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Thursday, May 17, 2012
Department: May 2006
Primary Decisions
Next month, Democratic voters can choose centrism or a lunge to the left
Story by Tony Quinn
Well, it’s time to trudge to the polls again. Last November’s hotly contested special election seems just a distant memory now, and the primary will soon be upon us.
Next month’s Democratic primary for governor may be more important than any in recent times because of the weakened position of incumbent Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. In large part because of the drubbing he took in last November’s special election, his re-election prospects are viewed by most neutral observers as no better than a toss-up.
So it’s worthwhile to take the long view and look at where the two Democratic candidates for governor would take the state. With one we would probably see continuity, and with the other a radical change in direction.
Gov. Schwarzenegger has fundamentally been a moderate, to the great disappointment of many of the conservative ideologues in his Republican Party. He has appointed both Democrats and Republicans as judges, takes fairly liberal positions on social issues, and mostly advances policies he thinks will improve the state’s business climate.
Controller Steve Westly is cut from somewhat the same cloth. He is a business-oriented Democrat; his supporters are Silicon Valley high-tech Democrats. Tellingly, in 2004, Westly joined with Schwarzenegger to promote a major bond issue intended to fix California’s budget problems. The most effective ad in the bond-issue campaign showed Schwarzenegger and Westly hand in hand, stressing that both Republicans and Democrats supported the bond.
So a Westly governorship would probably continue a lot of the pro-business policies of the current administration. Westly is likely to spend much of his time promoting high-tech industries and international trade; his judicial appointees would probably mirror Schwarzenegger’s middle-of-the-road appointees.
But Westly has a big problem, perhaps an insurmountable one. He is running for governor in a closed Democratic primary, meaning only Democrats and Independents who ask for a Democratic ballot can vote. Democratic primaries have tended to favor the most liberal candidate.
Westly is a business-oriented Democrat with a big —
perhaps even insurmountable — problem.
Voters had a chance in 2004 to open the primary, and Westly was a supporter of an open primary. But due to a poorly funded and lackluster campaign, voters turned it down.
Keeping the primary closed is of great benefit to Treasurer Phil Angelides. When almost every other politician was cheering on the Schwarzenegger-Westly bond issue, Angelides was opposed. Angelides has never wavered from strongly liberal Democratic positions, both as state treasurer and earlier as chair of the California Democratic Party.
So if he were nominated and elected, there would be a dramatic change from the centrist Schwarzenegger direction. Angelides would try to take the state leftward in the same way President Bush has tried to take the nation rightward. At least in his first term, Bush was generally successful, and he has succeeded in moving the judiciary in a more conservative direction.
Angelides would appoint liberal activists as judges and is committed to raising taxes on the rich to pay for expanded state services. Here he may face the same problems Bush has faced. While Republicans have 55 seats in the Senate, it takes 60 votes to stop a filibuster, meaning you need 60 senators to effectively govern.
In California, it takes a two-thirds vote in the Legislature to pass a budget and raise taxes. Even if Democrats experience a huge landslide in November — not an impossibility — they will not have two-thirds in either house of the Legislature because of gerrymandered districts.
So a Gov. Angelides could well rue the day the Democrats agreed to the bipartisan gerrymander of legislative districts in 2001. If he wins the primary and general election, he will come into office with an ambitiously liberal legislative program, the most liberal since Jerry Brown became governor in 1975. And he will face a wall of Republican opposition.
Democratic voters will have a choice in June: They can vote for Westly and the continuation of a mildly centrist approach to governing, or they can vote for a major lunge to the left with Angelides and then gamble that he can somehow pull it off.
Meanwhile, Gov. Schwarzenegger and the Republicans will be waiting for whoever wins — and voters can be sure that this primary election is just the opening act of a long political struggle.
Tony Quinn is co-editor of the “California Target Book,” a nonpartisan analysis of legislative and congressional races.
