Independent Candidates Helped by Prop. 14

CAPITOL OFFENSES Brendan Huffman On Tuesday, I plan to vote for Prop. 14, which would result in the top two vote getters from the primary elections on the general election ballot even if they are from the same party. Under the current system, primary voters can only cast ballots for candidates registered in the same party as themselves. Because of strategically drawn legislative boundaries that protect incumbents and their political parties, primary election voters are routinely left with choosing between a gaggle of candidates who compete with each other to out-pander each other for the most loyal and extreme voters of their parties. My first reason for supporting Prop. 14 is on principal. If not all voters are allowed to participate in elections, the taxpayers should not have to pay for those elections. My second reason is more practical. Like most Californians, I am disappointed in the lack of leadership in Sacramento and Washington, D.C., especially when it comes to job creation and fiscal management. After all, we’re experiencing a prolonged unemployment rate of double-digit figures statewide along with another budget deficit of $20 billion. In some parts of California, unemployment is at 20 percent, and some cities are going bankrupt. So reasonable people would expect their lawmakers to focus creating jobs and fixing the budget mess, right? Legislative scorecard Let’s take a look at the bills that survived the recent month through the legislative policy committee process. Generally speaking, bills that contribute to California’s poor business climate moved forward while those that sought to make our business climate more competitive and in the process create new jobs and tax revenues failed passage. Does California need to be more competitive with neighboring states and allow for some projects to move forward without duplicative environmental regulations? Does California need more laws that give employees more bereavement time off and prohibit them from asking for four-day ten-hour workweeks instead of the eight hour workday? If regular people were in charge of public policy, we’d probably agree on some projects that should begin construction now and put people back to work. We’d also probably agree that some people, likely working parents, should be able to seek approval from their employers to work a shorter workweek so they’d be able to spend more time at home and less time commuting. I doubt our political affiliations would ever come up in deliberations about such policies. My guess is that we would all be interested in one goal, which is to help as many people as possible find work. But we’re not in charge, and therein lies the problem. Since most of us do not subscribe to the ideological extremes of our parties, true problem solvers have a hard time getting nominated by their parties for legislative offices. Instead, we typically nominate the most hardened ideologues whom have removed words like compromise and consensus from their vocabularies. More often than not, Prop. 14 would reward candidates who have demonstrated some degree of independence and a desire to work well with others. (As a parent, teachers tell me that the plays well with others comment on kids report cards is one of the most important qualities for character development; why don’t we grade lawmakers the same way?). Pandering to the extremes If candidates in crowded primary elections pander too much to one extreme, they run the risk of alienating a larger bloc of voters in November when it’s just a one-on-one match up. Under the current system, candidates are usually rewarded for pandering to the extremes instead of pandering to represent the needs of his or her legislative district. This explains why the terms pension reform and cut taxes are never uttered by Democratic candidates running in primaries, and Republican candidates never use terms like protect open space and pay teachers more. Most Californians are distressed by the ongoing fiscal meltdown in Sacramento, which is largely caused by unsustainable spending and a lack of consensus on what exactly the government’s priorities are. There are many causes for the overly partisan tone in politics and the unwillingness of too many of our officeholders to work together. To be clear, Prop. 14 is not a cure-all, but it will bring a refreshing approach to politics as usual where only those candidates pandering to the far right and left wings of our electorate have realistic shots of winning on Election Day. Brendan Huffman is the owner of Huffman Public Affairs, a Valley-based firm specializing in public policy development, issue advocacy and association management. He is also the co-host of Off The Presses, an Internet radio public affairs program streaming live every Thursday at 10 a.m. on LATalkRadio.com.