“Elections have consequences.” So said President Barack Obama soon after his Democratic Party in 2008 wrested control of both chambers of Congress as well as the White House. It was Obama’s way of notifying leaders of the Republican minority that they were no longer relevant.

Obama’s words ring true in Butler County, where a handful of mostly Democrats continue to clamor for their right to be heard during meetings of the county board of commissioners. They say commissioners Chairman Bill McCarrier is shutting off vital debate by limiting the public comment portion of the meeting to items already on the agenda.

One Democratic official says McCarrier’s tight rein on the debate has turned commissioner meetings “into a poor adaption of ‘The Gong Show’ from the ’70s.” Democrat committeeman David Kerr, in a letter to the editor published Monday, called the game show atmosphere“entertaining,” but he added, “there is meanness and a bully quality about the partisan censorship dished out by McCarrier.”

It’s not as though the Democrats don’t have an elected representative on the board of commissioners. Nearly 12,000 of them voted for Jim Eckstein in the 2011 election.

“I’m humbled by the win,” Eckstein said on that election night as he learned that he had prevailed. “I’m going to do what’s best for the community. I represent the constituents.”

It should be a simple matter, then, for any constituent — and especially those of Eckstein’s Democratic Party — to approach Eckstein, their representative, with matters that should be discussed or even placed on the meeting agenda. And as their representative, Eckstein has a duty to see that their concerns are heard. He said so himself.

Sadly, it hasn’t worked out that way.

If the constituents have been reading the Butler Eagle reports about the commissioners, or watched the video recorded proceedings on the public access channel, they can clearly see that’s not what is happening. The meetings tend to be contentious, fraught with tension and overly theatrical — like the game-show farce Kerr’s letter describes.

It’s no wonder McCarrier took action.

For all the clamor they make about the constitutional right to be heard, the Democrats brought this situation on themselves. They elected a representative who is more enamored of the theatrics than he is of being their representative and communicating their interests.

As Obama said, elections have consequences.

In a representative democracy, the will of the voters should be voiced through their representatives. It’s why we elect them in the first place.

That’s a fundamental reality for every Butler County voter to consider as the 2015 commissioner elections approach.