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GELFAND’S WORLD - The U.S. Supreme Court voted unanimously to allow Trump to run for president in the states which have tried to deny him. You may recall that Constitutional scholars argued that the 14th Amendment should bar Trump from being on the ballot based on his alleged history of participating in insurrection. A few state courts upheld such efforts, but were overruled in this federal decision, which is now binding.
The Supreme Court ruling avoided the issue of whether Trump did or did not engage in insurrection, but denied individual states the authority to make that determination. The principle as stated by the Court is that "the Constitution makes Congress, rather than the states, responsible for enforcing section 3 against all federal officeholders and candidates . . . "
You can read a brief summary of the result here.
In the real world, the attempt to deny Trump ballot access probably would not have made a difference in the final Electoral Vote count, because Trump is unlikely to win in Colorado or Illinois anyway. It was the firestorm of anti-Trump activism that never got started.
The Steve Garvey phenomenon
Adam Schiff is taking a note from the other side in this campaign, rousing his followers with the imagined threat coming from the Republicans. His television ads have been showing Republican Steve Garvey a lot -- almost as much as they show Adam. The effect of Schiff's ad barrage is to concentrate the voters on a choice between one Republican (Garvey) and one Democrat (Schiff) in the runoff. It's a not-so-subtle way of writing Katie Porter out of the script.
It's impossible to imagine that the campaign organizers aren't aware of what they are doing. I imagine that they view Katie Porter as the real danger to Schiff's election, so they are trying to convince primary voters that Porter hardly exists as a viable candidacy. It's a brilliant strategy, but the Schiff campaign is now complaining to its supporters that Garvey is pulling ahead, and therefore we should be sending him money. What we are really seeing is Republican voters buying into Schiff's advertising and coalescing around Garvey.
There are actually 10 Republican candidates running for the senatorial nomination. It is of interest that none of the former candidates such as Larry Elder are in the race this time around. Garvey has about as minimal a record in political leadership as one can imagine, but he has become the default frontrunner for his party, largely due to the negligible qualifications of the other candidates.
Go ahead and send Schiff the three bucks if you wish, but the real calculation for the general election goes like this: How many total Democratic votes are there vs how many total Republican votes? In looking at the totals in the last general election (November of 2022), it's not even close. Alex Padilla, the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, beat a Republican named Mark Meuser by 2.4 million votes, taking over 60 percent of votes cast. If Garvey finishes in the top two, the Democrat will be our next U.S. Senator.
The attack ads against Dave Min
Lately my TV screen has been filled with political ads attacking somebody called Dave Min. They don't tell us who Dave Min is, or what he is running for, or what party he belongs to. This is pretty typical for this genre, although it is also repulsive.
It turns out that Min is running for Katie Porter's open congressional seat. It also turns out that Min is a Democrat and is currently a member of the state legislature.
You might think that the Republicans are doing their usual job of sliming an opponent, but in this case the attacks are coming from Min's fellow Democrat Joanna Weiss. She doesn't seem to have a lot on Min other than that he had a DUI last year. Not a good thing, but not like being a Republican.
Min is countering by accusing Weiss of being in league with child molesters. This is pretty thin gruel. The accusation basically comes down to the fact that Weiss's husband is a lawyer who has done work for the Catholic church. He even points out that he has never actually represented a priest.
For a playlist of who is saying what about whom, I refer you to the article in Politico, which you can find here.
When Democrats get down into the mud like this, they help the Republican Party not only in their own districts, but everywhere within listening distance. The fact that the state party didn't intervene effectively shows that there is no Democratic machine in the traditional sense of the word. And that, my friends, is (paradoxically) why Democratic candidates do so well in California.
(Note: The line above about "not like being a Republican" is adapted from an old joke that goes back to the Great Depression.)
The District Attorney race
Accusing the incumbent of being soft on crime is the oldest trick in the book. I've therefore taken the attacks on George Gascon with a grain of salt. But there is tangible evidence that Gascon has modified the traditional practice to a considerable extent. There is also testimony from reasonable people that Gascon is not an effective leader in his own agency.
There appear to be several candidates who offer decent credentials. Jonathan Hatami was recommended by a person whose son was the victim of murder, a person who has been active in the movement to reduce deadly violence in our city. My colleague Jack Humphreville supports Jeff Chemerinsky, clearly a competent and viable candidate. A trusted source watched every minute of a recent debate (all 90 minutes) and came away recommending John McKinney.
There are several acceptable candidates. The question is whether Gascon will even make it into the runoff. As the incumbent he has a built-in advantage, or there may be enough rebellious voters to get him into the finals as the anti-prosecution prosecutor, but it is hard to imagine him winning in November.
I am a little concerned about the chance that Nathan Hochman will make it into the top two. It's not because he lacks skill and background. He has a substantial level of accomplishment as a federal prosecutor. But I am concerned about the amount of airtime he has been buying. There is a lot of money that is going into his campaign. I am concerned about the effect of campaign contributions on an office that -- more than any other -- has to represent all of us fairly.
Turning polio into a political goal
The blog Lawyers Guns & Money ran a sarcastic headline about making whooping cough great again. The reference is to a comment Donald Trump made while campaigning in Virginia the other day. For some reason known only to him and his inner demons, he promised to cut education funding to every state which requires that children get vaccinations. It's a weird sort of pandering, considering that Trump likes to take credit for the Covid vaccine. It also offers a clue to this guy's megalomania. I'd like to think that in a semi-rational universe, the congress would resist any such attempt at presidential overreach, but Trump really seems to think he can use his magic wand to have his way on everything.
Super Tuesday
For all practical purposes, this is an incumbency year. It wasn't supposed to be that way on the Republican side, but there you have it. California's brave attempt to make itself a player in the presidential nomination contest is once again to no avail. By Tuesday night, we should have semi-official party nominees, with nothing left to discover except Trump's choice for his VP running mate. (Not likely to be Mike Pence.)
Ballot Measures
There should be an automatic default position of voting NO on most statewide ballot measures and nearly as many local measures, because so many of them are written by special interest groups. Props 1 and HLA are not as sleezy as what we get from oil companies or drug companies, but there are concerns.
The opposing sides of ballot measure HLA were presented at a recent meeting of the Los Angeles Neighborhood Council Coalition. I should point out that Lancc has discussed the issue of something called "road diets" in the past, so the members were acquainted with the concept. Basically, the idea of a road diet is to redesign some street so that traffic is less chaotic. In order to reduce pedestrian and automotive deaths, the redesigns use measures that are supposed to be "traffic calming." In practice, such measures can slow you down (that is the intended effect) and, in some cases, reduce the ability of fire trucks to get through. At least that is the criticism aimed at such measures.
There is some good that comes with the bad. The addition of left turn lanes is, in my view, a plus. But the removal of two driving lanes is the requirement, and this is not a plus.
Such measures are generally supported by bicycle activists and bus riders. The problem is of course that the strong majority of L.A. residents have adopted car driving as a way of life. Any measure that reduces the ability to get across town in a car creates additional difficulties in an already stressed traffic system.
So my inclination is to vote NO on measure HLA.
For the whole anti-HLA argument, you can read an editorial by council member Traci Park here.
(Bob Gelfand writes on science, culture, and politics for CityWatch. He can be reached at [email protected].)
