Good’s Timing Didn’t Turn Out Too Bad

Timing may be everything in politics, but San Diego City Council candidate Neil Good has turned that political axiom on its head through his fund-raising schedule.

Politicians normally carefully check the calendar, civic and social schedules and even television timetables to select dates when their fund-raisers will have the least possible competition from other events that could keep prospective supporters--and, more significantly, their checkbooks--away.

Good, however, has unintentionally made things tough on himself by selecting some of the most inopportune dates for his fund-raisers in his 8th District campaign through what he half-jokingly describes as “not the shrewdest scheduling you’ve ever seen.”

Last year, Good was host to a barbecue to kick off his then-undeclared campaign--on the day of the San Diego Chargers’ home opener. Good may have topped that scheduling gaffe last week, though, when he held another fund-raiser on the same night as the NCAA college basketball finals and the Academy Awards.

“We got a lot of people saying, ‘What were you thinking of? Didn’t you know the basketball game and Academy Awards are tonight?’ ” said Good, administrative assistant to county Supervisor Leon Williams. “It definitely kept people away. But I bet the NCAA and the Academy Awards didn’t realize they were competing with us, either.”

Good, however, said he was encouraged by the fact that about 175 supporters did attend his $40-per-person fund-raiser at a downtown hotel.

“That’s a good turnout under any circumstances, and especially under these circumstances,” Good said. “If you can get people to come to your fund-raiser on a night with that kind of serious competition, that shows me that they’re real die-hards you can really count on.”

Either that, or maybe they just don’t care who won the Academy Award for best editing of a foreign animated short.

Chacon Isn’t Big on At-Large Elections

District elections, a political perennial in San Diego, appear headed for their annual round of debate as a result of a bill recently introduced by Assemblyman Pete Chacon (D-San Diego).

Chacon, chairman of the Assembly Elections Committee, has proposed legislation that would revamp election laws throughout the state by requiring all city councils and school boards to elect their members through district elections.

In San Diego and most cities throughout the state, city council and school board members are elected in at-large races. According to Chacon, of the about 420 chartered cities in the state, only 17--including Bakersfield, Berkeley, Long Beach, Los Angeles, Oakland, Pasadena, Sacramento and San Jose--have incorporated district elections in their charters.

Reiterating one of the major arguments cited by proponents of district elections, Chacon contends that at-large races discriminate against minority residents by diluting the impact of their vote in citywide balloting. In contrast, district elections maximize the strength of minorities’ ballots by virtue of the fact that they cover smaller regions in which minorities may constitute a majority of eligible voters.

“At-large elections were established to the detriment of minority persons in California,” Chacon said. “Texas and California have about the same number of Hispanic residents, but Texas has three times as many Hispanics elected to public office because the state uses district elections. At-large elections were set up historically to exercise dominance over minorities.”

Under San Diego’s councilmanic election method, the top two vote-getters in each district primary compete in a citywide general election. That method, Chacon complained, enables citywide voters “to override the wishes of the district’s residents . . . in choosing whom they want to represent them.”

The assemblyman pointed to the San Diego City Council’s 8th District as an example of an area where minorities’ will has been undermined through the at-large election process. In the 1983 council election, for example, Democrat Celia Ballesteros easily won the primary in the heavily Democratic district, but then was narrowly defeated by Republican Uvaldo Martinez in the citywide general election.

Supporters of at-large elections, however, argue that forcing candidates to run citywide guarantees that they will have a broader perspective on issues, rather than simply becoming parochial advocates for a single district. District elections could, critics warn, produce a city council in which each member is concerned only about the welfare of his own district, not about the citywide impact of programs or policies.

Even if Chacon’s measure were adopted in the Legislature by the required two-thirds margin, it still would face another hurdle because it would have to be passed by California voters as an amendment to the state Constitution.

Chacon introduced similar legislation six years ago, but that measure died without being heard by the Assembly. However, Chacon predicted that the bill stands a good chance of at least making it to the Assembly floor for a vote this time because of his chairmanship of the Assembly elections panel, which is expected to hold hearings on the bill later this spring.

Democrats Finally Springing Into Fall

Sometimes because of a lack of money, sometimes because of disorganization--and often because of both--the San Diego County Democratic Party historically has begun seriously planning for elections only a month or two before the balloting occurs.

However, county Democratic Chairwoman Irma Munoz, who pledged to “get people thinking about November (elections) before November” when she assumed the party leadership last summer, will watch her party take a huge stride in that direction next month when local Democrats launch a massive door-to-door voter registration drive aimed at swelling the party’s ranks in preparation for this fall’s--and the 1988--elections.

“I don’t think we’ve ever started this early before,” Munoz said. “In the past, the Republicans have always registered year-round, and we’ve had to try to catch up at the end in a few weeks. But that’s going to change.”

Initially, the registration drive will focus on the 78th Assembly District, represented by Lucy Killea (D-San Diego), where the two major parties’ registration is nearly even--making it the most heavily Republican district represented by a Democrat statewide. Another major goal is to boost the party’s registration in the San Diego City Council 4th and 8th districts, two heavily Democratic areas in which Democratic incumbents will vacate seats this fall.

Organized labor will assist the Democratic registration effort, which Munoz hopes will result in hundreds of volunteers blanketing targeted areas on selected dates throughout the rest of this year.

“It’s a new day for the party,” Munoz said. “It’s a sign of progress that we’re planning what we want to do in 1988 in 1987.”