The California primary election

[Brian]

I can't remember a less interesting statewide primary in my voting life.  Yet that won't prevent me from blabbing about it here.  The only real races are for Secretary of State, Los Angeles County Sheriff and state Controller, and I have a month to decide about them -- although I've been strongly leaning toward State Board of Equalization member Betty Yee for Controller since her speech at the state Democratic party convention about poverty and priorities, and how elected officials have failed Californians who are suffering the most.

The biggest surprise on my sample ballot was seeing that Adam Schiff is unopposed by any Republican.  Schiff has won every election after his first in 2000 with good margins in a Congressional district that has been redrawn twice, and he's raised $2 million already for this one.  Couldn't the GOP find anyone presentable to gather a few signatures to qualify for the ballot?  It wasn't that long ago that both parties would always run somebody, even in the safest districts, just in case the incumbent died or was caught with a dead girl or a live boy, as the old cliche went.

Two guys are taking on Schiff, and one of them will be on the ballot with him in November.  I thought I recognized Sal Genovese, the Democrat.  Sure enough, he ran against Schiff in the 2012 primary, coming in fifth with less than four percent of the vote.  He first ran for office in 1985, for mayor of Los Angeles.  The other candidate -- Steve Stokes, listed as Party Preference: None -- is also not new to lost causes.  He opposes the Patriot Act, torture, an NSA run amok and, as only a mortgage broker could, certain provisions of Dodd-Frank.  Stokes has a website:

www.stokes4congress.com/

[Sharon W]

For Glendale voters there is a special election for a City Council seat - the last 10 months of Rafi Manoukian's term - combined with the primary. Rafi was elected City Treasurer in April 2013 and outgoing councilmember and former mayor Frank Quintero was appointed to fill the seat until the next election. Whoever replaces Frank will be able to run as an incumbent in the regular April 2015 election for a full four year term. Candidates are Rick Barnes, Paula Devine, Vartan Gharpetian, Chahe Keuroghelian, and Mike Mohill. Paula is the only one who hasn't run before. I serve with her on the Commission on the Status of Women and think she is the best option.

[Brian]

Thanks for that great post, Sharon.  I'll be watching the special Glendale City Council election along with a few other interesting races, like the one to succeed Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, whose district stretches to include Lake View Terrace on the other side of Tujunga.

The most excitement on my ballot is the showdown for the opportunity to lose big or bigger to Governor Jerry Brown in November.  Neel Kashkari reminds me of the reasonable Republicans I remember from my youth -- now an endangered species in California and all but extinct in many regions of the U.S. -- making him the only kind of Republican who stands a chance of winning statewide office.  But many of the loudest people in that ever shrinking party love Assemblyman Tim Donnelly, who's always been on my radar because he's about as wacky as tea partiers get in Sacramento.  So far, that is.  Kashkari is spending his own Wall Street money on the campaign, while Donnelly has raised virtually nothing, so it would be revolutionary indeed if the man from Twin Peaks made it to the general election in a state this big.

Activist Cindy Sheehan is the official candidate of the Peace and Freedom Party, established in 1968, which proves that once you have the required percentage of registered voters, your party will remain on the ballot.  Every qualified party used to have a slot every November if they put up a candidate.  Sometimes, the Green Party nominee was my choice.  Sadly, the top-two primary system that started in 2012 has reduced the perennial Green Party to a seasonal fruit.  This primary, there's a boom crop in candidates with the new Party Preference:  None.  From what I've seen, most of them were formerly registered Republicans.

[Brian]

I really like Betty Yee for Controller.

As mentioned previously, I've been more fascinated by races that are not on my ballot, like the Supervisor election with three excellent and well funded candidates, as well as the race to replace Congressman Henry Waxman.  That's because there's nobody running who needs my vote to win who's also simply wonderful, except for Betty Yee.  In his piece last March, John Hrabe gives you a slice of why:

calwatchdog.com/2014/03/10/state-convention-democrat-betty-yee-calls-out-hypocrisy-within-her-own-party/

Back in the 1980's, I realized that a ballot was not an SAT test, where filling in an oval for every question was better than not -- unless I knew enough about a candidate, it was better to skip offices like Superior Court judge.  Nobody's endorsement is good enough for me, unless it's from a member of Montrose Peace Vigil -- please feel free to post your endorsements for anyone here.  I care who becomes the Los Angeles County Assessor since I deal with that office at my job, but I may wait for the November runoff to make a choice.  Only two days until the primary, and I have yet to pick a candidate for Sheriff, though I'm leaning strongly toward Todd Rogers.

I've been posting election reports on this message board since it started in October 2008, and never have we received so few mailers.  With just one postal day remaining, here's the count at the Anni and Brian household:  four slates from who-knows-who (I miss the Waxman-Berman machine, which always told me what the Democratic Party's labor money thought was best), one slate from the old reliable and fairly progressive Democratic Party of the San Fernando Valley, a big postcard from the California Democratic Party supporting Proposition 42, one each for Sheriff candidates Jim McDonnell, James Hellmold and Todd Rogers, and just four from the Postal Service champion of both 2012 elections, Assemblyman Raul Bocanegra.

[Brian]

I doubt that the Controller's race will be settled before I have to go to sleep, so I'll be clicking on the Secretary of State's website for that and other state and federal offices in the morning -- and perhaps for days to come:

vote.sos.ca.gov/

It's been a scary count for Controller, with two Republicans leading and edging out Democrats Betty Yee and John Perez, a nightmare scenario for November if ever there was one, thanks to this top-two jungle primary that I voted against.  And in the race to replace Buck McKeon in my old 25th Congressional District, two Republicans seem headed to the general election, an utterly dismal showing by the well funded Democrat Lee Rogers, who ran well against Buck in 2012.  Makes me glad I didn't give him any more money this time.

Closer to home, there's good news.  On the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder's pre-millennium website, I scroll down the 1980's style ASCII printout and see that Sheila Kuehl is leading Bobby Shriver in the Supervisor's election, promising an excellent contest based on ideas to improve this county.  In the 33rd Congressional District, Ted Lieu still leads Wendy Greuel for the second spot with less than half the votes counted -- I like Ted, but either way, a Democrat will succeed Henry Waxman.  I was surprised at how poorly Marianne Williamson did.

Paula Devine tops the field in the special Glendale City Council race. The guy who had the most signs is dead last.

[Brian]

When I finally went to bed in the wee hours of election night, state Controller candidate Betty Yee was behind two Republicans -- count 'em, two! -- and fellow Democrat John Perez.  Every few days since, I check the Secretary of State's website for the latest tally, then I click on the Unprocessed Ballots Report, which lists the absentees and the provisionals by county.  The Republican with no money from the northern reaches of California, where ballots are always tallied immediately, has faded into fourth place.  The Republican mayor of Fresno has maintained her lead with 24.8 percent of the vote.  Right now, it's safe to say that Betty Yee will be her opponent in November.

As of June 20, Yee leads Perez by 659 votes.  Each of them has 21.7 percent statewide.  Only 8878 votes remain uncounted, and 5263 of those are absentee ballots in Lake County, where voters know her.  So the Secretary of State will probably certify Yee unless she decides that a recount is necessary.  If not, Perez' people have enough money to pay for a recount if he thinks he has a chance to prevail.

This might be the Republican Party's only chance to elect a statewide official since 2006.  They would much rather run against Perez than Yee, who has no voting record on anything controversial as a member of the state Board of Equalization.

[Brian]

May 5, 2014 23:18:36 GMT -8 Brian said:

I can't remember a less interesting statewide primary in my voting life.

Now I can't remember a more interesting post-election.  The Controller's race is shaping up to be California's version of Bush v. Gore in Florida in 2000 -- a selective state recount that became a court case.

California has not had a recount for a statewide office in modern political history.  John Perez apparently has enough money left over from his primary campaign, or third party donors are stepping up, to start a process that exposes how messed up our election laws are.  For instance, he's chosen precincts in East L.A. to hand count, forking over the cost to the Registrar each day.  If he likes how that's going, he can halt the hand count and pay for a machine count of the rest of the Los Angeles County ballots.  After that, Betty Yee would be precluded from asking for a hand recount of Chinese-American precincts only a couple of miles from those Perez chose.

What if Yee doesn't have the money or the backers to play Perez' game in her counties?  And should she?  This recount could be a lot wackier than the article on the front page of Friday's Los Angeles Times suggests.  A blogger in Orange County has a utopian solution addressing the basic fairness and Constitutional problems, alongside some excellent research:

www.orangejuiceblog.com/2014/07/ca-dems-count-306k-votes-at-once-in-ten-full-counties-plus-the-worst-perez-recount-demand-problem/