5 Lessons from the 2011 Culver City School Board Election

Karlo Silbiger

I have been watching elections now in Culver City for 18 years and I’m ready to make a confession: My name is Karlo Silbiger and I am a Culver City elections nerd. That’s right, I read all of the news, go to all of the candidates’ forums and campaign events, and have worked on or run more campaigns than I care to admit. While the vast majority of Culverites couldn’t even be bothered to vote Tuesday, I’ve been living and breathing this election every day for over a year.

What fascinates me most about our local elections is that each one is incredibly unique, providing its own set of lessons about how our community thinks, what we truly value. Some lessons are obvious from a cursory look at the results. Nancy Goldberg is beloved by the community that she has served for 41 years. She won 11 of the 13 precincts, polling first in nearly every conceivable corner of this community. She won those who voted by mail and those who voted at the polls. But some lessons take a little more analysis and thought, those are the ones that I especially enjoy discovering. Here then are my 5 lessons from the 2011 Culver City School Board election:

1. Like in all Culver City Elections, Every Vote Counts – This is the second consecutive Culver City election where the difference between the winner and the loser was fewer than 35 votes. Only 8 years ago, Stew Bubar and Roger Maxwell received the exact same number of votes, necessitating a marble game that still seems ridiculous to me. With such low voter turnout (in this election 15% of registered voters chose to participate), the problem is even further exacerbated.


2. People of all Demographic Groups are Getting More and More Busy – It used to be the case that elderly and disabled residents who had a difficult time going to the polling places would vote absentee, while the rest of us relished the opportunity to perform our civic duty on Election Day. Absentee ballots were both insignificant in number and skewed conservative. That is no longer the case. In this election, 52% of the ballots were cast by mail. For the second school board election in a row, the results from the absentee ballots and the polling places were nearly identical. A large cross-section of people are choosing to vote by mail and all political activists are going to have to alter their campaign style to meet the needs of this changing calendar.


3. Culver City Trusts Educators to Run the School District – For the first time in at least 20 years, an 80% supermajority of the board, 4 out of 5 members, will be educators. While all of us have different bases of knowledge and points of view, the past 2 elections have been clear signs to all of us that Culver City voters want educators running the school district. The message may be that it is time for the board to address not only the fiduciary and facilities responsibilities, but actually wade a little deeper into the important education discussions that will help to improve the instruction given to students in our district’s classrooms.


4. Incumbents are not Invincible – In my AP Government class, I always teach my students that the number one characteristic of a winning candidate at the state or federal level is their incumbency status. Often over 90% of incumbent members of Congress and state legislatures win re-election in any given cycle. However, that is not the case in our city. Over the past 21 years (and, therefore, 21 elections), 6 incumbents have lost re-election campaigns, which equates to about 1 incumbent loss every 3-4 elections. However, the data becomes even more stark when you realize that 5 of the 21 elections had no incumbents on the ballot. Therefore, in 38% of the elections with incumbents, they lose. Believe me that this is one of the lessons that I will personally be taking to heart!


5. The Political Elite May Be Out of Touch with the Voters – There were 9 Culver City local elected officials who endorsed in this race (5 city council members and 4 school board members not running for re-election). There were 4 county, state, and federal elected officials who endorsed in this race (Congresswoman Bass, Senator Price, Assemblywoman Mitchell, and Supervisor Ridley-Thomas). There were 7 political organizations that endorsed in this race (too numerous to list, but ranging from employee organizations to political organizations to business organizations). Of those 20 politically elite entities only 1 got this election right: the Culver City Federation of Teachers. This certainly points to the importance of the Teachers’ Union and the value that Culver City voters place on the opinion of their public employees. However, it also seems to suggest that those of us in the know (myself included) may not be seeing things the same way as the average voter, as important a lesson as can possible be told.

Elections are all in the past. Analyzing them like this make for an interesting intellectual exercise (and good conversation), but the real question is how do we as a community own the lessons of this election and address them going forward. How do all of us change our behavior to prove to our citizenry that we got the message? For that, we will have to wait a bit longer.

Karlo Silbiger is the Co-Editor of the Culver City Progress Blog, the Vice-President of the Culver City School Board, and the President of the Culver City Democratic Club.