The early conventional wisdom was that the clear favorite was Republican Kevin Faulconer, 47, the longest-serving council member and a community figure since his election as president of San Diego State University’s student body a quarter-century ago. Not only was Faulconer like the congenial moderate Republicans who have led San Diego for much of the last four decades, his opponent was a neophyte.

Democratic Councilman David Alvarez, 33, only became a public figure in 2010 when he beat out scions of two local political dynasties to win a seat representing a largely Latino district south of Interstate 8 — the dividing line in city politics between blue-collar communities nearer the Mexican border and the affluent neighborhoods from La Jolla to inland Rancho Bernardo.

That conventional wisdom has given way to a new assumption: Faulconer may win, but it will be very close — and he may be the last Republican that San Diego elects as mayor.

Given the Democrats’ hold on nearly all of California’s 10 largest cities, Faulconer might be the last big-city GOP mayor to be elected in the Golden State — barring a change in our political dynamics or demographics.

GOP held sway in San Diego not long ago

Although Democrats had long enjoyed a voter-registration edge in California’s second-largest city, Republicans did surprisingly well until 2012. It was that year that Filner, an abrasive 20-year paleoliberal congressman, edged out GOP Councilman Carl DeMaio, a small-government crusader who helped win huge changes in city compensation practices in his one term in office.

Many observers credited Filner’s 51 percent to 47 percent win to the strong turnout triggered by President Obama’s re-election campaign among Latinos and African Americans — 29 percent and 7 percent of the city’s population, respectively — and young people of all races. Also seen as a factor was DeMaio’s combative manner; the gay libertarian, the theory held, turned off the independent voters that Jerry Sanders attracted in his successful mayoral campaigns of 2005 and 2008.

So when Filner resigned in August, Republicans were confident after DeMaio decided instead to run for Congress and the well-liked Faulconer emerged as the sole credible GOP mayoral candidate. In the first special election, in November, Faulconer led with 42 percent, with Alvarez second with 27 percent, and Republican-turned-independent-turned-Democrat former Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher third with 24 percent. In this week’s runoff special election — runoffs typically have light turnout — the assumption was that reliably Republican absentee voters would carry the day.

Instead, the last published poll showed Faulconer only ahead 47 percent to 46 percent, within the margin of error. Millions of dollars in campaign spending by the national chapters of local unions — most of it for negative ads trashing the GOP candidate — had taken their toll.

But Republican insiders — and scores of business executives — are worried about much more than just this election.

The “Los Angelization” of America’s Finest City

It’s not just the usual concerns of GOP operatives in California: that the party’s hot-button social issues turn off young voters and that Latino voter turnout is steadily increasing. It’s that San Diego’s politics are undergoing what might be called a “Los Angelization.”

The city’s school board was taken over by the local affiliate of the California Teachers Association in 2008, when union muscle elected a new board majority that instituted policies that drove away an acclaimed reformer superintendent and yielded an operating budget in which an astonishing 92 percent of funds goes to employee compensation. The CTA control of the school board only increased with the 2010 and 2012 elections.

Now the same thing is happening with the City Council. Union-favored Democratic candidates — such as Alvarez — are increasingly likely to beat Democrats with independent streaks. As recently as 2011, there were Democrats on the council who occasionally would take on unions — politicians with backgrounds in engineering and small business, as well as party members who appeared eager to hear out business interests’ concerns.

But now the union muscle-flexing not only has Alvarez near an improbable mayoral victory, it has prompted hard-left decisions by the City Council in the months since Filner quit — decisions supported by formerly semi-independent Democrats who see the writing on the wall.

Last fall, on a party-line 5-4 vote, City Council Democrats approved increasing fees on commercial development by at least 377 percent to provide more funds for affordable-housing programs — even though the programs have a horrible record of actually getting people in homes.

And on another party-line 5-4 vote, council Democrats approved a restrictive new master plan for a job-rich shipyard industrial area adjacent to the Barrio Logan neighborhood in Alvarez’s district. They did so despite dire warnings from many CEOs and business owners that it would give leverage to environmentalists and community activists to shut them down.

No more independent Democratic voices

The contrast between the current council Democratic majority and past Democratic majorities was striking. In 2007, an effort to punish Wal-Mart for the sin of being anti-union died when then-Councilwoman Donna Frye — the most popular Democrat in San Diego — changed her mind and opposed an anti-“big box” ordinance. Frye candidly admitted that her constituents liked Wal-Mart and didn’t want it punished.

Present council Democrats appear incapable of such candor. In voting for the massive fee increase on commercial development, Council President Todd Gloria — the interim mayor since Filner’s resignation — repeatedly insisted that not only would there be no negative economic fallout from the hike, it would help the local economy.

The same Gloria once stood up to unions by backing a “managed competition” process in which groups of city workers vied against private businesses for the right to provide city services — a reform strongly endorsed by voters.

Alvarez has made clear he plans to nullify voter-backed reforms. Will Gloria stand up to him? Maybe he would have a year or two ago. But now that San Diego politics are becoming as union-dominated and doctrinaire as those of Los Angeles or the California Legislature, probably not.

A Faulconer victory in Tuesday’s mayoral election may quiet GOP worries about the radicalization of San Diego City Hall — but not for long.

This is Part 1 of a two-part series. Part 2 is here.

If you listen to Gov. Jerry Brown and his allies, “California is back” from the deficits and dysfunction of a few years ago. Not so fast. A new book examines the problems that still plague the state — and will continue to do so until sensible reforms are enacted.

“The Beholden State: California’s Lost Promise and How to Recapture It” is a collection of essays edited by Brian C. Anderson, the editor of City Journal, which is published by the Manhattan Institute; and which has a special California edition edited by Ben Boychuk. So the book is solidly grounded in experts on the Golden State.

It is the “Beholden State” today because it is beholden to so many mistakes of the past, which are dissected in the book’s essays: overweening union power, a dysfunctional tax code, broken roads and failing schools. Fortunately, the book also provides essays showing how to make things better — without the Pollyannaish gloss put on things by the governor.

The forward is by Bill Simon, who lost a bid for governor in 2002 to then-Gov. Gray Davis, who ended up recalled the next year. Writing of the massive exodus of businesses during the years of Davis and his successor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Simon laments, “I’ve lost count of the business people I know personally who have either decided to expand their operations out of state or simply pulled up stake and left entirely.”

He points to the “endless accretion of regulations,” in particular AB 32, the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, which Schwarzenegger signed. It greatly increases the cost of electricity, boosting business costs. And Simon points out that California’s public schools, “once among the nation’s best, now compete with Mississippi’s for the dubious distinction of the lowest student achievement in reading and math.”

Teachers’ unions

Which brings us to “The Worst Union in America,” a chapter by Troy Senik, a columnist and member of the editorial board of the Orange County Register (where I also write editorials). He’s writing about the California Teachers Association. He points out that the decline began in 1975 when Brown, during his first stint as governor, signed the Rodda Act, allowing collective bargaining for teachers’ unions. As I have described it, this meant teachers elected their own bosses; so they sit on both sides of the bargaining table, as workers and as the employer (by electing pliable legislators and local school boards).

Mandatory dues of up to $1,000 a year per member fatten the CTA’s coffers. During the decade of the 2000s, the union spend $210 million on political campaigns to maintain its power and to keep the tax money flowing to high pay, lucrative pensions and the union’s own coffers.

The kids? Union power ensured “stifling reform efforts at the local level,” Senik writes. It has made it nigh impossible to fire even the worst teachers. The Los Angeles Unified School District, “home to 33,000 teachers — has dismissed only four” in the past decade.

The California State Teachers’ Retirement System has “about $56 billion in liabilities.” CalSTRS itself recently announced it needs $4.5 billion a year for 30 year to remain solvents. That amount was not included in the fiscal 2013-14 state budget Brown signed in June, meaning his boast of it being “balanced” was not accurate.

As Senik notes, the real tragedy here is the loss of generations of students who have been badly educated; and who will not be contributing to the state’s economy at their full potential.

Anti-Business

That’s assuming there even will be jobs for these public-school graduates, even those who went to a decent school. In one of four essays in the volume, Steven Malanga, senior editor at City Journal, takes on, “Cali to Business: Get Out!” He also has written “The New New Left,” a book which I reviewed for the Register.

His chapter in the new book is subtitled, “Firms Are Fleeing the State’s Senseless Regulations and Confiscatory Taxes.”

He notes that California, despite somewhat higher taxes than other states, long was a magnet for business and jobs because of its ideal climate, “a world-class public university system” that churned out able workers, “sturdy infrastructure” and “a history of innovative companies.”

Many companies still innovate, but most are high-tech firms with few employees located in Silicon Valley or San Francisco. The latest example was Twitter’s IPO, which just created 1,600 new millionaires and $2.2 billion in new revenue for the state. Great for them. But Twitter, Facebook, Google and the other firms have not created the millions of middle-class jobs that departed when much of the aerospace industry left in the early 1990s.

Those jobs aren’t coming back, Malanga says, because “California has transformed into a relentlessly antibusiness state,” whose remaining redeeming features — the weather still is great — “haven’t been enough to keep firms from leaving. Relocation experts say that the number of companies exiting the state for greener pastures has exploded.”

He recites how Gov. Gray Davis, upon taking office in 1999, signed 33 bills the California Chamber of Commerce labeled “jobs killers.” And despite a pro-business orientation during Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s first two years in office, 2003-05 — such as the 2005 workers’ compensation reform — the anti-business onslaught has contiued. After losing his Reform Slate in November 2005, Schwarzenegger switched and became anti-business. Brown, with the $7 billion tax increase of Proposition 30 last year and numerous anti-business bills, also has been anti-business.

After an anti-business tax and regulatory environment, Malanga also brings up the state’s position as “America’s most expensive litigation environment for firms.”

CA vs. CA

The always insightful Joel Kotkin, now a professor at Chapman University and columnist with the Orange County Register, writes on, “The Golden State’s War on Itself: How Politicians Turned the California Dream Into a Nightmare.”

He writes that, from 2003 to 2007, the state’s population grew by just 5 percent. But “state and local government grew by 31 percent.” I would add that these were the years of Schwarzenegger, a Republican governor who was elected during the 2003 Gray Davis recall precisely because voters wanted to rein in state spending and endemic deficits. Arnold promised to “blow up the boxes” of state waste and bureaucracy — but ended up expanding the boxes.

Moreover, the state’s percentage of overall U.S. employment has dropped a remarkable 10 percent since 1990. Kotkin contrasts the old progressives, such as Gov. Hiram Johnson and other reformers of the 1910s through the 1950s, who promoted business and growth to advance prosperity, with the modern “progressives,” such as Gov. Jerry Brown (both in the 1970s and now), who push restrictions on growth.

The slack was supposed to be taken up by the “green economy.” But instead of the reasonable regulations of “conservation” efforts in the last century, now, Kotkin writes, the greens are “an impediment to social and economic progress.” In particular, regulations such as AB 32 have severely curtailed industrial jobs, which are higher paying that service jobs.

In this new “progressive” economy, only high-tech CEOs and government workers are prospering. The way back to “the state’s promise,” Kotkin urges, is through “only sustained, broadly based economic growth.”

Part 2 will be published tomorrow.

Judge Michael Kenny’s Aug. 16 ruling that the California High-Speed Rail Authority had failed to meet funding and environmental standards that would allow it to legally begin construction of the project in the Central Valley has elicited little or no reaction from the two editorial boards that have been the bullet train project’s biggest backers since it got $9.95 billion in state bond funds in 2008 with the approval of Proposition 1A.

It’s the biggest news for the project in five years, and yet according to Nexis, all the Sacramento Bee could offer was this passing remark in an Aug. 18 editorial:

“A potential setback emerged Friday when a judge agreed with Kings County that the rail authority has to have financing and environmental clearances in hand for the first 290 miles – not just the first 130 miles. We think that ruling is ripe for appeal.”

Based on what? The ruling from Kenny is pretty much exactly what former judge and state Sen. Quentin Kopp predicted, and he was the key shepherd of Prop. 1A back in 2008. What specifically is “ripe for appeal”? Kenny taking seriously the taxpayer protections that helped get the bonds approved?

But at least the Bee editorial board had a reaction, however small and vague. Nexis shows the Los Angeles Times editorial board has been mum. No more juvenile “I think I can! I think I can” editorials for the time being, I guess.

State judge’s ruling should jeopardize federal funds

Meanwhile, as I wrote this week for City Journal, a state judge saying the project lacks the necessary funding for its initial operating segment creates a headache for the federal government — or it least it would if we were still a nation of laws.

“Kenny’s decision should raise some tough questions in Washington, D.C., too. The judge’s findings appear to undermine the Obama administration’s claim that the high-speed rail project remains eligible for billions in federal stimulus funds. The Department of Transportation awarded California $3.5 billion for the project, with most of the money coming from the $787 billion stimulus that Congress approved in 2009. Those stimulus funds are subject to all sorts of regulations and compliance rules. Federal regulations have a reputation for obscurity, but here they couldn’t be clearer: federal dollars may only go to state rail projects that have demonstrated a sound and viable ‘financial plan (capital and operating),’ ‘reasonableness of financial estimates,’  and ‘quality of planning process.’ Just because the federal government approved a grant doesn’t mean that it can’t cancel it later. The rules require state officials to report regularly on their progress, and the Federal Railroad Administration audits those reports. Presumably, the report for the third quarter of 2013 will note that a state superior court judge moved to block the project because it lacked the necessary financing to get started.”

But the problem for this theory is that it presumes the Obama administration cares what its legal obligations are. There’s little sign of that in Washington these days.

“If all of this doesn’t lead to the loss of federal funds, then critics of the Obama White House may add a new entry to the list of laws—the Affordable Care Act, the No Child Left Behind Act, and laws governing drug possession, illegal immigrants, and the disposal of nuclear waste—that the administration ignores or rewrites on the fly.”

We’ll see. But after talking to Quentin Kopp and Kings County’s lead attorney, I’m pretty sure the bullet train is getting the fate it deserves — whatever happens on the federal front.

By Chris Reed

Merry Christmas, everyone!

The autumn issue of City Journal has a wonderful piece by Michael Anton on how Tom Wolfe’s 1960s sprawling, funny, rule-breaking essays about California defined the Golden State for the rest of America and eventually the world.

“Wolfe has never been afraid to venture from his home turf — this fall’s Back to Blood, an exploration of Miami, is a case in point — and his true literary second home is California. Over the course of his career, Wolfe has devoted more pages to the Golden State than to any setting other than Gotham. In his early years, from the mid-1960s through the early 1970s, the ratio was almost one-to-one. More to the point, the core insights on which he built his career—the devolution of style to the masses, status as a replacement for social class, the ‘happiness explosion’ in postwar America — all first came to him in California. Even books in which the state figures not at all are informed by Wolfe’s observations of the West. Without California, there would be no Wolfe as we know him — no Bonfire, no Right Stuff, no Radical Chic or Me Decade, none of the blockbuster titles or era-defining phrases that made him world-famous.

“And without Wolfe, we would not understand California — or the California-ized modern world. At the time of his most frequent visits, the state was undergoing a profound change, one that affects it to this day and whose every aspect has been exported throughout the country and the globe. Both have become much more like California over the last 40 years, even as California has drifted away from its old self, and Wolfe has chronicled and explained it all.”

Wolfe’s key insight:

“‘Max Weber,’ Wolfe tells me, ‘was the first to argue that social classes were dying everywhere — except, in his time, in England — and being replaced by what he called “status groups.”’ The term improves in Wolfean English: ‘Southern California, I found, was a veritable paradise of statuspheres,’ he wrote in 1968. Beyond the customizers and drag racers, there were surfers, cruisers, teenyboppers, beboppers, strippers, bikers, beats, heads, and, of course, hippies. Each sphere started off self-contained but increasingly encroached on, and influenced, the wider world.

“‘Practically every style recorded in art history is the result of the same thing — a lot of attention to form plus the money to make monuments to it,’ Wolfe wrote in the introduction to his first book. ‘But throughout history, everywhere this kind of thing took place, China, Egypt, France under the Bourbons, every place, it has been something the aristocracy was responsible for. What has happened in the United States since World War II, however, has broken that pattern. The war created money. It made massive infusions of money into every level of society. Suddenly classes of people whose styles of life had been practically invisible had the money to build monuments to their own styles.’”

Read the whole deeply entertaining and enjoyable article here. And have a great Christmas, too!

AUGUST 10, 2012

This article first appeared in City Journal.

By STEVEN GREENHUT

On Memorial Day, a suicidal man waded into San Francisco Bay outside the city of Alameda and stood there for about an hour, neck-deep in chilly water, as about 75 bystanders watched. Local police and firefighters were called to the scene, but they refused to help. After the man drowned, the assembled “first responders” also refused to wade into the water to retrieve his body; they left that job for a bystander.

The incident sparked widespread outrage in northern California, and the response by the fire department and police only intensified the anger. The firefighters blamed local budget cuts for denying them the training and equipment necessary for cold-water rescues. The police said that they didn’t know if the man was dangerous and therefore couldn’t risk the safety of their officers. After a local TV news crew asked him whether he would save a drowning child in the bay, Alameda fire chief Ricci Zombeck gave an answer that made him the butt of local talk-show mockery: “Well, if I was off duty, I would know what I would do, but I think you’re asking me my on-duty response, and I would have to stay within our policies and procedures, because that’s what’s required by our department to do.”

If you stand a better chance of being rescued by the official rescuers when they are off duty, it naturally leads people to question the purpose of these departments, which consume the lion’s share of city budgets and whose employees—in California, anyway—receive exceedingly handsome salaries. In Orange County, where I worked for a newspaper for 11 years, the average pay and benefits package for a firefighter is $175,000 a year. Virtually every Orange County deputy sheriff earns, in pay and overtime, over $100,000 a year, with a significant percentage earning more than $150,000. In many cities, police and fire budgets eat up more than three-quarters of the city budget, and that doesn’t count the unfunded liabilities for generous pension packages, which can top 90 percent of a worker’s final year’s pay. It’s hard to argue that these departments are so starved for funds that they’re entitled to stop saving lives.

After I wrote a newspaper column deploring the Alameda incident, I received many e-mails from self-identified police officers and firefighters. Though a few were appalled by the new public-safety culture they saw on display, most defended it; some even defended Zombeck’s words. Many made reference to a fire in San Francisco that week that had claimed the life of at least one firefighter. The message was clear: Don’t criticize firefighters, because they put their lives on the line protecting you. There’s no doubt that firefighters and police have tough and sometimes dangerous jobs, but that doesn’t mean that the public has no business criticizing them—especially as they become infected with the bureaucratic mind-set spread by public-sector union activism. The unions defend their members’ every action; to the extent that they admit a problem, they always blame tight budgets.

The unions that represent first responders also have a legislative agenda to reduce oversight and accountability. I recall when a state assembly member closely aligned with public-safety unions contacted me about a union-backed bill that was too egregious even for his taste. Sponsored by a firefighters’ union after a district attorney prosecuted an on-duty firefighter for alleged misbehavior that led to a death, the bill in its original form would have offered immunity to firefighters even for gross negligence on the job. The legislation failed after the media started paying attention and ignited a contentious public debate. Perhaps the outrage at the Alameda incident will likewise cause a far-reaching discussion—one that helps restore the principle that the real constituency for public safety is the public, not bureaucrats and government workers.

Here’s part of a new article in the City Journal by Larry Sand of the California Teacher Empowerment Network. Given California’s poor performance — 49th of 50 states on national tests — something has to be done.

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LARRY SAND

One Small Strike Against Teacher Seniority