posts still on the ballot... most of which had no one running for them. I wrote in my own name for county surveyor. I lost to some guy who got three write-in votes, ending my political career in its infancy.

Aww...

That does remind me of a post representing my floor of my first dorm in college for admitted student visiting period activities.  No one stepped up to take the post, and when I spoke up, I was basically unanimously assented into the position (or whatever word I should use instead of "assented").

party: Democratic, ideology: moderate, district: CT-01

[ Parent ]
Is DavidNYC trying to run for New York State Dogcatcher
in order to get statewide campaign experience?

party: Democratic, ideology: moderate, district: CT-01
First time commenter....
The term came from a local Flordia Minister who was describing the Christian Coalition in 1980 to Newsweek magazine.
He said "Were going to run for everything from Dogcatcher to Senator"
This can be found on page 71 of Janice Irvine's book "Let's talk about sex"  
But...
...this term is clearly much older than that. After all, a commenter up above found a citation from 1906!

  10 October 1906, NEW YORK TIMES, pg. 2:
     Hearst in California.
  "Hearst couldn't be elected dog catcher in any part of my State," declared
State Treasurer Truman Reeves of California yesterday to Mayor McClellan, on
whom he paid a social call.

[ Parent ]
Dogcatcher | 48 comments

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