Fresno Elections - Progressives Make No Gains

Fresno Elections - Progressives Make No Gains
By Mike Rhodes

It will be hard for progressives to find a silver lining in the results of Tuesday’s Fresno County elections. After months of fund raising, candidates forums, walking door to door, and a substantial Get Out The Vote campaign, Fresno progressives have no significant victories to report. The good news is that progressive voters retained Cynthia Sterling, who is an ally in City Council District 3, and that Margaret Mims (a Democrat) will be in a runoff in the Fresno County Sheriff’s race.

Many progressive community activists and organized labor focused on two races - the City Council District 1 race and the Board of Supervisors (BOS) District 4 race between Judy Case and Cynthia Gonzalez. The Fresno County BOS race had the potential to change the balance of power in county politics. Cynthia Gonzalez defined herself as a progressive Democrat and had significant community and labor support. Large numbers of people walked precincts and made phone calls for Gonzalez. The Central Valley Progressive PAC gave Gonzalez the largest donation they have ever given to a candidate. She also had significant support from unions like Service Employees International Union - United Healthcare West, who would have liked to have had her on the BOS when homecare workers negotiate a new contract.

While Gonzalez had popular support she did not have the financial backing needed to run a viable campaign. In the most recent records on campaign contributions, Gonzalez had raised $22,287 to Case’s $109,290. The Fresno Bee also endorsed Case and ran a series of negative stories about Gonzalez. One article in The Bee’s May 27 edition, on the front page of the Local & State section featured a photo of Gonzalez looking down and the headline "Lost Endorsement?" The story was one of a series criticizing Gonzalez about an incident in her past. The article asked if the Fresno Deputy Sheriff’s Association was going to withdraw their endorsement. The answer was no, but the headline and photo told a different story. The information about Gonzalez’s past, which amounted to nothing, appears to have been part of a smear campaign from forces that will stop at nothing to maintain power. With 100% of the ballots counted, the vote was:

Judy Case 9,726 votes for 75.62% of the vote
Cynthia Gonzalez 3,126 votes for 24.31% of the vote

There were two contested races for the Fresno City Council. Cynthia Sterling, as mentioned above won in the District 3 race. Because she received more than 50% of the votes cast, there will not be a run-off in November. She retains her seat. With 100% of the ballots counted, the vote was:

Cynthia Sterling 1,799 votes for 64.83% of the vote
Manuel Toledo 825 votes for 29.73% of the vote
Ignacio Garibay 136 votes for 4.9% of the vote

All of the candidates in the District 3 race have left/progressive politics. This District represents West Fresno and extends into the Tower District. It has the largest number of African Americans and Latinos in the city. While some progressives complained that Sterling is not as accessible as they would like or as effective of a leader, they were not persuaded that the most important use of their time was to remove a liberal African American woman from the Fresno City Council. Most activists worked on other races. Some actively worked in support of the Sterling campaign.

Fresno City Council District 1 is currently held by Tom Boyajian, a liberal who is termed out and unable to run for re-election. Five candidates ran for this seat on the City Council. Chuck Riojas was the only Democrat in the race and the candidate supported by most progressive groups. His supporters included the Central Valley Progressive PAC, the Central Labor Council, SEIU, and Fresno Stonewall Democrats. The Riojas campaign had precinct walkers that covered the district, a phone calling operation, and an impressive Get Out The Vote campaign. On weekends there were 50 - 100 volunteers walking door to door for Riojas. The campaign was said to have had identified 2,000 voters who were committed to cast their ballot for Riojas. With 100% of the ballots counted, the vote was:

Scott Miller 1,415 votes for 25.9% of the vote
Blong Xiong 1,349 votes for 24.69% of the vote
Chuck Riojas 1,154 votes for 21.12% of the vote
Allen Schroeder 975 votes for 17.86% of the vote
Cliff Archer 560 votes for 10.25% of the vote

Scott Miller is a moderate Republican who participated in last weekend’s Gay Pride Parade. Blong Xiong is not a member of any political party, but had the backing of Susan Anderson who is a moderate Republican on the Board of Supervisors and Juan Arambula who is a moderate Democrat in the State Assembly. Allen Schroeder and Cliff Archer are both Republicans. Archer was backed by conservative City Council members Jerry Duncan and Larry Westerlund. Scott Miller and Blong Xiong will face off in a November run-off election.

Voting was extremely light in Fresno County. Only 26% of registered voters cast a ballot. The low turnout of voters is far less if you include the number of people who are not registered or who have been disenfranchised from the voting process. Each Fresno City Council District has about 60,000 residents. Cynthia Sterling won her District 3 City Council seat with 1,799 votes. In other words, only 3% of the residents of District 3 actually voted for Sterling. If you assume ½ of the residents are under 18 (which is probably high), and therefore ineligible to vote, you still have only 6% of the residents over 18 in District 3 voting for Sterling. Not a good commentary on the democratic process in Fresno.

One of the few bright spots in local elections was the Sheriff’s race. The current Sheriff, Richard Pierce, decided not to run for re-election. Pierce did not talk much about why he was not seeking re-election. Some analysts have speculated that it was because of the Peace Fresno spy scandal. Others believe it was part of a deal between Pierce and the State Attorney General who investigated the Sheriff’s department for wrongdoing related to several of Pierce’s activities. Those activities included moonlighting, selling Sheriff department cars (at a very reasonable rate) to the company he was moonlighting for, installing Sheriff department computers at the Harris Ranch in West Fresno County, and the Peace Fresno incident. While we may never know the full details about why Pierce did not run, the end result was that we will have a new Sheriff after the November elections.

There were five candidates running for Sheriff. Margaret Mims had endorsements from the Central Valley Progressive PAC, Fresno Democratic Women’s Club, National Women’s Political Caucus, and Fresno Stonewall Democrats. She was the only Democrat in the race. All of the other candidates were Republicans. With 100% of the ballots counted, the vote was:

Cal Minor 29,527 votes for 37.49% of the vote
Margaret Mims 22,208 for 28.14% of the vote
Joe Flores 11,829 for 15.05% of the vote
Colleen Mestas 10,513 for 13.32% of the vote
Chris Curtice 4,657 for 5.90% of the vote

In the last reporting period, Cal Minor was reported to have received $122,023 compared to Margaret Mims $117,539. Chris Curtice only reported $7,760 in donations. Money does make a difference in electoral politics. Colleen Mestas, who came in a disappointing 4^th, was backed by organized labor in Fresno.

In the race for Fresno County Superintendent of Schools, there were two Republican candidates (both named Larry) to choose from. Larry Powell was backed by outgoing Superintendent Pete Mehas and considered to be the more conservative of the two candidates. Powell has close ties with the fundamentalist Christian community. Larry Wilder was backed by the Fresno Teachers Association, California School Employees Association, SEIU, the Black Political Council and the Central Labor Council. With 100% of the ballots counted, the vote was:

Larry Powell 46,524 for 62.76% of the vote
Larry Wilder 27,507 for 37.11% of the vote

There was a very limited presence of progressive third party candidates in Fresno County. John Crockford, who is running for the 29^th Assembly District, will run as a Peace and Freedom Party candidate against the incumbent Mike Villines. There is also a Green Party candidate, out of Visalia, who is running in the 21^st Congressional District. The 21^st CD only includes a small part of Fresno County. John Miller is the Green Party candidate.

Progressive community activists working on local electoral campaigns need to analyze the results of the June 6 primary election and figure out what went wrong, what could be done better next time, and how to win in November.

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