Voters in California may get a chance to remake the state’s open primary system in two years.
Political consultant Steve Maviglio filed an application Friday with state officials that seeks to alter California’s voting system by reverting to a traditional primary. Under the proposal, the top candidates from each party would advance to the general election in November.
The current system allows the top two candidates, regardless of party, to move on to the runoff. That has led to instances in which two Democrats or two Republicans have faced off in the general election.
The state’s gubernatorial election, for example, has prompted concern that two Republicans could shut out the Democratic candidates. Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco and former Fox News commentator Steve Hilton have polled high in various surveys and are facing a large field of Democrats.
Democratic voters vastly outnumber Republicans in California, yet some political consultants said they feared there were so many Democrats running that voters wouldn’t coalesce around one candidate and the field would be split. Those fears have eased somewhat in recent months as some Democratic candidates advance from the pack.
The state’s top-two primary system has been in place since California voters passed Proposition 14 in 2010. The goal was to help end partisan gridlock in Sacramento and force candidates in primaries to appeal to a wider range of voters, rather than just those in their own party.
Proposition 14, as well as the state’s once-a-decade redistricting process, has led to some dramatic races, including the 2012 face-off between Democratic Reps. Brad Sherman and Howard Berman for a congressional seat in Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley. Amid aspersions and attack ads, the pair nearly came to blows at a community debate.
Maviglio described the ballot measure as a simple repeal of Proposition 14, and said he was inspired by the governor’s race.
“It was extremely scary to envision the November ballot for governor with Republicans on it,” Maviglio said.
The New York Times first reported on the ballot measure proposal.
A news release from Maviglio states that the proposed repeal of Prop. 14 “is fueled by concerns that California’s primaries are disenfranchising a majority of California voters by limiting choice to candidates from one party.”
A website for the effort includes criticisms of the current primary system by Democratic Party Chair Rusty Hicks and Ron Nehring, former chairman of the California Republican Party.
Maviglio’s ballot initiative proposes to appear on the 2028 ballot and take effect in 2030.
Talk of changing Proposition 14 has been swirling in Sacramento for months.
Secretary of State Shirley Weber told reporters at an unrelated news conference last week that she had voted years ago against Proposition 14. She questioned whether it had actually succeeded in creating more diversity.
“I did not like the open primary,” Weber said. “I didn’t think it would solve any problems. They had a list of problems it would solve, and none of those have been solved.”
John Seymour was the rare politician who didn’t mind harming his career if it meant doing right by his constituents.
As the newly elected mayor of Anaheim in 1978, he angered the city’s Police Department by suggesting the creation of a citizens oversight commission after residents complained that officers regularly harassed and beat them.
The lifelong Republican upset his party’s conservative base in the 1980s as a state senator, when he announced his support for abortion rights and opposition to offshore drilling.
“I’m not going to always be right,” Seymour told reporters in 1990. “Therefore, to expect one to never change a position on an issue … is too much to ask.”
“John was a guy who had great courage, he had great goodwill and a damn good mind,” Wilson, who was mayor of San Diego when he first met Seymour in the 1970s, said Monday. “He not only enjoyed a little combat, he was willing to give the time necessary for it.”
Seymour died on April 18 at his home in Carlsbad. He was 88, and the cause was Alzheimer’s disease, according to his son John.
As his party swung to the right, the moderate Seymour had no problem with becoming a political afterthought.
Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas, center, poses with senators on Capitol Hill in 1991. With Thomas, from left to right, are Sens. John Seymour (R-Calif.), Larry Craig (R-Idaho), Bob Dole (R-Kan.), Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), Connie Mack (R-Fla.) and Dan Coats (R-Ind.), right front.
(John Duricka / Associated Press)
“If somewhere in a footnote, history should record my public service, I would hope that they record me as one who cared more for people than for policy, one who was a no-nonsense guy who worked hard for those in need of help, but who wasn’t hesitant to knock heads of bureaucrats in order to get things done,” he told supporters at the kickoff to his Senate campaign in 1992.
Born in Chicago, Seymour settled in Southern California in the 1960s after a stint in the Marine Corps. The UCLA graduate started a real estate business in Orange County as the region transformed from farmland to suburbia. After four years on the Anaheim City Council, he became mayor in 1978.
He quickly established the pragmatic persona that would enable his rise in California politics.
Months after Seymour’s mayoral win, Anaheim police officers stormed a Latino neighborhood and beat up dozens of people in what became known as the Little People’s Park riots. At community meetings, Seymour admitted his shock at learning about the poor relations between the police and many residents.
The mayor described his approach as: “Don’t sweep it under the rug; don’t look the other way. Admit that we have a problem.”
At the same time, Seymour was negotiating with the Los Angeles Rams to move from the Coliseum to Orange County. While other O.C. officials proposed a new stadium, he convinced the Anaheim City Council to convert Angel Stadium into a multipurpose venue that he argued would create “the greatest opportunity for Anaheim since Disneyland and the California Angels.”
The Rams moved to the city in 1980. Two years later, Seymour was off to Sacramento as a state senator.
He became head of the Republican Senate caucus in his first year and bucked the stereotype of an Orange County GOP firebrand by largely eschewing culture war issues in favor of matters like higher pay for teachers and government support for poor parents that sometimes aligned him with Democrats. That made him few friends in his own party, with many finding his personal ambition grating — he once wrote a letter to then-Gov. George Deukmejian asking that he be appointed state treasurer — and a distraction from getting more of their own elected to Sacramento.
Seymour made no apologies for selling himself as a public servant while simultaneously seeking more power.
“I like to do things,” Seymour told The Times in 1987. “I’ve been a doer all my life. I don’t like to sit around sucking my thumb. I like to resolve problems.”
That year, conservative opponents deposed him as caucus chair. They snickered two years later when he announced that while he personally opposed abortion, he now supported a woman’s right to choose.
Sen. John Seymour in 1991.
(Don Boomer / For The Times)
The impetus was a U.S. Supreme Court decision that gave states more leeway to regulate abortion. Since California had legalized the procedure decades earlier, Seymour reasoned that he should respect women’s choices. He spoke with people who were for and against abortion, and with his own family, before going public with his change of heart.
Naysayers accused the state senator of trying to pick up female voters as he was campaigning for the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor against fellow Orange County legislator Marian Bergeson, who opposed abortion. The charge was bogus, according to longtime Seymour campaign advisor Eileen Padberg.
“He didn’t get talked into it — he was an effing Marine,” she said. “He had to be convinced in anything before making a decision. In my career representing hundreds of candidates, John was one of very few who consistently would say about their stances, ‘This is going to kill me, but I gotta do it.’”
Seymour lost the primary to Bergeson. Six months later, he was once again one of the most powerful Republicans in the state when he took the Senate seat Wilson had just vacated to become governor.
Seymour’s son John recalled his father getting the call from Wilson while the family was vacationing in Shasta.
“Dad knew that it was a heavy, weighted responsibility, and that it would affect the family,” John said. “But we kids said, ‘You should do this, if it makes you happy.’”
Seymour became the second Anaheim Republican to serve in the position, after Thomas Kuchel in the 1950s and 1960s.
Wilson told The Times that he originally wanted to keep his friend in Sacramento to help push through his agenda. But the governor figured he needed a trusted voice in Washington even more.
“You’re looking for people who are not only friends but are capable and experienced and understand what’s necessary,” Wilson said. “And I don’t think I was doing him a great favor, because it was a tough time for the state.”
California was weathering its worst recession in decades and a punishing drought. The state’s vaunted defense industry was shedding tens of thousands of jobs with the closure of military bases after the end of the Cold War.
The daunting task didn’t faze Seymour.
“I mean, you gotta be good to succeed in the private sector,” he told The Times in 1992. “But if you’re gonna succeed in getting things done in the public sector, you gotta be better than that! That’s the challenge!”
Seymour spent most of his short time in the Senate in triage mode. He lobbied especially hard for California’s real estate industry, calling himself the “realtors’ senator.” But the diminutive man’s plainspoken demeanor failed to gain traction with California voters — a 1991 Times profile deemed him “the unknown senator.” And his one moment in the national spotlight became fodder for opponents.
This time, Seymour was accused of seeking photo opportunities a month before his primary election and being tone-deaf to the riot’s root causes by airing television ads stating, “We can’t be tough enough on lawbreakers.” White House aides ridiculed him in the press as the “Velcro senator.” His Republican opponent, Orange County Rep. William Dannemeyer, labeled him “Senator Flip Flop.”
Seymour easily beat Dannemeyer, then faced Democrat Dianne Feinstein, the former San Francisco mayor whose narrow loss to Wilson in the governor’s race had earned her widespread name recognition. He received only 38% of the vote as Feinstein rode a Democratic wave that swept Bill Clinton into the White House and a record number of women into the U.S. Senate, including Barbara Boxer in California.
California Department of Finance spokesperson H.D. Palmer worked for Seymour at the time and saw his “regular guy” boss give “one of the kindest and most gracious concession speeches I’ve ever heard.”
“Then he went down to O.C. to be with his supporters,” Palmer said. “He was true to his roots.”
Wilson soon appointed Seymour to head the California Housing Finance Agency, which helps first-time home buyers access low-rate loans. He stayed in that role for two years before becoming chief executive of the Southern California Housing Development Corp. The Inland Empire nonprofit, which managed and built affordable housing complexes, is now known as National Community Renaissance, or National CORE.
John, who is the nonprofit’s vice president of acquisitions, said his father had no regrets about leaving politics behind because “housing was his passion. He saw it as a platform for people to grow. He would say, ‘Once you’re housed, you have a big, beautiful horizon to do anything.’”
Seymour did lean on his past to urge skeptical cities and counties to allow affordable housing projects, challenging them to be like him: do the right thing regardless of political cost.
“If in fact you’re going to try to change an environment in which a mayor or city council will do what they know in their hearts is right, you need to offset the political blow,” he said at a housing conference in Cathedral City in 2002. “I challenge you to form a coalition.”
Seymour is survived by his wife of 54 years, Judy; children John, Shad, Jeffrey, Barrett, Lisa Houser and Sarena Talbert; nine grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.
Xavier Becerra needed to land a knockout punch, even more so than the five other candidates for California governor he was facing at Wednesday night’s debate.
Instead, he fired off some slaps.
He needed to roar about his many accomplishments in his 35-year career in Sacramento and Washington, to distinguish himself from the relative political neophytes around him.
Instead, Becerra recited his resume with the vigor of someone rattling off his LinkedIn page.
Instead, he offered the oratory equivalent of a pat on the shoulder.
No candidate had more at stake that night than Becerra, who went from an afterthought to a contender after Eric Swalwell dropped out and resigned his congressional seat over sexual assault allegations.
Five weeks ago, Becerra and other candidates of color were protesting their exclusion from a USC debate because they were all polling so low. Now, the 68-year-old has a chance to become California’s first Latino governor.
This possibility seems to have uncorked California’s silent majority — the rancho libertarians turned off by hard-right politics but also the wokoso politics they feel have left them behind. The people who yearn for an unglamorous, competent leader after eight years of all-about-me Gavin Newsom and a decade of Donald Trump.
Becerra’s campaign, once as rudderless as a leaf in a river in a race so chaotic for Democrats that many feared two Republicans would win on June 2 and face each other in the general election, suddenly latched onto a palpable wave.
At the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books last weekend, I saw people sporting Becerra campaign buttons who had just come from a rally that was expected to draw a few hundred but instead had over 2,000 RSVPs. On social media, friends who had never especially cared for state politics suddenly declared they were for Becerra and fought off their more lefty pals who think he’s a Latino Ned Flanders not up for this fraught moment.
Unglamorous and competent are Becerra’s middle names, and they were on display at the debate — for better and mostly worse. This was his chance to show both his new followers and undecided voters that they could trust him as California’s next governor.
But where he needed to be limber like a prizefighter, the former California attorney general was as tightly wound as a Rolex.
While the other candidates pressed their palms against the podiums, ready to pounce on every question, Becerra clasped his hands like an altar boy. When he did gesture, his movements never went further than the span of his shoulders.
As the others grinned and grimaced at their rivals’ responses, Becerra was as stone-faced as Buster Keaton. He stumbled more than he should have — how could someone in his position mistake Iraq for Iran when criticizing Trump’s Middle East quagmire? — and rarely seemed at ease, as if the weight of the moment and the good luck of his surge had suddenly hit him at the worst possible time.
Candidates in California’s gubernatorial race, from left, Matt Mahan, Xavier Becerra, Chad Bianco, and Steve Hilton look on during a debate Wednesday, April 22, 2026, in San Francisco.
(Jason Henry / Associated Press)
Becerra’s supporters say a level-headed leader is what California needs. But voters almost never go for what they need — they pick what they want. And California wants someone who’s loud, or at least louder than Becerra. There’s a reason why strident partisans like Republicans Chad Bianco and Steve Hilton and progressives Tom Steyer and Katie Porter have consistently placed high in the polls, while moderates like Becerra, his frenemy Antonio Villaraigosa and San Jose mayor Matt Mahan have lagged.
The weird thing is that Becerra does know how to brawl. Wallflowers don’t go from a working class Mexican immigrant family to Stanford Law School. Wimps don’t survive the ruthlessness of Eastside politics as an outsider to become a congressmember at just 34. Cowards don’t file over 100 lawsuits against the Trump administration as California’s top prosecutor or tackle the coronavirus pandemic as President Biden’s health secretary.
I’ve only encountered the Sacramento native a few times but always came away impressed. In small crowds, he makes people laugh and tear up. He’s quick with ripostes, righteous in off-the-cuff remarks and has a do-gooder aura that never comes off as sanctimonious.
We saw hints of that Becerra at the debate. To Hilton, he quipped, “You can be a talking head and not worry about the consequences of what you do” after the former Fox News host babbled on about how one-party ruled had failed California.
After Porter accused him of not offering hard numbers for his economic plans, Becerra responded that he has balanced federal budgets larger than California’s. “It’s easy to say you haven’t done this; it’s easier to prove that you actually have,” he concluded.
But after Becerra described the evils of racial profiling by law enforcement and Bianco, the sheriff of Riverside County, ranted that California politicians need to stop thinking so much about race, it was Porter who responded with a verbal haymaker as Becerra silently looked on.
You don’t fight as a choirboy in a battle royale. Becerra wasn’t bad at the debate but he also wasn’t great — and that won’t win this race.
Voters want someone who’ll do the job, yes — especially if it comes with no drama. They also want to elect someone they think is a human, not a joyless bureaucrat. So how did Becerra respond to the debate’s last question about what was the last series you’ve streamed?
Becerra flashed his biggest smile of the night. It was such a softball query that even a kindergartener could have slammed it à la Shohei Ohtani.
“I wish I could tell you I had time to watch streaming shows,” he replied.
Dude. We’re all overworked, but everyone I know unwinds by watching mindless drivel (my current obsession is “Vanderpump Villa”). We all need to relax, even for a moment. As my dad says when he sees me filing one columna after another and urges me to take a break, “El trabajo nunca se acaba pero uno sí se acaba.”
Work never ends, but people do.
Xavier, you know you’re on the wrong side of California when the only other candidate with a similar answer was Bianco, who said he doesn’t watch television at all.
Being careful has served you well, but this is the greatest opportunity of your life. You don’t have to suddenly become a flamethrower, but some sparks would help. It’s six weeks until the primary, so time to throw down — channel your inner cholo and go get what should be yours.
SACRAMENTO — Before it all came crashing down, Eric Swalwell appeared on the cusp of rising to the top of the Democratic field in the California governor’s race.
Swalwell had just announced a statewide tour and aired his first ad. The former prosecutor and Dublin city councilman launched his campaign on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” in November, a comfortable setting for a politician who’d built a national reputation by appearing on cable news shows to attack President Trump.
Influential forces in Sacramento had begun coalescing behind the then-Bay Area congressman, including some consultants and advisors close to Gov. Gavin Newsom. Newsom hasn’t endorsed, but his associates’ involvement lent credibility to Swalwell.
Swalwell’s campaign quickly collapsed with the explosive allegations that he sexually assaulted a former staffer and had acted inappropriately with other women who were just beginning political careers. Swalwell denies the allegations but dropped out of the race for governor and resigned his seat in the House.
The whiplash over Swalwell’s rapid rise and fall has Democratic leaders facing questions about whether they had a blind spot about his alleged behavior.
His onetime allies in Congress are being asked whether they knew about his conduct, which has been described as an open secret on Capitol Hill. Unions who backed Swalwell have fled, and political consultants are returning donations.
Lorena Gonzalez, president of the California Federation of Labor Unions, speaks to Kaiser Permanente nurses and healthcare workers at the Kaiser Permanente Zion Medical Center in San Diego on Jan. 26.
(K.C. Alfred / San Diego Union-Tribune via Getty Images)
California Federation of Labor Unions President Lorena Gonzalez, whose group endorsed Swalwell and three others in the race, said she confronted Swalwell more than a month ago after hearing rumors about womanizing and illicit photos.
“He’s a liar,” Gonzalez said. “He’s just a very skillful politician who did not tell the truth even when asked directly.”
Though he was little known in much of California, Swalwell, 45, was a youthful and fresh face in a field of candidates, many of them veteran politicians, when he entered the contest.
A little more than a week ago, his campaign was on an upward trajectory. His first statewide ad emphasized his hometown roots and concerns faced by Californians, including rising costs at his favorite doughnut shop in his hometown of Dublin. He rolled out new endorsements from state and federal elected officials almost daily.
Former and current advisors close to Newsom were also helping Swalwell’s campaign, multiple sources told The Times. Others associated with the governor are also helping rival candidates.
“He’s a liar. He’s just a very skillful politician who did not tell the truth, even when asked directly.”
— California Labor Federation president Lorena Gonzalez
Other Democrats in the race said the warnings about Swalwell should have been investigated more thoroughly by the powerful California politicians and interest groups that backed him.
Antonio Villaraigosa, the former mayor of Los Angeles, called him a “flash in the pan” — someone who lacked substance.
“People thought just because he was popular on TV that maybe he had been vetted,” Villaraigosa said. “He had not been vetted.”
Gubernatorial candidates Katie Porter and Antonio Villaraigosa share a moment while participating in a candidate forum in Los Angeles on Jan. 10.
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
Swalwell’s entrance into the race last fall came at a time when elected officials and leaders of powerful interest groups in Sacramento were unimpressed by the field, particularly after big-name Democrats including former Vice President Kamala Harris, Sen. Alex Padilla and state Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta had passed on running.
Steven Maviglio, a Sacramento-based Democratic consultant, said there was pressure to find the “perfect candidate” for the state’s most powerful office.
“Democrats are looking for a fighter against Trump, and he fit the bill,” Maviglio said. “That was enough for most people.”
As with most members of California’s congressional delegation, Swalwell was an unfamiliar figure to many Californians living outside his Alameda County district, even though he had a lighthearted, robust presence on social media.
He’d never held statewide office when he was elected to Congress after a career that included serving on the Dublin City Council and working as a criminal prosecutor for Alameda County.
But he appeared to be close to former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), who selected him to be an impeachment manager for the case against President Trump in 2021.
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) addresses the crowd at the California Democratic Party State Convention in San Francisco on Feb. 21, 2026.
(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)
At a forum in Washington this week, Rep. Pelosi rejected suggestions that Democrats looked past the accusations.
“None whatsoever,” she said, when asked what allegations she’d heard about.
Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who previously worked alongside Swalwell on the House Judiciary Committee and endorsed him, said on MS NOW that he felt betrayed and “sickened” by the allegations.
“My paramount feeling is that I’m grateful these women came forward,” Schiff said. “I’m grateful that they did so when they did — it prevented our state from making a potentially terrible mistake.”
Sara Azari, an attorney for Swalwell, said in a statement that he denies all of the allegations of sexual misconduct and assault and will pursue “every legal remedy” against those making the claims.
“These accusations are false, fabricated and deeply offensive — a calculated and transparent political hit job designed to destroy the reputation of a man who has spent twenty years in public service,” Azari said.
Attorney Lisa Bloom reaches toward a photo at a news conference where Lonna Drewes, left, is seen with former Rep. Eric Swalwell, at a news briefing in Beverly Hills on Tuesday. Drewes detailed a 2018 encounter in which she claimed Swalwell drugged and sexually assaulted her after offering professional mentorship.
(Myung J Chun/Los Angeles Times)
On Tuesday, Lonna Drewes accused Swalwell of drugging and raping her in 2018 while she worked as a model, an allegation now being investigated by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.
Azari, in an interview on NewsNation, said of Drewes’ allegation: “Two adults consenting, which is our position is, is not against the law.”
California Democratic Party Chairman Rusty Hicks declined to answer questions this week about whether the scandal hurts the party’s credibility, saying only that the allegations are “clear for voters: [Swalwell] is not a suitable choice.”
In an interview with The Times, Hicks said the party relies on delegates to vet candidates before endorsement votes at the party convention. While no gubernatorial candidate reached the necessary level of support to earn the endorsement at the February gathering,Swalwell had the largest share with 24%.
Gonzalez, of the labor federation, said she called Swalwell in the first week of March after being contacted by several people about his sexually inappropriate behavior.
She described the awkward conversation — and his immediate denials. None of it was true, he said. If there was anything sordid to find in his past, it would have been dug up by Trump and conservatives who went after him when he was helping to try and impeach the president, he said.
At the union group’s endorsement meeting, members grilled Swalwell about several issues, including his claimed residency in Livermore, his involvement with a nonunion film production, and his ability to manage his own finances.
The issue of inappropriate sexual behavior never came up at the endorsement, Gonzalez said.
“We were in a position, like so many, of trying to figure out who this guy was with all these red flags, but being told by a lot of surrogates that they were his choice — whether it’s people in Congress or folks who knew him from home,” Gonzalez said.
Other institutional players also threw in their support. The California Medical Assn. endorsed Swalwell early in February. The group represents more than 50,000 physicians in the state and spends heavily in elections.
“It definitely was a nod that that’s where the establishment should head,” Maviglio said.
California Medical Assn. spokesperson Erin Mellon said the group met with candidates and backed Swalwell “based on the information available to us” at the time.
Behind the scenes, Swalwell was courting attention. He began hanging out at the Grange, a favorite hotel bar in Sacramento for state lawmakers and lobbyists, trying to make connections, according to a source who ran into him there.
Months earlier, he sent a text to a California political consultant with questions about who should help his campaign. He asked about the well-known firm of Bearstar Strategies, according to the text exchange, which was viewed by The Times.
Swalwell texted, “would you recommend having our IE go to them?” to the consultant, a reference to an “independent expenditure,” which is an outside committee that raises money in support of candidates but is barred from coordinating with their campaigns.
Bearstar Strategies ultimately launched an independent committee to support Swalwell, which in recent weeks raised more than $7 million from political action committees for the California Medical Assn., DaVita and other medical industry groups, as well as Uber.
Antonio Villaraigosa, left, shakes hands with Tom Steyer during a gubernatorial candidate forum in Sacramento on April 14, 2026.
(Godofredo A. Vásquez / Associated Press)
Bearstar Strategies, whose members have long advised Newsom, also provides media consultants for a committee running attack advertisements against environmentalist Tom Steyer, another candidate in the race. Swalwell would have benefited from the committee’s spending.
Jim DeBoo, a consultant and Newsom’s former chief of staff, is helping on the anti-Steyer committee, according to multiple sources, which has raised $14 million from real estate agents’ and utility industry groups. DeBoo didn’t respond to a request for comment, and a representative for Bearstar declined a request for an interview.
No one has claimed that any of those consultants or individuals knew about Swalwell’s alleged behavior. Bearstar Strategies said in a statement last week that it had suspended all activity on Swalwell’s independent expenditure.
Jamie Court, president of the nonprofit Consumer Watchdog, said institutional groups backed Swalwell because they thought he could win and they wanted to maintain the status quo in Sacramento.
The deep cuts proposed in Gov. Pete Wilson’s new state budget surely would hurt Los Angeles and Orange counties. That’s because both the Republican governor and some legislative Democrats want to balance Sacramento’s budget by taking state funds from the counties. The outlook is especially grim for large counties. There must be a better way.
THE CUTS: Although L.A. County has only about a third of the state’s population, it would endure more than half of the total cuts in statewide county funding that Wilson is proposing, according to Chief Administrative Officer Sally R. Reed. Altogether, L.A. County would lose $362 million in health care funds and property taxes.
Under the proposed diversion of property taxes, Los Angeles and 11 other counties would lose $500 million; Los Angeles would be hit with a reduction of more than $100 million.
A Senate-Assembly conference committee is offering an alternative budget plan, but it does not offer much relief for the counties. In fact, the alternative plan adds a new headache for counties–a proposed cut of $32 million in annual subsidies to county probation camps. The result would be a Los Angeles cutback of as much as $19 million.
Until his latest budget revisions, Wilson largely had spared counties of any further cuts in state funds. This new round of proposed reductions in state funding could not come at a worst time. Los Angeles County–already reeling from budget problems caused in part by previous state cutbacks–has yet to agree on a new county budget. The proposed state cuts make this task a torture.
Orange County, too, would suffer from the Democratic proposal to end the annual subsidies to the county probation camps. But Orange County’s loss of funds due to the shift of local property tax revenues would, it is hoped, be partially offset by projected increases in interest earnings on county investments.
THE COUNTERATTACK: Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sylmar) has scheduled an emergency meeting Monday in Sacramento with Los Angeles County representatives, legislators, the Department of Finance and others to review the magnitude of the proposed reductions in state funding to counties. The participants will try to identify alternatives to the proposed county budget cuts or find ways to raise revenue to avoid the reductions.
The emergency meeting should put all plausible options on the table. There’s been some talk in Sacramento of even a temporary salary cut for all public employees, legislators included.
Los Angeles County is still grappling with the aftereffects of the defense downsizing, recession and the Northridge earthquake. With the recent defeat of state bonds to finance earthquake repair, residential rebuilding efforts have already suffered one major setback. Trying to balance Sacramento’s budget on the backs of counties exacts an unfair toll on Los Angeles and California’s other densely populated areas, and that cannot be good for the future economic life of this state. All Assembly and state Senate members who care about their communities must rally around the counties.
