Why it’s so difficult to get on the ballot in L.A.

Good morning, and welcome to L.A. on the Record — our City Hall newsletter. It’s David Zahniser helping you catch up on the events of the week, with help from Libor Jany.

Union leader Cliff Smith had big plans for 2020. He was going to launch a bid for a seat on the Los Angeles City Council, then wage a campaign focused on such issues as police misconduct and the need for public housing.

The campaign never got off the ground. Why? Smith, the business manager for Roofers & Waterproofers Local 36, failed to get the 500 signatures he needed to qualify for the ballot.

Now he is trying again, knocking on doors and chatting up shoppers outside supermarkets in the 8th District, which takes in a big chunk of South Los Angeles. He is determined not to fall short a second time.

“It’s not easy — at all,” Smith said. “But the conversations are productive.”

As we’ve mentioned in this column before, L.A. can be an extraordinarily difficult place for local candidates to qualify for the ballot. Four years ago, more than a third of the people who took out petitions for seats on the L.A. council or school board — 18 out of 51 — did not make it past the signature-gathering process.

That’s due, in part, to the fact that rules set up at City Hall are more restrictive than those that apply to many other political offices in Southern California. In L.A., council candidates must collect at least 500 signatures from registered voters who live in the district where they are running.

Had Smith decided to wage a campaign against county Supervisor Holly Mitchell, who is also running this year, he would have needed to collect just 20 valid signatures and pay a $2,324 fee. Since each supervisorial district has about 2 million people, finding those voters would have been a breeze.

If Smith were running for district attorney, he also would have needed at least 20 voter signatures. Because the D.A.’s annual salary tops $400,000, he would have had to pay a larger fee, or just over $4,000.

Some at City Hall say L.A.’s ballot rules make sense. After all, they argue, if a candidate can’t manage to persuade 500 voters to sign a petition, how will they ever secure the votes to win public office?

Others say the regulations lock too many people out.

Eduardo “Lalo” Vargas, a schoolteacher hoping to unseat Councilmember Kevin de León on L.A.’s Eastside, said the city’s ballot requirements favor candidates with serious money, especially incumbents. Candidates with greater financial resources have the ability to hire staff to help with their signature-gathering efforts, Vargas said.

“This kind of process doesn’t really favor a working-class, grassroots candidate like me,” he said.

De León, now running for reelection, was the first to qualify for the ballot in his race, which has drawn interest from 13 other candidates. In a victory lap, De León, thanked the people who volunteered to collect signatures.

“Your unflinching support speaks volumes about the work we’ve accomplished together,” he said in a campaign email.

City Clerk Holly Wolcott, whose office reviews the candidate petitions, has taken major steps to help political newbies find their way onto the ballot, posting a video on the city’s website that lays out the rules. According to the video, those who want to avoid the city’s $300 filing fee must turn in 1,000 signatures, instead of the already difficult 500. Few people take advantage of that opportunity.

The video makes clear that there are a number of ways to screw up. A volunteer who fails to follow the city’s very specific rules could cause an entire page of signatures or more to be disqualified.

Jillian Burgos, an optician running for a council seat in the east San Fernando Valley, said she expects that the City Clerk’s office will deem at least some of the signatures she turns in as invalid. For that reason, she is planning to have hundreds of extras when she turns in her petitions.

“Ideally, I would love to get 800,” she said. “I will be happy if we get 700.”

Smith, the roofers union leader, turned in 920 signatures in 2019, which made it only more crushing when he had only 458 valid ones. Many of those that were disqualified came from people who were registered to vote in the 8th District, but entered addresses different from those that were in the voter registration file, he said.

Smith, 53, attributed that phenomenon to the fact that the district has a large share of renters who move from apartment to apartment.

If Smith succeeds, he will almost certainly face City Councilmember Marqueece Harris-Dawson, who is running for a third and final term. In 2020, Harris-Dawson was the only candidate in his race to qualify for the ballot, which assured him a smooth path to reelection.

Harris-Dawson, in a statement, said he appreciates the other candidates who are looking to enter the race. The district, he said, needs more advocacy to “combat the disinvestment we’ve experienced for decades.”

“Having multiple candidates and conversations about how our district moves forward is a great thing,” Harris-Dawson said.

Three others in Harris-Dawson’s district — real estate broker Jahan Epps, community activist Tara Perry and city employee Shawn Yarbrough — have also taken out candidate petitions.

The deadline to turn them in is Dec. 6.

State of play

— FREEWAY FIXED: The leg of the 10 Freeway damaged by a massive fire reopened last weekend, delivering a victory for both Gov. Gavin Newsom and Mayor Karen Bass. The mayor’s leadership on that front drew praise from Jim Newton of CalMatters, who wrote that she did “many things right.” At the same time, troubling information continues to surface about the state’s failure to address safety hazards posed by the storage of pallets and sanitizer under the freeway.

— PARK PATROL: The county Board of Supervisors passed an ordinance this week that would allow workers at its public parks to expel misbehaving parkgoers for specified periods of time. The new law would allow certain county employees to hand out “exclusion orders” to people who exhibit “dangerous or threatening behavior” for a month or more at a time.

— BUDGET BOOST: The Board of Police Commissioners voted Tuesday to seek a $239-million increase in the LAPD’s operating budget — a nearly 13% boost that would help pay for police raises, higher starting salaries, expanded recruitment efforts and other expenses. Commissioner Maria “Lou” Calanche cast the lone opposing vote, saying she had not been given enough time to review the 750-page spending plan. Bass, who appoints police commissioners, will issue her own budget proposal for the LAPD in April.

— WRAPPING IT UP: U.S. Rep. Tony Cárdenas, a onetime fixture at City Hall, has decided not to run for reelection. Cárdenas, who served on the council for a decade before winning his congressional seat, represents a large portion of the San Fernando Valley. His term ends next year.

— TURNING THE PAIGE — She spent nearly a year working as the spokesperson for Councilmember Traci Park, who represents part of the Westside. Now, Jamie Paige has left city employment for a new gig in the private sector — overseeing the launch of a San Fernando Valley counterpart to the Westside Current, a publication Paige founded in 2020. The Valley Current is scheduled to launch next month.

Quick hits

• Where Did Inside Safe Go? The mayor’s program to combat homelessness went to Canoga Park in the west San Fernando Valley, focusing on the area around Canoga Avenue and Vanowen Street.
  
• On the docket for next week: The City Council is expected to finalize an ordinance that would impose new regulations on new hotels. The ordinance is part of a deal to ensure that a proposal to require hotels to take part in a homeless housing initiative does not make it onto the March 5 ballot.