For 26 days, Lancaster council member Ron Smith, a Republican, was an Assemblyman-elect, that is until the very last votes were counted in Los Angeles County on Sunday and by 145 votes Smith lost his seat to Democrat Steve Fox.  Smith came out of election night several thousand votes ahead but a huge glut of late provisional ballots cost him the seat.  “There is a political group that has learned how to manipulate the election by playing with provisionals,” huffed Smith.  He’s right; it is called the voters. …

Smith raised and spent about $285,000 on his campaign, but all of that was in the primary.  Once he was the only Republican in the runoff he coasted, assured of election in this “safe” Republican district.  And his opponent Fox, raised only $20,000 and loaned himself another $40,000 – he had no organized state Democratic support.

So what’s the problem? Well, over the summer local Democrats put on a big registration drive in this middle class district, as they did across the state and using the new online registration signed up a whole lot of new voters.

Wrong spot on ballot — and little active campaigning

In 2014, the Republican candidate — Palmdale Councilman Tom Lackey — trounced Fox by more than 20 percent despite continuing gains in Latino and Democratic registration. All he needed to do was run a competent campaign.

There was a heavy California favorite who lost in similar circumstances in 2014, however. This time it was a Democrat — was Raul Bocanegra, an up-and-coming Assembly member who was seen as a future party leader. The LA Weekly has the key details.

It’s easily the political upset of the year in California — Bocanegra, by all accounts California’s Assembly Speaker-in-waiting, every inch the Democratic Party establishment figure, upset by Patty Lopez, a mild-mannered LAUSD employee and political nobody born in Michoacan, Mexico, for whom English is a second language (she speaks with a heavy accent). 

Bocanegra finished nearly 40 points ahead of fellow Democrat Lopez in the June 3 primary. That’s the typical mauling of anyone who runs a campaign from their kitchen table.

He was so certain of his victory that Bocanegra spent only $15,000 on campaign literature promoting himself to voters during the runoff against her — a pittance in L.A. elections. …

Lopez, meanwhile, didn’t file a single campaign finance report until after the election, and it’s unclear how much money, if any, she raised and spent to get her name out to East Valley voters in the district that takes in gentrifying North Hollywood, working-class Pacoima, middle class Mission Hills and horsey Sunland-Tujunga.

So how did Bocanegra lose? The LA Weekly points out that the ballot in his district conveyed the impression that Lopez was the favored Democrat:

Notice how the first five races on the page are all Democrat vs. Republican races, and they all have the Democratic candidate listed above the Republican.

This is a bizarre coincidence – candidate ballot order is assigned randomly (at least it’s supposed to be) and Democrats do not get to be automatically listed above Republicans.

Now, look at the Bocanegra vs. Lopez race, at the bottom of the above page. It’s one of the few Democrat vs. Democrat races on the ballot, under California’s new voting system in which the top-two winners from the primary, even if they’re from the same party, face off in the fall.

And who’s listed in the first position in the race for AD 39, the position which up to this point on the ballot was consistently but inadvertently given to the Democrat, with the Republican continually listed in second position?

Patty Lopez is in the first spot.

This suggests that a good number of voters in the East Valley who were voting straight Democrat — and not really aware of specific candidates — may have automatically filled in the first bubble, for Lopez.

’80 percent of life is showing up’

There’s no doubt that this ballot prompted many voters to back Lopez. But if Bocanegra had campaigned and sent mailers and run even a semblance of a campaign, the word would have gotten out to enough voters that he was the incumbent — and one held in good regard by other local officials and Latino groups.

Instead, like Ron Smith before him, Bocanegra assumed his election was guaranteed, and lost to someone who will lose in 2016 and later be most remembered as the answer to a trivia question.

Morale of the story: As Woody Allen reputedly said, 80 percent of life is showing up. In the general election, Smith and Bocanegra didn’t bother.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

By John Hrabe

Nero may have fiddled as Rome burned. At least he was in the city when it happened.

The same can’t be said for the leaders of the California Senate and Assembly Republican caucuses, who left the state last November, as Democrats claimed last-minute, upset victories in two legislative races during late ballot counting.

Ron Smith, the Republican candidate in the 36th Assembly district, and Assemblyman Bill Berryhill, the Republican candidate in the 5th state Senate district, each maintained a 2 percentage-point lead over their respective Democratic rivals on election night. It was only later, when late absentee and provisional ballots were counted, that the results flipped, giving Democrats critical pickups in their quest for California’s first legislative supermajorities in 80 years.

Assembly Republican Leader Connie Conway and Senate Republican Leader Bob Huff were enjoying special-interest junkets out of the state and country, according to state disclosure reports, while at the same time leaving staff members to handle on-site ballot verification programs in crucial legislative races.  Seasoned campaign veterans, including California’s new Republican Party chairman, Jim Brulte, believe that ballot verification programs are necessary in order to prevent fraud and guarantee that the counting is accurate.

Conway at Hawaiian resort, while ballots were being counted

From November 11-15, when late absentee and provisional ballots were being counted, Conway was the guest of the Independent Voter Project at Maui’s Fairmont Kea Lani hotel. In stark contrast to the Norwalk-based Los Angeles County Registrar of Voters, the Hawaiian resort is “located on the white sands of Wailea’s Polo Beach among 22 acres of lush tropical landscape.”

According to her disclosure report, Conway received more than $2,500 in travel, meals and lodging from the special interest group, which “has received financing in recent years from business and labor interests including cigarette maker Altria, Southern California Edison, Eli Lilly and Co., Pacific Gas & Electric, the California Beer and Beverage Distributors, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers Assn., Chevron and the state prison guards union.”

Smith, who lost his Assembly race by 145 votes, believes the outcome was manipulated during the counting of provisional ballots.

“[T]here is a political group that has learned how to manipulate the election by playing with provisionals,” the disgruntled Assembly candidate told the Sacramento Bee.

Conway did not respond to CalWatchdog.com’s requests for comment on her decision to leave the state as Assembly races were still being decided.

Huff travels to the Land Down Under 

While Capitol staff members and political consultants were driving down to the San Joaquin County Registrar of Voters in Stockton, Senate GOP Leader Huff relaxed on a 13-day trip to Australia and New Zealand. The trip included dinner and drinks at “New Zealand’s most awarded winery,” the Villa Maria Estate. According to his disclosure report, Huff received more than $1,600 in free meals, drinks, transportation and souvenirs.

“Just because I was in Australia and New Zealand, doesn’t mean I wasn’t directing appropriate counsel and staff to monitor the absentee ballot verification in my absence. I was,” Huff told CalWatchdog.com. “The election result was not determined until a week after I returned from this trip.  The outcome would not have changed if I had been in Northern California doing anything differently.”

Huff’s version of events is disputed by several high-ranking Republican staff members, who, unlike Huff, were in the state during the entire ballot-counting process. The staff members, who asked not to be identified for fear of retribution from caucus leaders, said it was “disheartening” to know that the legislative leaders were enjoying luxurious vacations while operatives were tediously reviewing ballots in dreary government buildings. One staff member said the leaders were “completely unaware of what was going on.”

The Senate GOP leader said he had committed to the trip before the close election results came about.

“As for the trip itself, I had made a previous commitment to attend. That promise needed to be honored,” he said.

When told of Huff’s explanation, one high-ranking GOP staff member laughed, “You know from past history of close races that it can take one, two or three weeks to count ballots. Why on earth would you ever schedule a trip during that period?”

Brulte: “Leaders lead by example”

Legislative leaders’ out-of-touch and disconnected management style is in stark contrast to the state’s new Republican Party chairman, Brulte, who raised the issue of ballot integrity programs in his lopsided chairman’s race.  The former state Senate Republican leader received 90 percent of the vote for state party chairman, but still went through a ballot integrity drill to prove a point.

“I believe that leaders lead by example, and we have to be in the precincts working, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with our volunteers,” Brulte told reporters on Sunday afternoon at the California Republican Convention in Sacramento. “That’s why I campaigned right up until the votes started to be cast, and that’s why I had ballot integrity people in the counting room to make sure the votes were cast correctly and there was no ballot fraud because I think you lead by example.”

Huff defended his campaign operations as adequate for the modern era.

“The wonder of modern telecommunications meant I was in constant contact with my elections staff, attorneys and volunteers,” he said. “Even Jim Brulte stated that his office will be wherever his phone is.”

Huff also distanced himself from the losses suffered by the Assembly Republican caucus.

“He [Brulte] has also stated that the lopsided presidential election results had much more to do with Republican losses in the [California] Senate than anything else,” Huff said.

Brulte has reserved his toughest criticism for the Assembly Republicans’ “poor execution.”

“We didn’t have to lose those seats,” he told the Sacramento Bee, referring to the devastating Assembly losses. “We got away from the basics. That’s political malpractice.”

In spite of Berryhill going down to defeat and GOP staff members feeling they were thrown under the bus, Huff believes that his trip to the Land Down Under was valuable.

“One of lessons we learned from the 2012 election is that Californians admire elected officials who work with the other party,” he said. “The New Zealand and Australia study trip gave us the opportunity to create friendships that would help us get good policy done this year.”

With a successful ballot integrity program, Republican leaders might not have needed those bipartisan “friendships.”

By John Hrabe

Jim Brulte was elected chairman of the California Republican Party in a landslide vote on Sunday. But despite winning support from 90 percent of convention delegates, the former state senator kept campaigning until the end.

“Leaders lead by example,” Brulte, who served as Republican leader in both houses of the California Legislature, told reporters shortly after the party closed its 2013 spring convention. “That’s why I campaigned right up until the votes started to be cast.”

Brulte’s chief adviser, Michael Schroeder, himself a former state party chair, told CalWatchdog.com that Brulte spent the weekend “campaigning around the clock.” At a Sacramento Hyatt that was blanketed with hundreds of “Brulte for Chairman” signs and stickers, he spoke to 10 Republican groups on Friday, followed by 11 more speeches on Saturday, before hosting a 15th-floor hospitality suite late Saturday night.

Leadership, candidates, fundraising all faulted

If he’s to orchestrate a Republican renaissance, Brulte needs his take-nothing-for-granted leadership style to rub off on legislative leaders.

“There were three Assembly seats that were lost because we got lazy,” the state’s new Republican chairman said. “Leaders lead by example, and we have to be in the precincts working, standing shoulder to shoulder with our volunteers.”

Brulte did not specify which districts he believed Republicans should have won in November. However, state Republicans have been heavily criticized for being caught off-guard with lackluster campaigning and poor fundraising in several Assembly seats during the 2012 cycle.

Perhaps the most egregious case: the 36th Assembly District in the High Desert. Republican candidate Ron Smith reportedly stopped campaigning after the primary and ultimately lost by 145 votes.

“Smith’s loss is typical of the self-inflicted wounds that have destroyed the Republican Party in California, leaving it with fewer legislators than any time in the state’s history,” wrote Tony Quinn, a political commentator and former Republican legislative staffer, in a scathing election post-mortem on Fox and Hounds. “Once he was the only Republican in the runoff, he coasted, assured of election in this ‘safe’ Republican district.”

Smith was too busy hiring staff and hanging pictures, according to the Sacramento Bee.

“I had most of my staff getting ready to be hired, my picture was up on the wall, I had my office that was assigned to me, and I already had two pieces of legislation that were going to be introduced Monday,” a perplexed Smith said in December.

In Orange County, a lack of mother’s milk of politics

If Smith’s loss epitomized lazy legislative campaigning, GOP incumbent Chris Norby’s surprising defeat in the 65th Assembly District in Orange County symbolized the party’s fundraising problems in the lower house. In a span of 18 days, late in the campaign, six Democratic county central committees contributed $292,200 to the Assembly campaign of Sharon Quirk-Silva.

Allan Hoffenblum, publisher of the California Target Book, told CalWatchdog.com that legislative Republicans struggled in 2012 due to a lack of funding.

“The caucus’ problem with the last cycle was the lack of money,” Hoffenblum said. “The one who influences the targeting is the one who raises the money.”

Hoffenblum believes that Brulte’s coronation as chairman will change the party’s fundraising and targeting.

Brulte was less critical of Republicans’ poor showing in state Senate and congressional races.

“We lost some congressional and Senate seats and frankly I’m not sure in a plus-23 election we could have won those,” he said, referring to President Obama’s 60 percent to 37 percent pasting of GOP nominee Mitt Romney in California.

More than 1,300 people attended the state party’s convention. In October, delegates will reconvene in Anaheim.