Who does local government work for? O.C. residents polled say not the people
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A new poll suggests that Orange County residents’ trust in local government hasn’t tanked, but people don’t feel that officials prioritize them.
“Trust Divided,” a UC Irvine School of Ecology survey of about 1,200 residents, found that 42% of respondents trust county government in the wake of former O.C. Supervisor Andrew Do’s bribery conviction almost two years ago.
In the report released on Tuesday, four in 10 residents expressed trust in their city governments.
The federal government remained more untrustworthy among county residents, with only 25% expressing confidence in it.
“If we’re grading on a curve, then Orange County officials can feel pretty good about the county, especially against other forms of government,” said Jon Gould, the School of Social Ecology’s dean, “but if we’re just doing an absolute grading scale, then they’re not getting a passing grade yet.”
Orange County supervisors signaled support for allocating $3.7 million recovered from ex-supervisor Do’s criminal scheme back to his constituents. A formal vote is slated later this month.
After Do’s bribery conviction, 36% percent of respondents believed that most or at least half of the people running county government are corrupt. The same percentage believe that only a few or none are corrupt.
Half of respondents agree that the county government is run to benefit a few big interests.
Only 23% believe it works on behalf of average people.
Gould deemed the findings to be a bit of a Rorschach test as the skepticism about who county government works for cuts across party lines with a few percentage points separating Republicans, Democrats and independents on the question.
What interests are fueling the cynicism also aren’t defined.
“The bigger problem here for the county isn’t the corruption question,” he said, “it’s whether the government works for average people or does it work for big interests, and that’s where I think there is greater cause for concern if I were an elected official.”
While skepticism about who county government works for is a relatively shared perspective, what to do about it is skewed along party lines.
In 2022, Democrats secured a slim 3-2 majority on the board for the first time in decades. Whether or not that majority holds will be determined by voters in the midterm election.
Nearly 60% of Democrats surveyed favor expanding the number of seats on the Orange County Board of Supervisors and making the county’s chief executive an elected position, while less than half of Republicans and independents support such reforms.
The survey’s findings follow a recent O.C. grand jury report that recommended giving supervisors the power to remove elected county officials for misconduct and supported the treasurer-tax collector transitioning to an appointed position.
Jurors published their report after the June primary when voters overwhelmingly reelected Assessor Claude Parrish and Treasurer-Tax Collector Shari Freidenrich despite being the subjects of critical H.R. reports in recent years.
Todd Ament faces allegations in lawsuit that he embezzled money from the Anaheim Chamber of Commerce and engaged in corrupt self-dealing for personal gain.
The arm of government that enjoys the most support remains law enforcement, but that opinion is sharply divided along racial and ethnic lines. Whites express trust in the police “always or most of the time,” while 61% of Asian Americans and only 47% of Latinos surveyed similarly trust cops.
“That’s not a new finding anywhere in America,” Gould said. “That’s been true for decades.”
There’s also a generational divide where millennials and Gen Z are more likely to be skeptical of police than Gen X, boomers and the silent generation. But younger demographics displayed a higher trust in community organizations, meaning cynicism isn’t divorcing them from civic life.
The generation divide could also tip the county from its purple politics to being as solidly blue as other Democratic strongholds in the state.
“Will those young people stay in Orange County, or will they leave?” Gould asks. “Will their attitudes remain the same? Will they vote at the same percentages as people older than them? If they stay, their attitudes stay the same and they vote, this place will look blue very quickly.”
