GELFAND’S WORLD-The opponents to the charter amendments on Tuesday's ballot have a point, as they have repeatedly reminded me through emails and comments to CityWatch. The ballot measures would put elections for City Council and School Board seats on the same schedule as statewide and national elections, that is to say, November of even numbered years. As the opponents point out, the City Council members who put these measures on the ballot stand to gain a lot, by adding onetime 17 month extensions to their own terms and, in addition, adding considerable amounts to their retirement pensions.
This argument is fair, and if it is what is most important to you, worthy of a negative vote on Charter Amendments 1 and 2. On the other hand, the second counterargument to the ballot measures is that we would see more interest in local races and local ballot measures if we stuck with our current odd-numbered-year elections. I find this reasoning to be frankly suspect, and offer my own sample ballot as evidence.
I wonder how many of you may have picked up your Official Sample Ballot and Voter Information Pamphlet and skimmed through it?
I have done so, but I must confess it is because it was germane to a previous column I wrote. I wondered what might be interesting enough to incite voters to turn out. I don't think there's very much.
Let's take a look.
There is one school board seat up for reelection in my district. There is no reason to believe that Richard Vladovic will fail to be reelected. He is the incumbent, and has accumulated quite a trail of endorsements. That's just the way the system works nowadays.
If you read down to the bottom, I will suggest a better system for choosing candidates, but it will require a paragraph or so of exposition.
Meanwhile, let's look at the other rather dreary (and definitely short) page of candidacies. It's a collection of people who are running for Los Angeles Community College District seats 1, 3, 5, and 7. For some reason, I'm allowed to vote in each of these districts.
Let's take a look at Seat 1. These are the candidates on the ballot:
Andra Hoffman: community college professor
Maria "Sokie" Quintero: community college professor
Mark Isler: Teacher, radio host
Francesca Vega: college policy director
Absent any further knowledge, how is anybody to make an informed choice among these people? It turns out I have a little further knowledge, in the form of one of those mailers you get right before an election. My problem is that I know a little something about some of the other endorsed candidates on other parts of this mailer, and that knowledge causes me to distrust this mailer entirely. Another thing about this particular mailer is that it looks to be financed almost entirely by one of the two sides in the fight over the Charter amendments. It comes across as something done merely for money.
There's not much believable information there, or in the other mailers that have filled my mailbox.
That was Seat 1. Just to complete this discussion, let's skip ahead to Seat 7. Here are the candidates:
Mike Fong: Educator/Job Trainer
Joyce Burrell Garcia: Educator
John C. Burke: Community College Faculty
Well, we have 2 educators, whatever that might mean, and somebody listed as Community College Faculty, which is almost equally cryptic. Once again, I don't have a lot of information to go on.
The ballot also includes 2 more Community College seats and the Charter amendments. Like I said before, this election is awfully weak stew. There isn't all that much to get excited about, and I fear that most of us, even the biggest political junkies, are going to be low information voters. I mean, I actually know one candidate and can vouch for his integrity, and know a little bit about one other, but I'm pretty much lost on 11 out of 13 candidates.
That's very different from a November ballot where you are voting on candidates with records in the state legislature, congress, and city government. You know who they are because you've seen the results of their behavior. You've also had a chance to see them participate in forums and debates.
The idea of persisting with these odd-year municipal elections could be defensible under the right conditions, but it isn't right now. At the same time, the proponents of the Charter amendments haven't exactly distinguished themselves with their disinterestedness. Both sides are wrong, and it is a case of two wrongs making a bigger wrong. We need a better way for involved voters to cast intelligent votes.
One suggested approach is to put larger and larger amounts of information on the internet. Voters can search to their hearts' content about each of the candidates.
I don't think that this is a very useful approach. I don't want to engage in a deep analysis of every candidate for Seat 5.
I'll be blunt. I want somebody I can trust who will tell me who to vote for.
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That may sound a little peculiar to start with, but I think you'll begin to understand the point if you think about it. There are a few people I trust to adhere to my own chosen principles when it comes to choosing candidates. (Yours may be different, but then you'll just have to find a different advisor.) I want an organization or person who will get to know the candidates and their records, and then evaluate them based on my chosen principles. My principles involve adherence to integrity and ethics, technical competence in the subject matter that is the purpose of the election, and in those cases where it matters, adherence to my philosophy of liberalism. I want somebody to tell me who the next Henry Waxman or Alan Lowenthal is, so I can cast that vote.
Other people may feel that they wish to vote for the labor ticket, and they can get a properly vetted list of candidates from their union hall. Others may wish quite the opposite slate, and may perhaps ask for the recommendations of the Los Angeles Republican Party.
The point is that the slate mailers we currently receive are generally pretty phony, being produced as money making items, and selling off some of their endorsements for cash.
We need a more independent organization or even just a group of people who will vet the candidates for us and tell us truly who the good eggs and the bad eggs are.
The one thing that these advisors cannot be, if I am to take them seriously, are political party operatives. I'll give you one example of why not. A few years ago, I looked at candidates who were running for Superior Court Judges. I noticed that in one group, the County Democratic Party had endorsed somebody who was not highly rated by the County Bar Association, but rather was about 4th on their list of candidates. I asked a friend of mine who was on the endorsement committee why they didn't endorse the candidate rated as highly qualified by the Bar Association. "We can't endorse a Republican," was what he said. "Why not" is what I said to myself, but then again I guess I don't quite fit into that way of thinking. I need somebody less tied to partisanship to gauge the candidates.
In some races, it is critically important which political party a candidate belongs to. This is true for the state legislature and the congress, because it is critically important which party holds the majority. But in a primary election, there may be several candidates running in the party that I will eventually vote for, and that's where I need a trustworthy analyst.
I can tell you that candidates endorsed by local political clubs or county committees are not always the best future lawmakers, because they are endorsed based on party loyalty and years of service.
One further thought. Finding independent advisors who would tell us who we can vote for would solve one additional problem. If a candidate spends two million dollars to flood my mailbox with glossy mailers, but fails to get a positive rating from the analyst I trust, then I won't vote for him. If a candidate raises ten thousand dollars and gets a strong endorsement from that same analyst, then I will feel that I can cast that vote.
Obviously the choice of which advisor to trust is the critical question, but it is a solvable problem, and a lot easier way of making a better community than what has been floating around.
One additional point that gets positive reactions from attorneys I talk to. There should be a list of judges who treat people rudely in the courtroom. That even includes judges who are unnecessarily rude to attorneys. Most of us have no idea who to vote for in the list of judges, but at least we could find out who to vote against.
(Bob Gelfand writes on culture and politics for CityWatch. He can be reached at [email protected])
CityWatch
Vol 13 Issue 18
Pub: Mar 3, 2015
