Most state and federal officials representing Stanislaus don’t actually live here
As election workers continue counting ballots from the Nov. 8 election, some thoughts:
- The struggle goes on for Stanislaus County to produce quality home-grown candidates.
Of six state and federal office holders representing this county, we could end up with only one who actually lives here: California Assemblyman-elect Juan Alanis — unless John Duarte overcomes a slight deficit and ends up beating Adam Gray in the 13th Congressional District. Which is entirely possible.
Gray has represented Stanislaus in the Assembly the past decade, has a district office in Modesto and seems one of us, even if he lives in neighboring Merced County. So that wouldn’t be tragic.
The others: Tom McClintock (Fifth Congressional District) is from Elk Grove, Marie Alvarado-Gil (Senate District 4) lives in Amador County, and although Josh Harder (Ninth Congressional District) and Heath Flora (Ninth Assembly District) were raised in Stanislaus, both now live in San Joaquin County.
In all cases, political ideology apparently outweighs residency. That’s probably a good thing. But Stanislaus’ trend in recent years — being ruled by people who don’t live here — is not.
- Although Senate candidate Tim Robertson is one of us, and Stanislaus anchors the district he sought to represent, his loss to Alvarado-Gil isn’t all that shocking. She successfully portrayed herself as the more conservative of the two Democrats, a message that appealed to voters in a very red district.
Remember, that district had been carved out for a Republican, but Robertson and Alvarado-Gil sneaked into the November runoff when six GOP candidates with stars in their eyes diluted the Republican vote in the June primary.
We wish Alvarado-Gil all the luck in Sacramento. Her challenge is getting enough done in the next two years to build sufficient name recognition to hold off whoever the Republicans come up with to challenge her in 2024.
- While The Modesto Bee Editorial Board endorsed both Jeremiah Williams and Janice Keating in their successful races for Modesto City Council and the Modesto Irrigation District board, and both deserved to win, it’s still not fun to see their opponents — Naramsen Goriel and Frank Damrell, respectively — go down to defeat. Both are decent guys who would make respectable office holders and who lost in previous campaigns for other posts. One hopes they aren’t too discouraged.
- Measures H and L got the lion’s share of attention on this ballot for local measures because of their impact on wallets — respectively, raising sales tax 1% in Modesto and raising property tax for a bond benefiting high schools in Modesto. (Measure H will pass, while the outcome for Measure L is too close to call, with several thousands of ballots still uncounted.) But it’s positive that voters also embraced Measure G, which changes the timing of Modesto’s mayoral elections to boost voter turnout.
- Scrutiny of the fine print in election results points up the lack of publicity for Measure G. Take a close look at undervotes, which reflect ballot questions skipped by voters, often because they know little about a given campaign and don’t feel confident enough to weigh in. For example, as of Tuesday’s update, only 722 Stanislaus voters (among nearly 99,000) declined to participate in the governor’s race, while double that number skipped voting for lesser-known candidates for lieutenant governor.
So it wasn’t surprising that 5.6% of Modesto voters skipped Measure G, compared to 3.8% for the better-known Measure H.
- Undervotes also climb when people are so turned off by candidates that they refuse to vote for either. Such was the case in Senate District 4, where conservative voters’ only choice, remember, was between two Democrats — Robertson and Alvarado-Gil — and more than 17,000 Stanislaus voters — nearly one in four — apparently could not stomach either one.
- MID deserves all the criticism it’s getting for jacking up our electricity rates nearly 10% on Tuesday, ignoring the opinions of two incoming board members — Keating and Bob Frobose, both of whom asked for a delay until they’re seated and could help decide in early December.
But I’ll give MID this: At least it waited until just before the Nov. 8 election to spring the rate increase on customers. That gave Measures H and L a chance with inflation-fatigued voters, who might not agree to anything else costing them more money in the foreseeable future.
- Harder’s requests for money from supporters became hilarious near the end of the campaign. Not because they were entirely wrong about his opponent, Tom Patti — consistently painted as a MAGA extremist — but because Harder already had raked in tons more than Patti.
Time and again, Harder’s camp breathlessly pleaded for donations because ”our opponent’s attacks are working” and “it’s truly a toss-up.” Never once did Harder’s emails note that he had collected $6.4 million as of Oct. 19 — more than five times Patti’s $1.2 million.
Harder coasted to victory with 56% of the vote.
- In a couple of weeks, look for our discussion with Modesto Councilmen-elect Nick Bavaro and Eric Alvarez, both of whom were unopposed. They’ve agreed to a remote session with The Bee Editorial Board, similar to our popular pre-election forums in high-profile races, with topics important to all Modesto residents but without the rancor that occasionally comes with high-stakes debates.
Any time you add three new members on a seven-person panel — Williams, Bavaro and Alvarez, in this case — you’re never sure just what you’ll get. Let’s be honest; the potential for disaster lurks.
But let’s also recognize that all three seem solid men of integrity, meaning the potential for positive progress seems more likely. Mayor Sue Zwahlen told me Wednesday, “All three told me they look forward to continuing on the path we’ve been on.”
This story was originally published November 17, 2022 at 4:00 AM.
