Vote for Unruh, Eu

Two Democrats, both approaching the status of institutions in Sacramento from different directions, seek reelection as constitutional officers on Nov. 4. We endorse the candidacies of Jesse M. Unruh for a third term as state treasurer and March Fong Eu for a fourth term as California’s secretary of state.

Unruh, who has been best described as a “savvy, exacting, intimidating politician,” shops the financial markets for the lowest interest rates on state bonds and the banks for the highest return on idle state funds. He is good at it, earning $1.3 billion to invest in state programs over the last year.

As a partisan of a rough-and-tumble school of politics, he also is controversial. The high-powered world of investment banking in which he operates rolls in dough and he takes whatever that world will give in the way of campaign contributions, to share with other Democrats and to finance his own campaigns. It is all perfectly legal, but it is the sort of thing most voters probably find unseemly and wish were not. Still even his sharpest critics “check it out with Jesse” when they need direction on a fine point of governance. He produces and he should be reelected.

Eu has become an institution in an entirely different fashion, quietly doing her job as the state’s top elections officer, performing conscientiously in ways that make the job seem more like a nonpartisan office. Eu is opposed for reelection by Bruce Nestande, a member of the Orange County Board of Supervisors, but his campaign has hardly gotten off the ground, possibly because it was a second choice. He really wanted to run for lieutenant governor, but backed out when Mike Curb decided to try for a comeback. Nothing about Nestande’s campaign argues for a change and we urge a vote for Eu on Nov. 4.