LACDP Doesn't Bow To Fear

The Los Angeles County Democratic Party held their endorsement meeting for the May 19 special election yesterday. The Yes side brought out all the big guns to talk up Prop. 1A: four State Senators, including President Pro Tem Steinberg, Attorney General candidate Ted Lieu, State Superintendent for Public Instruction candidate Gloria Romero and Lieutenant Governor candidate Dean Florez. The No side had two union members from the SEIU and the California Faculty Association and a 2008 Assembly candidate.

And the LACDP went neutral.

It's quite remarkable to see practically the entire establishment of the Democratic Party selling fear and so few people buying. My fear is that they will chalk up their failure to the typical right-wing anti-tax bias, when the real indictment here is a failure to lead, to articulate an actual solution instead of the same nonsense that does nothing to effect structural reform. The first ads for 1A and 1B only have one unequivocally true statement in them - that the budget is "A total mess, and we all know it." And yet the prescription for solving the mess is nothing more than making people afraid of some amorphously bigger mess, while neglecting the clear disaster that would arrive with the passage of a spending cap.

This is not about an aversion to two years' worth of sales taxes. It's about an aversion to more demonstrably awful solutions to layer onto an already dysfunctional system. Maybe instead of dictating to their constituents, the leadership in Sacramento could bother to listen to them.