California’s March 2024 Primary Election
Once again, I’m sharing my thoughts on the upcoming election. I hope you find them useful.
PRESIDENT
As tempting as it would be to vote for President R Boddie (I looked him up and not only is that his given name, but he sounds charmingly crazy), and as much as I wish Biden had chosen to step aside for a younger Democratic candidate, I’m voting for Joe because the alternative is unthinkable.
SENATE
The serious Democratic candidates are Katie Porter, Barbara Lee, and Adam Schiff. All three currently serve as members of the House of Representatives from California. The only serious Republican candidates are Steve Garvey, a former baseball player, and perhaps Eric Early, a former entertainment producer and attorney.
Early is an avid Trump supporter. Garvey won’t say who he will vote for as president in 2024, but voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020, and his qualifications for a position in one of the most powerful institutions in the world are essentially non-existent. Need I say more?
You could reasonably vote for any of the three Democratic candidates. Barbara Lee has a unique background that gives her real insight into economic hardship and social inequality, issues that should be at the forefront of everyone’s concerns. She’s got, marginally, the most progressive voting record of the three. But she’s also the oldest, by a significant measure. (She’s 77. Porter is 50 and Schiff is 64.) By the next election for this seat, Lee will be 83. Were it not for this factor, I would vote for Lee. In part, yes, it’s a kind of agism. There are far too many senior citizens in elective office today. Being younger isn’t necessarily better, but social science research supports the proposition that decision making by diverse groups tends to produce better results, and younger leaders will help bring a diversity of perspectives to government. Perhaps more importantly, having younger leaders may help address the increasingly pervasive sense of disenfranchisement and disillusionment among young people. So I’m voting for Porter.
Here is some informaiton that may be helpful to you in making your own choice.
Senate Candidate Profiles
Senate Candidate Endorsements
San Francisco Chronicle — Katie Porter
Sacramento Bee — Barbara Lee
LA Times — Adam Schiff
PROPOSITION 1
Proposition 1 would implement a sale of $6.4 billion in state bonds to fund housing and treatment programs for the homeless. Sounds like a no-brainer, given the extent and pervasiveness of California’s homelessness problem, right? Not so fast. First, and most fundamentally, Prop. 1 focuses on providing services and housing for those with mental illness and chemical dependency issues. In addition, it would re-prioritize money from the tax implemented in 2004 to fund mental health services to focus more of those funds on mentally ill homeless persons, removing discretion counties now have on how to spend the money they get from this tax. There is, of course, nothing inherently wrong with providing services to this very needy population. The problem with is that people with mental illness and/or addiction issues represent a relatively small proportion of the state’s homeless population–probably only about a quarter. (See the article I wrote about this previously on Medium.) While it is important to address the needs of this population, the needs of the much greater population of transiently homeless people¾those who are homeless only because they have temporarily fallen on hard times¾should probably come first. Moreover, there are significant flaws in Proposition 1. Most notably, veterans make up about 6% of the homeless population, but more than half the $2 billion of bond money devoted to the construction of housing for the homeless would be set aside for veterans. As the Mercury News observed, “that makes no policy sense.” Proposition 1 would also impose requirements and restrictions on how counties spend mental health funds, prioritizing services for the homeless over other services. This would limit the ability of county health officials to allocate funding to address the problems they determine to be most pressing, which may be other populations, all of which are under-served. In supporting Proposition 1, the Mercury News and the Sacramento Bee take the position, in essence, that it’s better to do something flawed than to do nothing at all. However, by allocating scarce funding in the way it does and giving the impression that the problem of homelessness is being substantively addressed when it actually is not, passing Proposition 1 would make it more likely that nothing is ever done about the most significant aspects of homelessness. Better to try again, and to try harder to get it right.
SANTA CLARA COUNTY
Feel free to disregard the rest of this if you don’t live in Santa Clara County. For those who do, there are primaries for the U.S. House of Representatives, State Senate and State Assembly, and elections for county offices (Board of Supervisors, one judgeship, and the local party central committee (the last of which I won’t address, because they don’t have a role in government).
For the House and for the two state offices, under California’s open primary system, all candidates are listed on one ballot and only the top two vote-getters in the primary election– regardless of party preference–move on to the general election. The local offices are the subject of actual elections, not primaries.
U.S. House of Representatives
Anna Eshoo, who has represented the House district that includes much of Santa Clara, San Mateo, and Santa Cruz counties, is retiring. There are nine Democratic and two Republican candidates running in the primary to replace her. There are too many candidates to address in detail, but I will mention a few.
First, I urge you NOT to vote for Sam Liccardo. The former may of San Jose is well known and is an effective self-promoter, but he’s a traditional politician in the worst sense: one with more interest in obtaining and maintaining power than serving his constituents and the community. Exhibit A: In 2017, the California Supreme Court held that the City of San Jose had, during Liccardo’s time as Mayor, violated the Public Records Act, attempting to avoid public scrutiny by routing email communications about City business through private email accounts. Any case a city loses in the California Supreme Court is a big deal, and this one was no exception. Nonetheless, a few years later, while acting as Mayor of San Jose, Liccardo did it again: used a private email account for communications about public business, and then denied having the communications in responding to a public records request. In other words, he tried to avoid public scrutiny, knowing that what he was doing was a violation of the law. We don’t need any more scofflaws in office.
Of the remaining candidates, I could vote for any of three: Evan Low (currently a State Assemblymember), Joe Simitian (currently a Santa Clara Board of Supervisors member), or Julie Lythcott-Halms (currently a Palo Alto City Council member). Low has been an effective Assemblymember since being elected in 2014. (or example, during one legislative session, 2017–2018, Low authored 34 bills that were passed and signed into law, second most in the state. He’s been involved in advocacy for reproductive rights, LGTBQ rights, and technology. And he’s remarkably young, especially for having served two terms as mayor of Campbell and multiple terms in the Assembly. Simitian is a long-time legislator, having served two terms in the State Assembly, two terms in the State Senate, and two terms as a member of the Santa Clara Board of Supervisors. Before that, he served on the Palo Alto City Council. He’s very well educated, with master’s degrees in international studies and urban planning as well as a law degree. He’s been an advocate of affordable house, open space, parks and playgrounds, and programs for the poor. Dear to my heart, he led an initiative that suspended fees to use Santa Clara County parks during the pandemic. Simitian is endorsed by Anna Eshoo, whose judgment I respect. However, he’s relatively old (71). Lythcott-Halms is a former Stanford dean and provost and a former member of the Palo Alto City Council. She is also the author of two books on education/development and a memoir. She is running as a progressive candidate, focusing on gun safety, reproductive rights, climate change, and affordable housing. She doesn’t have much political experience, and none at the state or national level, but her heart is in the right place. Overall, I’m inclined to vote for Low, for a lot of the same reasons I am voting for Katie Porter.
State Senate (District 13)
The Democratic incumbent, Josh Becker, is seeking reelection. There are two Republican candidates, Alexander Glew and Christina Laskowski. Glew is an engineering consultant living in Los Altos, California. He’s been involved in Republican Party politics in in Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties, but has never held elective office. He’s generally conservative, supporting Proposition 13, local control over zoning and housing, money bail, harsher criminal penalties, and “free market” health care, and opposing rent control. He appears to acknowledge climate change as a problem and advocates for alternative energy development. (He’s big on hydropower, however, which I generally oppose, given that it is an environmentally harmful and short-term option.) Christina Laskowski is an investment banker/venture capitalist. She previously worked for VMware. She is also a long-time Bay Area Republican Party apparatchik. She does not appear to be running a very serious campaign (she does not even have a website), and it is difficult to find information about her positions. As noted, Josh Becker is the incumbent, elected to the State Senate in 2020. He’s a Democrat living in Menlo Park. He has law and business degrees from Stanford. Before going into politics, he formed an organization that provided funding and operational innovation advice to nonprofits and community organizations. He subsequently founded a cancer research business and a venture capital firm. He also served as the CEO of Lex Machina, a legal research business. As a legislator, he has focused on climate change, economic opportunity, criminal justice reform, and healthcare, authoring bills in each of these areas. Because these priorities align with mine, I will be voting for Josh Becker.
State Assembly (District 28)
There are two candidates, Gail Pellerin, the Democratic incumbent, and Liz Lawler, the Republican challenger. Although I am not a huge fan of Pellerin, I support her over Lawler for the same reasons I did in 2022. (See my article about the 2022 election on Medium.)
County Board of Supervisors — District 5
The East Bay Times has a helpful article about the candidates. The two candidates I would consider voting for, based on their experience and priorities, are Sally Lieber and Margaret Abe-Koga. Having looked over their respective campaign websites, Abe-Koga has a lot more endorsements, but Lieber’s priorities (affordable housing, childcare, environmental protection, healthcare, and particularly government transparency) are more aligned with mine than Abe-Koga’s (safe neighborhoods, small business advocacy, balanced budgets, and limiting taxes). So I will be voting for Lieber.
Judge, Santa Clara Superior Court
It’s always difficult to get useful information about judicial candidates. The candidates this time are no exceptions. It’s important to keep in mind, however, that a judge will not necessarily be assigned to handle the kinds of cases with which they are most familiar from their time as practicing attorneys: a prosecutor or criminal defense attorney may end up handling civil cases; a family law attorney may be assigned to criminal cases; a business litigation specialist may end up handling probate cases; and so on. Thus, you are generally looking for the person with the best overall qualifications, and ideally someone with both exposure to multiple practice areas and, for lack of a better term, a judicial temperament.
There are three candidates. Nicole Ford is a family law attorney in private practice, who focuses on child custody, child abduction, and domestic violence cases, and representation of minors. She has an extensive background (eight years) as a legal aid attorney, providing legal services to the poor, specializing in domestic violence and immigration matters. She also has experience working as part of domestic violence and sexual assault response teams. This is an unusual background for an attorney seeking to become a judge. I don’t know her personally, and what I know about her comes primarily from her own website. As a private attorney, she’s been the subject of a small number of reviews on an attorney evaluation website (Avvo), a couple of which are bad, but most of which are good. What I can say is that, as a general rule, bad people do not become legal aid attorneys. It requires altruism, patience, and dedication to take on that kind of work. Given the nature of her practice and background, she’s likely had experience working in family and criminal courts, and perhaps in general civil court cases as well. Jay Boyarsky is a career prosecutor, currently (and for a long time now) second-in-command at the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office. I’ve met him–he seems like a good and reasonably intelligent guy–but I don’t know him well. I do know that he is generally well-respected. He’s certainly got a long list of endorsements, including from the Mercury News. Johnene Linda Stebbins is also a career prosecutor. I don’t know her, nor do I know much about her. But looking over her campaign website, I’m leery. First, she has some endorsements from people I don’t trust, like Liz Lawler and Judge David Cena (a truly terrible judge). Second, there is a strained, insincere tone to pretty much everything on her website. In any event, between the two long-time prosecutors, I would go with Boyarsky based on greater and higher-level experience and endorsements.
Bottom line: I could see voting for either Ford or Boyarsky. However, there are already plenty of former prosecutors on the bench, and Ford’s broader experience would probably help her be a more effective judge. So, I am going with Ford.
