Still a One Party State, California Takes a Positive Step

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At the time of this writing, Democrats have easily won all statewide races; however, Republicans put up strong fights for the Secretary of State and Controller races. Democrats have lost their supermajority in both legislative chambers - 25 Democrats to 14 Republicans (1 seat is vacant) in the Senate, one short of the supermajority, and 52 Democrats to 28 Republicans in the Assembly, two short of the supermajority.

In a year characterized by one of the most uneventful gubernatorial races the state has ever seen and record low turnout, many would assume the California 2014 mid-term elections were meaningless. Yet, even uneventful and low turnout ones have consequences.

Democratic Budgets Will Persist: Governor Brown, as he heads into his historic 4th term, received the ideal budget landscape. Proposition 2 - the rainy day fund - passed overwhelmingly, giving Brown a solid platform to tout fiscal frugality, but also enough flexibility to increase spending as he wishes. With clear majorities in the Senate and Assembly, Brown has more than enough Democrat votes to pass his budgets without any need of Republican input (voters lowered via 2010's Proposition 25 the threshold of passing the budget from a 2/3rd majority to a simple majority). And regardless of his talk of fiscal prudence, California's general fund expenditures have increased by 20% under Brown. With the Controller's office remaining in Democratic hands, Governor Brown is the only check on the Democrat-passed budgets. Without another campaign ahead of him, and a focus on his gubernatorial legacy (particularly the High Speed Rail project), one has to wonder just how frugal Sacramento will be over the next four years.

The Fight for Union Supremacy Rages Onward: There is one special interest in California that dominates them all: the unions. In 2014, their supremacy was on the ballot and it appears they have experienced some major setbacks. True, Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson appears headed for re-election after a bruising campaign against fellow Democrat and education reformer, Marshall Tuck, in what became a proxy war over education reform, broadly, and more specifically, the Vergara v. California ruling. But in other battles, like AD 16 where Republican Catharine Baker made the BART strike a rallying point for her supporters against former union official Tim Sbranti, the San Jose Mayoral election where presumptive Mayor-elect Sam Liccardo has been a supporter of Mayor Chuck Reed's pension reform efforts, and in the San Diego City Council elections - where Mayor Kevin Faulconer now has a friendly city council, unions fell short in securing more allies in Sacramento and the state's city halls.

The Republican Party Advances New Faces: At the expense of investing in two winnable statewide offices, the California Republican Party made a strategic decision to focus its limited resources on breaking the Democrats' legislative supermajority. They were successful. To do so, the party recruited candidates that could serve as the "new face" of the Republican Party, eventually helping to repair the Grand Old Party's toxic brand in the Golden State.

In San Francisco's East Bay AD 16, Catharine Baker, a socially liberal/fiscally conservative Republican, had no qualms breaking from her party on the social wedge issues. In LA's South Bay AD 66, David Hadley, a libertarian on social issues, focused entirely on fiscal responsibility, business competitiveness, and school performance. In Orange and Los Angeles counties, three Asian American women - Young Kim in AD 65, Ling-Ling Chang in AD 55, and Janet Ngyuyen in SD 34 - will broaden their respective caucuses' diversity in both race and gender, but also life experiences and policy ideas. Republican Mario Guerra, a Cuban-American, turned the D+14 SD 32, into a competitive race.

And statewide, Republicans Pete Peterson, Ashley Swearengin, and Neel Kashkari all proved the GOP is still a big-tent party (and Peterson and Swearengin might have trail-blazed a possible path to victory for future statewide runs). If California Republicans can use these examples as a launching pad for 2016 and beyond, it may be able rebuild.

After the 2014 mid-term elections, California remains under one-party rule. Republicans showed resilience in the Secretary of State and Controller races, and broke the Democratic supermajority, which were both important psychological victories. But from a policy perspective not much will change in California in the immediate future. Rome wasn't built in a day and one election won't turn around California's economic and political competitiveness. But elections have consequences and in 2014, Californians made one tiny step in creating more balance in Golden State politics. The vote suggested a willingness inside the electorate to accept another policy perspective.

 

Carson Bruno is the assistant dean for admission and program relations at the Pepperdine School of Public Policy. Follow him on Twitter @CarsonJFBruno.

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