A Vote for Change, Not for Profligacy : Primary Message: Yes on Women, Yes on Solutions

When California holds a major election, the rest of the nation cranes its neck to see where America may be heading politically. Tuesday’s primary was no exception. The pundits are everywhere now, thick as Medflies. What should they conclude?

Let’s hope they don’t jump to the conclusion that the lid on taxes has been thrown, along with caution, to the wind. The passage of the eight spending measures means only that, yes, voters will approve specific and indisputably meritorious projects. They passed Proposition 111 to shore up a besieged transit infrastructure. But they won’t approve just anything. Earmark it first, please.

California taxpayers will continue to keep politicians on a strict allowance. Blank checks still won’t be written. All the bond issues approved are symptoms not of a sudden profligacy, but of desperation--they seem the only way to get things done in an era when most tax increases require constitutional amendments. And how many bond issues will voters pass next time--and how many can the state afford?

The anti-spending spirit has not evaporated; it’s just that most voters understand that spending limitations can have their own limitations. Even the historically parsimonious San Diego electorate Tuesday approved a four-year waiver of the Gann ceiling on the deficit-facing city.

Voters are clearly more comfortable with the idea of women politicians than with the idea of free-spending ones. Whether from the smashing gubernatorial primary victory of San Francisco’s Dianne Feinstein to the first-place finish of Los Angeles’ Sarah Flores, who now faces a runoff in her quest to become the first Latina on the powerful County Board of Supervisors, it’s clear that it’s no longer a handicap in California to be a female office-seeker. That is not just change, but change for the better.

In fact it may be a significant political plus to be a woman. It certainly didn’t hurt state Sen. Marian Bergeson in her successful bid for the GOP nomination for lieutenant governor, or Joan Milke Flores in beating out a man for the Republican secretary of state nomination, or Kathleen Brown in her victory in the Democratic race for state treasurer or Assemblywoman Maxine Waters, who won the Democratic 29th congressional district nomination.

Why? Women have not been prominent parts of the political status quo. Tuesday’s results send not a conservative signal nor a liberal one but a message for change. The approval, by unexpectedly impressive margins, of both the statewide ethics measure and the Los Angeles city ethics reform--even though they were tied to controversial pay raises for politicians--said a lot.

So did, alas, the fact that three important races Tuesday--the Democrats’ gubernatorial and attorney general, and the campaigns for the two reapportionment measures--were marred and influenced by unfair, negative advertising. In the general election, it ought to be recalled that Californians don’t want business as usual or more monkey business. They want to get this state moving again.Proposition 111

Counties where voters gave Prop. 111 high support:

San Francisco: 65.3% Yolo: 59.3% Los Angeles: 58.7% Source: California Secretary of State