‘THE JUNE ELECTION’ - Is there anything we open the polls for that gets less respect than a primary election? How about a boring primary election? Randy Shaw at BeyondChron calls it, “California’s most boring election ever.”
Last week, CityWatch ran a survey on Prop 29 … the tax on tobacco measure. More than 20% of the respondents checked the ‘I don’t plan to vote’ box.
Daily News’ Rick Orlov reports that votes have started to arrive from ‘permanent absentee voters’ and the numbers are anemic.
There’s little question that voters see California’s under the radar Presidential Primary election as a snoozer. Shaw makes the point: If it weren’t for Big Tobacco clogging the airwaves with No on 29 ads, even fewer of us would know there is a statewide election next week.
Here’s part of what Shaw wrote at BeyondChron.org:
On June 5, millions of California registered voters will not go to the polls. Instead, they will decide that they have better things to do than vote on two less than critical state ballot measures, uncontested, incumbent-driven candidate elections, and the composition of local party central committees.
Because voters changed election rules so that the top two candidates in federal and state races square off in November rather than the top vote-getter of each party, even the more interesting contests – such as the North Bay’s Congressional race and Santa Monica’s Assembly seat – are not conclusive. It’s good that Governor Brown signed legislation this year preventing any future initiatives from appearing in June, because next week will prove the first of a long succession of low-turnout June elections.
As I noted last week, if Big Tobacco were not clogging the airwaves with No on 29 ads, many might not realize that California has a statewide election next week. The days when federal and state primaries in June effectively decided the winner in most districts are over, while incumbents across the state typically are running unopposed or with only token opposition.
State Ballot Changes
California’s destructive Prop 13 passed on a June ballot, and thanks to Governor Brown and his labor backers this can never happen again. Senate Bill 202 moves all state measures to the greater turnout November elections, with Props 28 and 29 the last to appear in June.
Labor wisely pushed SB 202 to prevent another anti-union initiative that limits labor spending money on political campaigns from appearing on this June’s ballot. The projected low-turnout would have almost guaranteed the measure’s passage.
Neither Prop 28 nor Prop 29 is likely to get people to make a special trip to the polls. The impact of Prop 28, which revises the state’s disastrous term limits law, is so uncertain that my Beyond Chron colleague Paul Hogarth voted against it while I favored it.
Hogarth felt that reducing state legislator’s tenure from 14 to 12 years was the wrong type of reform. I see allowing Assembly members to serve for 12 rather than six years as helping to improve a legislative body that has become totally controlled by banking, real estate and other corporate interests since term limits began.
Because most Californians pay little or no attention to the State Legislature, Assembly Democrats have paid no political price for their refusal to back strong anti-foreclosure laws or anything opposed by their conservative financial backers. We can blame Assembly Republicans for preventing tax increases through the state’s destructive 2/3 vote requirement, but only Democrats are to blame for the failure to pass progressive legislation – and to even not let many bills targeting banks or big real estate get out of committee …
… Expect a record percentage of absentee votes next week, which might lead to calls to make June contests vote by mail only. With not state initiatives and the top two candidates in most races facing inevitable runoffs, largely empty polling booths might not be a good use of state funds.
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Rick Orlov covers City Hall for the Daily News. Here’s his most recent on the upcoming election:
With the election nearing, there are a lot of nervous candidates out there facing a ton of unknowns.
In two races, Republican candidates are hoping the bitter campaigns being waged by Democrats will allow them to slip into the November runoff election.
Susan Shelley and Mark Reed in the new 30th Congressional District race are relying on that hope as Democratic Reps. Howard Berman and Brad Sherman duke it out for the right to represent the area. Their problem could be that Republican turnout is expected to be low with no competitive presidential contest in the election.
Similarly, in the 39th Assembly District, Los Angeles Councilman Richard Alarcon is in a close fight with Raul Bocanegra, a deputy to Assemblymen Felipe Fuentes.
Bocanegra has been helped by independent expenditure committees, who have spent more than $500,000 in the race, mostly through mail pieces.
Hoping to benefit from that disputed campaign are the top two Republican candidates, Omar Cuevas and businessman Ricardo Benitez.
Actually, the voting already has started among permanent absentee voters.
As of last week, according to political analyst Scott Lay who writes a daily briefing on state politics, there have been 12,148 ballots - 13 percent of the total registration - cast in the Berman-Sherman race. In the Alarcon-Bocanegra race, there have been 3,716 votes cast, about 10 percent of the total registered voters. (More from Rick Orlov here)
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Perhaps the most interesting … loose interpretation … ballot items are Props 28 and 29.
The Times says that 62% of the state voters favor 29. Just 49% favor 28. Check the rest of the Times story out here.
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Ready or not, Tuesday (June 5) is election time. If you hit the snooze button, hardly anyone will be upset.
If you feet hit the floor and you make it to a polling place, this web address can come in handy. It’s your one-stop move on the internet for everything PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY ELECTION. Who’s running, where to vote, who won? Keep it handy. www.lavote.net.
(Ken Draper is the editor of CityWatch. He can be reached at [email protected].) -cw
Tags: Election, California Primary, the June Election
CityWatch
Vol 10 Issue 44
Pub: June 1, 2012