Clark County auditor candidate Eileen Quiring O’Brien says for local civic organizations, true non-partisanship requires humility, fairness, and strict neutrality

Eileen Quiring O’Brien

Clark County auditor candidate

As someone who has spent many years watching the political landscape change, I have noticed a troubling trend that we all need to pay closer attention to — both nationally and right here at home. It is the habit of using noble, universally loved words to shield highly partisan behavior from criticism.

Just this week, it was announced that former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is launching a new “nonpartisan” institute at UC Berkeley dedicated to “strengthening democracy.” Yet, the institute’s planned research focuses on specific, politically charged topics like climate change and wealth re-distribution. Those are partisan platform pieces, not neutral civic goals.

Sadly, we are seeing this exact same vocabulary trick played out locally. When I recently questioned the League of Women Voters of Clark County about their seemingly partisan participation in local “No Kings” events, their leadership responded by telling me that while they are nonpartisan, they are still “political.” They claimed that when they take these highly specific positions, they are simply “defending democracy.”

But let’s be honest with ourselves: when an organization decides that one side of the political aisle represents a “threat to democracy,” they have crossed the line from being a neutral referee to an active player on the field.

For generations, organizations like the League earned our community’s trust because they were strictly neutral moderators who gave every candidate an equal, unbiased platform. By redefining their political preferences as “democracy itself,” they imply that anyone who disagrees with them is somehow against our system of government. That is unfair, and it is a disservice to the voters of Clark County.

True non-partisanship requires humility, fairness, and strict neutrality. I hope our local civic organizations will return to that standard, rather than adopting the linguistic games we see playing out in national politics.

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