For the good of Wichita, James Clendenin must resign

James Clendenin, who has represented south Wichita on the City Council since 2011, was a key player in a plot to sabotage the campaign of his future colleague, Mayor Brandon Whipple, and to falsely pin the blame for the scheme on Dalton Glasscock, the chair of the Sedgwick County Republican Party.

Though he has downplayed his involvement for months, audio recordings clearly show Clendenin actively conspiring with State Rep. Michael Capps and County Commissioner Michael O’Donnell.

As there can no longer be any doubt about his role in this scheme, Clendenin has lost the ability to serve as an effective leader and advocate for the residents of District III. He must resign immediately.

The Wichita City Council is ostensibly a non-partisan body, and City Council elections are, in theory, non-partisan affairs. The non-partisan nature of local government is designed to engender collegiality and to encourage our representatives to focus their attention on the needs of their constituents rather than get bogged down in national partisan political agendas. Indeed, as Professor Ed Flentje, an expert on local politics, has previously documented, when the office of City Manager was first established in Wichita in 1917, it was designed primarily to remove partisan politics from the day-to-day affairs of managing the city.

In practice, we know that the aspirational rhetoric around non-partisan elections belies the high level of polarization that characterizes contemporary politics at all levels. While they may not have an “R” or a “D” next to their names on the ballot, many contenders for local office in Wichita are active and prominent members of the local Republican and Democratic parties.

Mayor Whipple, in particular, ran for his current office while he was serving as a sitting Democratic member of the state legislature, where he worked alongside Capps (and, previously, O’Donnell) in the charged partisan atmosphere of the Statehouse. He has also served for years as a leader in Democratic politics in Sedgwick County. So it would have been naïve to imagine that the 2019 mayoral race would be free of partisan political activity.

Partisanship is not the problem. Party affiliations are useful identities that can help to delineate clear lines of debate on important political matters, and understanding the partisan loyalties of candidates can make voters more informed and may, in fact, improve voter participation and turnout.

At a minimum, it is clear that the official absence of partisanship in local elections did nothing to slow or stop the operation of a fraudulent political stunt that confused voters, made a mockery of the critically important issue of sexual misconduct, and undermined public confidence in the moral integrity of our local political leadership.

The Wichita City Council faces many enormous and consequential decisions in the coming year — operating a city during a pandemic, balancing a budget in the face of declining revenues, overseeing huge public projects like the potential redevelopment of Century II and the East Bank riverfront and, in District 3, the reimagining of Clapp Park. Regardless of partisan affiliation, Clendenin has demonstrated through his participation in this scheme that he cannot be counted upon to collaborate in good faith with his colleagues on the council.

Our city is at a critical moment, and we need every member of our City Council, despite their partisan differences, to be capable of dealing with one another with respect and a shared commitment to the city. For that to be possible, James Clendenin must go.

This story was originally published November 4, 2020 at 12:20 PM.