Who has held political office? (Or has a family member who does?)

[Young Conservative]

As the title says. I'm interested in hearing your story or their story. Really, any connection to the political world you use would interest me.

[Badger]

County Republican Central Committee. Was Executive Committee for about a year about 2 years ago, but that's technically not elected by voters.

Oh yeah, interesting story. I may've shared this before, so forgive me, I'm middle-aged. In my sophomore year of college I get my absentee ballot for Allegheny County, PA. I fill out the blanks and see there're no candidates running for "Inspector of Elections" in my ward; only a write in line. So, I write myself in and think nothing more about it.

That is until a couple weeks later I get a call from my Dad who--his voice replete with "what have you gotten yourself into now?" tone--tells me they got a letter from the Board of Elections advising me I'd been elected Inspector of Elections for my ward.

So my first step: What the hell is an Inspector of Elections and what does it do?

Turns out it was just an elected poll watcher. I would go with the geriatric old ladies who volunteer for the polls every year, help them set up the machines, process voters, tabulate the results, etc. It was a long day starting about an hour before polls opened until an hour after they closed, with no breaks. However, I recall that the payment was straight cash (WTF?!? This was in a white collar suburb in the late 80's and early 90's, so this was probably a remnant of old-fashioned machine politics by ward heelers). So without having to declare taxes, it actually averaged enough per hour to make it pretty worthwhile compared to McDonald's or the like.

My first day there I was asked to sign an oath stating that I was not, nor ever had been a member of the Communist Party, and further that I didn't support ideas denigrating the American way of life or some vastly over-broad anti-free speech bull$hit like that. Now, I've never been a Communist, but the language was so grossly over-broad it offended my sense of free speech and the right to dissent.

So I refused to sign.

The dear old biddies working the polls with me didn't have a clue what to do. This had never happened. They discussed it twittering among themselves in a corner for a while. Then one of them made a call to the Board of Elections. Soon after they came back and said, "OK, he doesn't have to sign it". The next few years it was a ritual that I'd get there, we'd pass around the forms, I'd politely not sign it and they didn't ask. They were actually nice ladies.

A day or two later I called the Pittsburgh chapter of the ACLU to register a complaint about the language surely being over-broad and violative of the First Amendment. They said they'd look into it, but I never heard back. Fast forward about 4 years to my first summer home from law school where I was volunteering with the same ACLU office. The office manager was looking for work I could do and, lo and behold, found my complaint which had been left moldering in a file the past few years.

I worked with a volunteer lawyer from the community at researching the matter. We discovered the law was, unsurprisingly, passed around 1953 during the height of the McCarthy scare. What we were surprised to find, though, was that the offending language had been repealed around 1967, and replaced with standard (and non-objectionable IMHO) oaths to support the Constitution and not support removing the government with armed violence. Yes, the Allegheny County bureaucracy had yet to update the oath forms more than 20 years after the language had been repealed! Grumps, Cynic, and other Forumites from Da Burgh can surely understand this phenomena.

The lawyer wrote a letter to Election Board pointing out the language used in their forms, in addition to being of dubious constitutionality, had been legally void for a quarter century. I heard later they finally removed that McCarthyist language from their forms, and thus legally caught up to the late 60's. Justice will out!

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Tangentially related to the above post, I have twice taken an Oath of Office as an Elections Inspector for Springfield Township, Michigan. It being 2012 and me being 16, I checked "Republican" on the form, and have thusly twice served the public (and received money from them) as a Republican.

[Badger]

Oh yeah, on my father's side going back a number of generations we have a congressman, a Mayor of Philadelphia, a PA Atty General and 2nd Continental Congress rep.

That's my direct relations, that is great to the nth degree grandfathers. Many of their other sons outside my direct line served in Congress at various points.

[BlueDogDemocrat]

My nine great grandfather on my dad's side was William Coddington who was the first colonial governor of Rhode Island.

I also had my grandfather who ran for and was elected to be a local firefighter chief in Nassau County, I believe during the 60's. I also had an aunt who was running for mayor on Long Island but dropped out after getting into a car accident.

[Kingpoleon]

One was elected to the Arkansas State Secession Convention, but he was poisoned before he could take office due to anti-slavery expansion and anti-secession views.

Another one was Nicholas I.

[TheSaint250]

Unfortunately, as far as I know, I'm only related to farmers.

[Co-Chair Bagel23]

Unfortunately With pride in my heart, I can say that all of my ancestors were farmers and my family today are middle class workers.

[KingSweden]

My dad was part of the Swedish Moderate Party youth wing as a kid, to the horror of my arch-socialist grandfather. Got into tech programming rather than politics.

If I'm ever In a position where I'm financially able to maybe I'll run for City Council here in Kirkland

[The Other Castro]

You're looking at the proud VP of a college a capella group.

[RFayette]

Am related to Grover Cleveland

[Bidenworth2020]

my dad won 1 term in the Maryland state house.

[Lambsbread]

You're looking at the proud VP of a college a capella group.

And I'm the proud President (Station Manager) of a college radio station.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

How can I hate Badger when he has a story like that?!?

[BuckeyeNut]

One of my great-great-great-etc. grandfathers was a Congressman from Massachusetts and I think I have a couple of pre-statehood Connecticut Governors.

[Rjjr77]

No one in my family has held elected office, I've been asked to run a few tiems for local office and never have. I have worked on dozens of campaigns in dozens of states however and personally know many politicians both nationally recognized and not.

[TheSaint250]

Unfortunately With pride in my heart, I can say that all of my ancestors were farmers and my family today are middle class workers.

Lol I didn't mean to make it sound like I was trashing my ancestors. I've just always looked for familial relationships to politicians.

But, in all truthfulness, thank you for correcting that.

[JA]

My maternal grandfather's cousin is the current mayor of Freemansburg, Pennsylvania.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

My second cousin once removed is a Senator (hints: not from Tennessee and up for reelection in 2018).  I don't think I have ever met him/her, though.

[rpryor03]

I'm distant cousins to the Bush Family.

[America Needs R'hllor]

My ancestors are east European Jews. So nah, they had to concentrate too hard on surviving pogroms and couldn't run in non-existant elections

[Middle-aged Europe]

Technically, I ran for the Berlin-Mitte borough assembly in 2011. In practice, I had a spot so far down on the party list that it was clear from the start that I would never be elected (barring a catastrophic event whichs kills the first half of the list ).

[NewYorkExpress]

My second cousin once removed is a Senator (hints: not from Tennessee and up for reelection in 2018).  I don't think I have ever met him/her, though.

Let me guess... Ted Cruz.

[Miles]

My uncle is a Louisiana State Representative, and one of my cousins is a judge in Jefferson Parish.

[Kamala]

Pretty sure I'm related to Jeff Flake.

I'm so sorry