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Why Blame Maldonado for the Mess Democrats Have in California’s 15th Senate District?

By Steve Cummings
Member
Ventura County Democratic Central Committee

Robert Cruickshank’s recent piece criticizing State Senator Abel Maldonado for engineering a write-in cross-filing campaign into the Democratic primary is off the mark. After all, given the mess that the Democrats have made of their primary in the 15th Senate District, why shouldn’t Maldonado cross-file? That’s what his old flying buddy (now State Superintendent of Public Instruction) Jack O’Connell did in 1988. With his name recognition as an incumbent legislator, Maldonado has a very good chance to beat his opponent Dennis Morris. The difficulty is gathering enough write-in signatures to qualify. Aside from Jerry McNerney and Ferial Masry in 2004, no other non-incumbent write-in has gotten on the ballot in recent times. So it makes perfect sense for Maldonado to do what he did. If you want to look for villains in this little soap opera, you have to look elsewhere, and they are all Democrats.

Beginning with Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata. It is no secret that Perata cut a deal to discourage Democrats from running for the seat in exchange for Maldonado’s vote on the budget. Chief victim of this move was former Assemblymember Rebecca Cohn, who pulled out when it appeared that she would not get support from Sacramento for a race against Maldonado. This was not the first time that Cohn pulled out of a race in the 15th SD. In 2003, she pulled out of a potential 2004 run for what was then an open seat when the Davis recall dried up money for other races. Whether she should have stayed in the 2004 or 2008 races is open to conjecture. But Perata’s action virtually ensured a free ride for Maldonado.

Just as guilty in this political fiasco, however, is none other than the Democrats along the Central Coast, especially the Democrats in the 15th SD. The problems posed to Democrats by the 15th and 19th SDs are not new. There had been discussions prior to the last redistricting about the future of this district after Jack O’Connell termed out. When the new lines were drawn and the Democrats on the Central Coast were given the shaft in the Senate, particularly on the southern Central Coast where O’Connell was replaced by Tom McClintock, it became apparent to many Democrats there that the Central Coast counties needed to work together in order to defend their interests in Sacramento.

To that effect, several meetings were held in Santa Maria and San Luis Obispo by Democrats from Ventura to Santa Cruz, and three Central Coast Issues Conferences were held in San Luis Obispo (2003, 2005) and Monterey (2004). But when it came time to attempt to put a regional organization together to co-ordinate political work on the campaigns and the next round of redistricting, a combination of inertia and parochial interests prevailed, and the organization was not formed.

The net result was a power vacuum on the Central Coast that Perata took advantage of. Even then, there was no back-up plan to ensure that there was a Democratic candidate on the ballot. And of course, since there was no regional organization to execute a back-up plan, the various Democratic organizations were left on their own to scramble for a candidate in a marginally Democratic district where it shouldn’t have been a problem. In the end, no candidate made it to the ballot on the Democratic primary, and so the good folks in the 15th SD have to endure this write-in kabuki dance.

As the old saying goes, “don’t agonize, organize.” If the Democrats on the Central Coast and in the 15th Senate District really want to find the culprit in their senate contest, they should stop whining about Abel Maldonado, and take a good hard look in the mirror.

Steve Cummings is a member of the Ventura County Democratic Central Committee, Controller for CDC, and the Southern VP for the California Federation of Democratic Central Committee Members. His book, Red States, Blue States, and the Coming Sharecropper Society, was published by Algora Publishing, NY in April.

Posted on May 23, 2008

Comments

I actually don't disagree with anything in this post. I made similar arguments back in March when I first reported that Maldonado did not have a challenger. In further discussions with involved parties it seems clear that Don Perata was the main culprit, discouraging potential candidates even when local Democrats had acted to try and find a candidate (and there were intense efforts in SD-15 to find one).

I am new to the Central Coast - I've lived here a year, and so I've not been a part of those earlier attempts to build cross-county unity you described. But the Dennis Morris campaign is becoming itself a project of unifying the Central Coast Democrats. It's being run out by San Luis Obispo County Dems with strong support, including volunteer and GOTV work, from the Monterey County Dems.

One of the main obstacles we face in getting Morris on the ballot is his extremely low name ID - we have to explain to voters that his campaign exists and that he's worth going to the added trouble of writing in his name. Playing up Abel Maldonado's trick of running as a write-in candidate is an excellent way of getting Morris that attention. You may call it whining, I call it good PR.

And of course, Maldonado's stunt raises the question of why he isn't willing to defend his record to the voters in a real race against a real Democrat this fall. Maldonado has a fairly conservative voting record but he tries to blur that by claiming to be a moderate or even, in this case, an actual Democrat. I think that's newsworthy, and paying some attention to it doesn't take away from the ongoing organizing work happening here on the Central Coast.

Posted by: Robert Cruickshank at May 25, 2008 11:41 AM

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