Consider that this is the first US presidential election since 1976 without a Biden, Bush or Clinton on the ticket. That’s 48 years. It makes sense then that many of us are excited about Kamala. She brings with her a feeling of turning the page on decades of the same conversations over the same candidates.
Why can’t we have that same experience at the local level? Why do we continue down the same paths in Santa Monica of the same people telling us who we get to vote for?
This is why we need districting — because the barrier to entry in our city elections is too high for meaningful change.
When the same group of people control government for too long, their ideas aren’t appropriately challenged. They become averse to criticism and see it as a personal threat instead of the natural evolution of policy and so we see ideological stagnation.
It took terrifying riots in 2020 for the first alternative voting block since 1979, "The Change Slate" to take control of the SM city council and de-throne the Santa Monicans for Renter’s Rights (SMRR) regime.
A lot has been made of the Change Slate’s failures to quickly fix the city’s ills as promised, and much of that is no doubt valid, but many of the critiques miss the decades of policy that proceeded them.
Turning around a big ship does not happen quickly and the Change Slate, which has no unifying organization or machine behind them, is far less aligned then the SMRR group.
The current homelessness crisis is no doubt an extension of decades of SMRR city council policy combined with the slow march toward a society that cares only for the wealthiest Americans.
The lack of housing, and development that exploded recently because of a state mandate, is absolutely tied to years of overly strict regulation that made new development extremely slow and difficult.
Consider the regulations that tied the promenade to retail when more restaurants and music venues might elevate our once wonderous and unique mall. Regulations also make it so new businesses are in limbo; the permit process sometimes taking over a year, when in other cities, it might take weeks.
Instead of spending the money to hire more police or to advance community safety policies or to simply add much needed city staff, we continue to fight a multi-million-dollar lawsuit (to date nearly $13-million in lawyer fees) against districting, for no clear reason, other than that it maintains the political status quo.
When we look at our schools, we see enrollment continuing to fall, over-burdened class sizes, multiple lawsuits and outright fraud. The school board will no doubt ask for another blank check bond in the coming election, and well-meaning Santa Monicans will pass it, allowing more unfettered and wasteful projects that only benefit our children minimally if at all.
So why do we continue like this?
The problem as I see it, on the national level and on the local level is that barriers to entering the electoral system are so high that the same folks keep bobbing to the top. That means that the same small groups continue to decide who runs, and what options we have to vote for.
If you want to break in without a big machine behind you, one has to be independently wealthy. This means that the wealthy and the machines control our body politic.
As far as I know, council member Parra is not running. So the SMMR group of candidates, who were endorsed extra early this time around, will almost certainly regain control of the city council.
The Change Slate have no machine behind them, no farm team from a rent control board or school board to draw from, and there are no other organizations or slates that I know of in the mix.
There was an attempt to break into the school board in the last election, but despite all manner of bad press, including an October surprise of a $45M lawsuit, and word that the abusive aid named in the lawsuit still worked for the schools in a classroom with children, the school board incumbents easily won.
I’m sure it’s easy to think I am against SMRR. I am not. (Neither am I for the Change Slate) I think over the years SMRR is responsible for many of the policies that make us a special place. But they are ideologically stuck in the 80’s and 90’s and our problems and population dynamics don’t fit those ideologies.
It’s hubris — reminiscent of a certain 82-year-old president, too old to continue to be effective and too stubborn to see it.
Look how excited we are about Kamala! Look how energized Americans are to have someone new, someone with vigor, who isn’t named Biden, Bush or Clinton on the ticket.
We don’t have a fascist malignant narcissist to unite against. What do we do?
We need to stop fighting against the California Voters’ Rights’ Act! We need to implement districts, so that people who want to run for office aren’t benighted by the same machine and group that have controlled the policies for our city for so long.
That’s how you break through the barrier — you make the barrier smaller, so that you don’t have to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars to win a city council or school board or rent board seat — a candidate just has to walk around their neighborhood and meet their neighbors and tell them who they are and what they stand for.
That’s why those in power have continued to fight against districting, because they know the barriers to entry that they have created and maintained, keep them in power.
It’s not working anymore. We need new blood and we need a new direction. We need that fabulous excitement and energy we’re seeing with a Gen X Woman of Color who has something different to say, and represents the future, not the past.
Miles Warner
