SACRAMENTO — Memo to Democrats and independents: Just because an idea emanates from a Republican, doesn’t mean it necessarily stinks. Here are two examples.
Legislators wearing red jerseys have proposed to:
- Make the California secretary of state officially nonpartisan. Rip off the seemingly inevitable blue jersey and replace it with a neutral referee’s garb.
- Similarly, seize the job of writing official ballot proposition titles and summaries from the partisan attorney general and hand it to the nonpartisan, universally trusted Legislative Analyst‘s Office.
Both ideas, of course, were dead on arrival when introduced in the Democratic-dominated state Legislature, which is about to wrap up a two-year session.
But both make good government sense and promote democracy, which the Democratic Party claims it’s fighting for against the President Trump-led GOP.
The secretary of state is the chief overseer of California elections. That office holder, regardless of party, has never favored one side over the other in balloting, although many GOP politicians have been parroting Pied Piper Trump’s nonsense about election rigging.
California Republicans pushing to neutralize the office argue that Democratic incumbent Shirley Weber has taken public policy positions that echo her party’s stands. Shock! This is America. She has a right — a democratic duty — to take any position vocally that she desires.
But it’s logical for the secretary of state to officially operate as a political nonpartisan — as does the state superintendent of public instruction and all county voter registrars, who actually administer the elections and count votes.
“It’s time to take the secretary of state out of the partisan mix,” says former Orange County Assemblyman Don Wagner, who is Weber’s underdog Republican opponent in the November election.
“The secretary should be calling balls and strikes as opposed to being on the red team or a blue team.”
Realistically, no red team member is likely to win any statewide office in California for the foreseeable future, given that Democratic voters outnumber Republicans by nearly 2 to 1 and Trump is widely detested in this state.
“Sometimes Trump does make it harder in California for Republicans,” Wagner acknowledges.
The legislation to make the secretary of state nonpartisan was a proposed California constitutional amendment, introduced by Republican Assemblymembers Natasha Johnson of Lake Elsinore and Josh Hoover of Folsom.
But it was submitted so late in the legislative session that there was no chance of it ever receiving a committee hearing. It didn’t really matter anyway. Even if it had been introduced on Jan. 1, Democrats would have instinctively tossed it in the trash.
They’re never going to make it remotely possible for a Republican to win this office any time soon.
The measure’s authors say their proposal would help “restore Californians’ trust in the electoral system.”
Actually, the only Californians who largely distrust the electoral system are Republicans. And the best way to fix that is for Trump to shut up and stop telling lies about stolen elections and hordes of undocumented immigrants voting illegally.
A recent poll by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies found that 88% of Democrats and 64% of independents have confidence in California’s election system. But 76% of Republicans do not — a sign of our polarized times.
Of the two Republican proposals, the most significant is the one stripping the attorney general of the power to write titles and summaries of ballot measures.
Often, the only thing many voters know about a proposition is what they’re told in the title. They aren’t inclined to wade through neutral details in the official state Voter Information Guide.
The legislative analyst is a political noncombatant appointed by the Legislature and basically agreed to by both sides. The highly respected policy wonk already writes the proposition analyses included in the voter guide. Why not also the measures’ titles?
Increasingly in recent years under Democrats, including projected next governor Xavier Becerra, the attorney general has been dishing out party propaganda in official proposition titles.
State law requires the attorney general to provide an “impartial statement of the purpose of the measure” in language unlikely “to create prejudice for or against” the proposal.
But often on hotly contested measures, the language reads like talking points for the blue side.
The latest example is Proposition 39, a Republican proposal requiring Californians to show identification when voting. Election officials also would have to verify that registered voters are U.S. citizens.
I’m no fan of that measure. It overreaches, is unnecessary, could suppress voting and is merely a tool to drive up the GOP vote. Democratic legislative leaders and the party are fiercely opposed.
But Proposition 39’s title is unfairly negative and loaded against the measure. It reads: “Prohibits citizens from voting unless they present government-issued identification.” All some voters will focus on are the first four words.
Proponents sued, but judges are historically reluctant to interfere in election campaigns. A Sacramento judge OKd Democratic Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta’s biased wording.
The legislation for nonpartisan labeling of propositions cleared the Senate Elections Committee but later was quietly killed behind closed doors in the Senate Appropriations Committee, a notorious graveyard for measures sentenced to execution by legislative leaders.
“The Democratic leadership doesn’t want it passed,” notes the author, Sen. Roger Niello of Sacramento County, who recently was elected the next Senate minority leader. “If they kill it [in appropriations] nobody has to vote on it and it dies without fingerprints.”
That’s common legislative games-playing: Keep potentially popular but politically undesirable bills off chamber floors so majority party members can avoid shamefully voting “no.”
But these are still excellent Republican ideas.
There are times when politics should be taken out of elections.
What else you should be reading
The must-read: California backtracks on good-government policies in divided Trump era
Law & Order & Politics: Eric Swalwell briefly detained as feds seize his phone at San Francisco airport, source says
The L.A. Times Special: It’s beyond debate. California voters deserve a Becerra-Hilton face-off
Until next week,
George Skelton
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