CommentsEASTSIDER-It should come as no surprise that both political parties are total control freaks over their declining percentage of voters. I argue that real, small ‘d’ democracy works just fine, and the Dems should let it be.
The Context
Here in California, something like 23% of registered voters are now “decline to state,” rather than Democrat or Republican. Going into last week’s primary, that means there were slightly more “decline to state” than Republican registered voters.
You might think this is cool for Dems, but not so much. For one thing, most districts are carved out to favor one party or the other. There is also the reality that far less folks vote in the primaries than go out to vote in the November general election.
Combine these facts with our “top two” runoff system, and the Dems are freakin’ out that they might not be able to control the outcome in contested districts. There might even be two (gasp) Republicans on the November ballot in some districts. Gee.
Add to this the fact that the National and California Democratic Parties can’t always agree on who gets to be the favorite, and you have glorious opportunities for squabbling, acrimony, and angst! Of course, the only thing the establishment Dems agree on is that we shouldn’t have all those small ‘d’ democrats clogging up the ballot.
On the national front, you have the DCCC (Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee)run by Ben Ray Lujan, a front for Nancy Pelosi and Tom Perez. You know, the ones whose marvelous insight brought us Hillary Clinton for President. And regarding the State Party, there’s Eric Bauman, the strongarm who darn near tore the party apart over Kimberly Ellis’ nomination to replace him.
So as last week’s primary got close, the Democrats suddenly realized that in a number of races they might get locked out, winding up with two Republicans on the November ballot instead of one Democrat and one Republican. Lots of ink got wasted talking about how our “top two” system might not work, as opposed to the traditional system of the top Dem meeting the top Republican.
So, let’s see how all this is worked out in in a couple of “must have” seats the Dems are targeting to flip.
Congressional District 39
With Republican Ed Royce retiring, this one’s wide open. Before we get to the inside political stuff, let me give a shout out to all the brave people who cared enough to run for office in this race:
Gil Cisneros (D)
Sam Jammal (D)
Herbert Lee (D)
Suzi Pak Leggett (D)
Andy Thorburn (D)
Mai Khanh Tran (D)
John Cullum (R)
Bob Huff (R)
Young Kim (R)
Phil Liberatore (R)
Shawn Nelspn (R)
Andrew Sarega (R)
Steve Vargas (R)
Ted Alemayhu (American Independent)
Sophia Alexander (American Independent)
Steve Cox (No Party Preference)
Karen Lee Schatzle (No Party Preference)
And, leveraged to drop out by the Dems: Jay Chen, Phil Janowicz, Ted Rusk, and Cybil Steed. Congratulations to everyone for stepping up and standing for grassroots democracy.
This one got really ugly, really fast, between Dem contenders Cisneros and Thornburn.
Ciscneros is a former navy officer (and winner of a $266-million-dollar Mega Millions jackpot), put on the Dems “Red to Blue”list. Thornton is a New Jersey transplant, an insurance executive with bucks, who managed to block any endorsement from the CADEMS.
Anyhow, it got so bad that Eric Bauman had to intervene, and broker a cease fire deal between the two candidates before they screwed up the whole race.
Having said all this, it looks like Gil Cisneros (D) and Young Kim (R) will face each other in December. Proof the system works, even though all the buzz was that there could be two Republicans in the runoff.
Congressional District 48
The second tossup District has incumbent Dana Rohabacher (R), and a decent mix of both Republican as well as Democratic challengers:
Hans Keirstead (D)
Harley Rouda (D)
Deanie Schaarsmith (D)
Omar Siddiqui (D)
Tony Zarkades (D)
Dana Rohrabacher (R - Incumbent)
Scott Baugh (R)
John Gabbard (R)
Paul Martin (R)
Shastina Sandman (R)
Brandon Reiser
Kevin Kensinger (No Party Affiliation)
Amongst the fallen are three Dems who ‘unofficially withdrew’ (read forced out by the Dems). Again, kudos to all. It looks like either Dem Harley Rouda or Dem Hans Keirstead will be in the number two position against Rohrbacher, so again the same outcome of one Democrat and one Republican for November. System works.
As Reuters put it, this was the other District where the Dems were afraid of getting locked out in November:
Just to underline how crazy our political parties can be, in this race, there was a fascinating bit of intraparty rivalry, when the California Dems endorsed Hans Keirstead, while the national DCCC decided to add Harley Rouda to theirRed to Blue program. In English, this meant DCCC backed, but not ‘officially’ endorsed Harley, because the national dems are supposed to honor state party endorsements. Sure.
For the details, here’s the Slate article on how the system really worked as opposed is ‘supposed’ to work:
And Then There’s the 25th
Although it’s not listed as one of the top three districts that the Dems would like to flip, I think the 25th Congressional District could be very competitive. The reason is a non-establishment candidate, Katie Hill, who beat the establishment democrat, Bryan Caforio, to challenge Incumbent Stephen Knight (R) (all three in photos above) in the November runoff. Interestingly, there was no endorsement from either the national or state party.
Full disclosure, I’m biased. Katie came to the EAPDearly on and proved that she was our kind of candidate. She is a 30ish former head of PATH (People Assisting the Homeless), and from Saugus, now living in Agua Dulce. In other words, home grown.
I think we need more candidates that are from where they are running and understand the complexity local issues. Remember, the 25thcovers parts of San Fernando, Santa Clarita, Simi, and the Antelope Valley. Dems actually now outnumber the Republicans by 3.7% points.
Brian Caforio is an attorney backed by organized labor, but he’s not home grown. He ran against Knight the last time out and lost by something like 6%. So even though the Party did not endorse anyone, a lot of us think that Katie is just the ticket for 2018.
The Takeaway
After all the control freak manipulations of the national and state Democratic parties, it turns out that the system worked just fine. So maybe the power junkie party manipulators could just take a chill pill and let small ‘d’ democracy work like it’s supposed to work.
The reason all this is important is that the top down DCCC or CADP candidates are going to be centrist by definition, and that’s a losing strategy for representative government.
We need grassroots candidates, who are from and live in their districts, are sensitive to the local needs and wants instead of some imposed ideology. Republican or Democrat, that’s how the system is supposed to work. Not tribalism.
I’ll end with the obvious. As noted in a recent LA Progressive article,“Establishment Wins are Bad for Democrats and the Country.”
I can hardly wait for November.
NOTE:
After the polls closed, there were something like 2.6 million ballots state wide that needed to be counted, so the results will not be final for a while.
- Vote-by-mail: 2,163,293
- Provisional: 379,301
- Conditional voter registration: 11,049
- Damaged: 46,527
(Tony Butka is an Eastside community activist, who has served on a neighborhood council, has a background in government and is a contributor to CityWatch.) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.
