The Groundhog Day Election in Los Angeles

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Gautam Dutta, Esq.
Deputy Director
Political Reform Program
The New America Foundation

After a fiercely fought primary election, no winner emerged in last week's election in the LA County Supervisor race between City Councilmember Bernard Parks and State Senator Mark Ridley-Thomas. With barely one-sixth of all voters participating, millions of dollars spent, and a race that turned increasingly negative, neither Ridley-Thomas nor Parks could muster a majority (50 percent plus one) in the nine-candidate field. As a result, both candidates must now duke it out for another five months until the November general election -- leaving voters in the crossfire of more mudslinging and personal attacks.

According to some political consultants and politicians, runoff elections are good for democracy. In theory, they give voters a “second look” to size up the top two finalists. But in all honesty, how much more will voters learn about Councilmember Parks and State Senator Ridley-Thomas that we don’t already know? What will we learn from another five months of attack mailers and sound bites?

One things we will definitely learn is how low mudslinging campaigning can go. To date, the two million residents of the sprawling 2nd District -- which stretches from Venice to Koreatown to South Los Angeles to the City of Carson -- have been subjected to increasingly vitriolic charges and countercharges. And that’s not counting the additional millions of dollars spent on this race by so-called independent expenditure committees.

This is not the first time that Los Angeles voters have had to endure nasty, negative and expensive runoff elections. Previously we saw it in the mayoral races in 2001 and 2005, in some city council districts, as well as a community college district runoff in 2007. In each race, voters were hammered with attack ads telling us what’s wrong with the future winners -- undermining our faith in our leaders.