During every election cycle, we frequently hear members ask a common question: Why does my Association even bother to get involved in supporting candidates? The answer to this question is a simple matter of providing good service and value to our membership. Your local board, together with the Colorado Association of Realtors®, and the Trustees of the Political Survival Fund offers its election recommendations to provide information that isn’t readily available to many members and voters.
We invite candidates to come to interviews to learn primarily of their positions on issues affecting the real estate industry. We ask them questions about private property rights, real estate taxes, water usage and water rights, transportation planning, land use, regulatory oversight, and other kinds of issues important to your customers as well as your bottom line. We don’t ask them questions about the war in Iraq, Immigration Policy as it relates to Federal law, gun control, abortion rights or any other matters outside the boundaries of the real estate industry. While all of these matters are all vitally important to all of us as we decide on which candidate deserves our vote, we leave them out of the screening process because they do not specifically relate to our industry. Those matters are likely to come into focus at other candidate debates and forums during the campaign. While we have them at the association offices, we want them to talk about real estate issues.
Screening panel members use the information gained from these interviews, along with knowledge of other factors such as voting records, electability and the current political climate to make choices that are beneficial to REALTORS®. Since many REALTORS do not have the time nor the opportunity to make a thorough investigation of every candidate, these recommendations are intended to give members the benefit of the screening panel’s research. Just think of it as one more service your association provides to you!
Everyone is, of course, free to vote their conscience. We encourage you to use whatever reasons you have to vote for the candidates of your choice. In an effort to provide you with as much information as possible to assist you in your decision making, we have done the research on real estate issues and give it to you for your consideration.
We also use this valuable information to our benefit and often contribute PSF funds to our selected candidates. After all, if we are identifying these candidates as REALTOR®-friendly or at least as someone who we can talk to when real estate issues arise, then it certainly makes sense to try and help them get elected.
The reason PSF funds and money are important to the election process is because it costs money to communicate these days. Just as the costs of communicating in real estate have gone up over the years, so to has the business of candidates’ getting their messages out to the voters. Bottom line: It costs money to communicate these days, and it is in our best interests to help those who score high on REALTOR® issues.
Again, feel free to use this information however you see fit. Vote your conscience. But, if the needs of the real estate industry are important to you in your decision making process, remember that there are members of your association out there who have done the work for you.