Now there's a whole cadre of candidates running for seven district assessor positions in Orleans Parish, Louisiana, who vow to quit the position if they're elected, and use the salary to hire a private assessor. The parish needs one professional assessor, they argue -- not seven individually elected officials.
Here's what's really interesting: the candidates had formed a loose "I Quit" party, and had filed to appear on ballots with "IQ" as a nickname, in order to remind voters of their intentions. The ballot would read, say, "Joe 'IQ' Smith." Pretty clever!
But a judge nixed the plan when a couple opponents challenged the "IQ" nicknames, and the Louisiana secretary of state pre-emptively banned the nicknames in all the other races. And you can see why: If these nicknames were allowed, it would open the door for candidates to appear as "Bill 'I Love America' Jones" or "Tom 'Flat Tax' Henderson."
