GUEST COMMENTARY-One of the weird things about this state’s politics — it’s a long list — is the scarcity of Southern Californians in the highest offices in Sacramento and Washington, D.C.
The trend is unlikely to turn around in November. And it won’t change in the years ahead unless voters and promising candidates from the Los Angeles area step up and overcome the advantages their counterparts from the San Francisco area have gained from the state’s Democratic leaning and their proximity to the state capital and Silicon Valley campaign funds.
When Los Angeles-based Assemblyman John Perez announced last week that he had called off a recount of primary votes in the race for state controller, his concession left San Francisco-based Board of Equalization member Betty Yee to face Fresno Mayor Ashley Swearengin in the general election.
This left Southern California candidates with good chances to win only two of the eight elections for statewide offices on Nov. 4. Either Alex Padilla, a state senator from the San Fernando Valley, or Pete Peterson, who runs a public-policy center at Pepperdine, will be the next secretary of state. John Chiang, a Torrance resident who is the current controller, should beat Greg Conlon of Atherton and be the next treasurer.
Meanwhile, Gov. Jerry Brown, Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, Attorney General Kamala Harris, Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones and Superintendent of Public Education Tom Torlakson — products of the San Francisco and Sacramento areas — are favored for re-election.
Include U.S. Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, both from the San Francisco area, in the count, and Southern Californians haven’t held more than two of the 10 statewide offices at any time since before the 1998 election and haven’t held a majority of those powerful seats since the 1980s.
Not since the early 1970s, when Ronald Reagan was governor, have Southern Californians dominated state offices as our northern rivals do now.
The San Francisco Bay Area’s dominance of state politics has risen as the Democratic Party’s stranglehold on the Capitol has tightened. One theory is that the more thoroughly liberal Bay Area simply produces more of the Democratic candidates the state electorate seems to like.
This suggests a broad reason that all but the most dogmatically Democratic Southern Californians should want to correct the north-south imbalance: Liberal politicians here are more moderate than liberals in the San Francisco area. Think of Eric Garcetti, a Democrat who has staked the early part of his term as LA mayor on his ability to take on city unions.
A more specific reason to want more officeholders with SoCal sympathies: The north-south issue of water is only going to get bigger.
The years ahead will provide opportunities for a reshuffle as Brown, 76, Feinstein, 81, and Boxer, 73, approach retirement. But Southern Californians are going to have to vote more enthusiastically; in June, LA and San Bernardino counties turned out only 13.6 percent and 12.7 percent of eligible voters, respectively, compared to San Francisco and Sacramento counties’ 20.8 percent and 21.3 percent.
And this region will have to encourage its best public officials to seek statewide office, rather than holding their ambition against them.
The first step is to know the state’s political playing field is tilted. Now you know.
(This is the editorial voice of the Los Angeles Daily News. More at dailynews.com)
-cw
CityWatch
Vol 12 Issue 63
Pub: Aug 5, 2014
