The Important Lessons from the Unimportant Election

Karlo Silbiger

I once voted in a special election in Boston with 1 race on the ballot and only 1 candidate running for that office.  Because I was living on the Boston University campus at the time and voted in a precinct made up almost entirely of college students, I’m convinced to this day that I’m the only person who voted at that polling place in that election!  However, my philosophy has been since the day I turned 18 that there is no such thing is an unimportant election.  Even those with few competitive races deserve our attention in order to show our elected officials that we are paying attention.  A small turnout gives them license to forget that we are watching.

Unfortunately, the statewide primary election on June 5^th provided few high profile races and one of the lowest voter turnouts in recent history.  California dropped the ball in our collective effort.  However, political scientists and those of us who love politics will see this election nonetheless as something of a turning point in California political history.  Culver City played a roll, of course, in that historical direction.  We had a 21% voter turnout, about what we usually get for local school board and city council races.  We compare relatively well to our neighboring cities: Los Angeles (16%), Beverly Hills (17%), and West Hollywood (18%).  Political theory says that Democratic voters tend to me more occasional voters (young people, poorer people, families with children, etc.), so in a low voter turnout election, Republicans will do better than Democrats.  Since Culver City’s registered voters skew about 65% Democratic, one could assume a much more conservative voting populace in an election with such low turnout.  However, Culver City broke the mold.  We had 25% turnout among Democrats and 26% turnout among Republicans, almost identical numbers.

It is no surprise that Culver City voters supported President Obama and Senator Feinstein overwhelmingly, but the level of support broke all expectations with Obama beating Romney by 46% and Feinstein beating her Republican challenger, Ms. Emken, by nearly 60%!  Also not surprising is Culver City’s overwhelming support for proposition 28, a term limits reform supported by the Democratic party establishment (though not by this author), which Culver City voters overwhelmingly backed (65% to 28%). 

What is a bit more surprising is our voting record on 2 other items from this election.   First is proposition 29, the tax on cigarettes supported by the American Cancer society, among other anti-smoking groups and opposed vocally with large advertisement buys by large tobacco companies and Howard Jarvis.  The no campaign so distorted information in their advertising that by the end most voters didn’t even know that they were voting on a cigarette tax!  The votes are still being counted statewide, with only a few thousand ballots separating the winning and losing sides.  This race proves once again why ballot propositions are so potentially dangerous: well-meaning, but ill-informed voters are too easily manipulated by big money advertising.  But not necessarily Culver City voters, who voted for this proposition, in opposition even with their liberal Los Angeles neighbors, by a nearly 20% margin.

The other interesting race in our community was for District Attorney, the top prosecutor in the county.  This was race jam-packed with legitimate candidates and few prognosticators were willing to bet on the outcome.  One interesting phenomenon was that there were 3 African-American Democratic Assistant District Attorneys all in the race, which did not bode well for any of them.  Therefore, many of us were surprised that Ms. Lacey, one of them, came in first place county-wide with 27% of the votes cast.  What’s more remarkable is that here in Culver City, not only did Ms. Lacey come in first (with 24% of the vote), but one of the other members of the above mentioned trio, Ms. Meyers, came in second (with 20% of the vote).  There was a time, not too long ago, when Culver City had a reputation for being a community that would not elect non-white candidates.  To see our community vote overwhelmingly for 2 African-American women to serve as District Attorney shows how far we’ve come.

Outside of Culver City, there has been much chatter about the new redistricting, the top 2 primary system, and much more.  It will take a few more elections for me to develop a sense of how each of these reforms (plus the new term limits rules) will impact our politics locally and statewide.  For now, we move on from this seemingly unimportant election to one in November which will undoubtedly define the direction of our state (with 2 important funding bills) and our country (with an incredibly significant presidential election).

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