To those who oppose a strong mayor: You are wasting your energy fighting the wrong battle
Progressives, organized Democrats and emerging leaders in Sacramento are fully engaged in a fight with Mayor Darrell Steinberg over his Measure A ballot initiative to gain more power for his office. What a waste, we have more important fights elsewhere.
Why is the fight not being taken in earnest to Sacramento County Sheriff Scott Jones, an avowed Donald Trump supporter who has flouted citizen oversight, who runs a horrendous downtown jail known for its cruelty to Black prisoners, and whose department swallows up resources including federal dollars meant for COVID-19 relief?
Why are progressives and Democrats not massing in huge numbers to get Gregg Fishman elected to the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors to make it responsive to the public and not just the vested interests in the status quo?
Instead, Fishman is being far outspent by Rich Desmond, the guy endorsed by the outgoing Republican incumbent and the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Association, led by a guy who wears Donald Trump face masks and thinks it’s funny?
Where is the fight over that?
Why is the fight not being taken to County CEO Nav Gill, who put $104 million of COVID-19 relief money into Jones’ budget and who – as we learned last week – has the same attitude about wearing face masks as Trump? Two Democrats on the Board of Supervisors have called for Gill’s resignation. Gill isn’t commenting and neither are the three other supervisors.
Gill is going to ignore calls for resignation and remain inaccessible to the public, despite his $311,000 base salary. It takes four votes to fire Gill. If Desmond wins, Gill stays for sure.
Where is the fight over that?
Instead, it’s all about #NoWayMeasureA. Steinberg is the preferred target of progressive political passion in Sacramento.
When juxtaposed against open Trumpism in the county, the way this Steinberg fight sucks up all the oxygen is crazy.
Stop blaming Steinberg
Steinberg gets all the blame for rampant homelessness in Sacramento and yet it’s not really his responsibility to combat homelesssness. It’s the responsibility of Sacramento County.
It’s not Steinberg’s responsibility to make sure that the county is fully funding its health department to fight COVID-19 or to mandate wearing masks. Gill has bungled that responsibility and, yet, what’s the focus around town?
Personally, I voted “yes” on Measure A because I believe the City of Sacramento is ready to connect its vote to real mayoral authority baked into the only political position elected city wide. I voted for a similar proposal in 2014.
Despite the hyperbole surrounding Measure A, this idea really isn’t controversial. If Measure A wins on Nov. 3, the mayor would become the chief executive of the city instead of what we have now, an unelected city manager as chief executive.
The mayor would be able to remove the city manager and veto ordinances, but those decisions could be overturned by six votes on the council.
The mayor would present the annual city budget, instead of the city manager. There would be a two-term limit for future mayors, which would be new for Sacramento. In 2030, voters could repeal Measure A if they don’t like it. Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco have similar forms of government and the world has not spun off its axis.
It has other features of course, but that’s the heart of Measure A. It would enact powers that I would wager some residents believe the mayor already has.
I get why city firefighters oppose Measure A. They oppose anything they believe will threaten their influence and their money. I get why the old guard of Sacramento and the League of Women Voter types oppose Measure A. They oppose anything that changes the nature of how Sacramento has always been.
Why is opposition personal?
But the opposition of the firefighters, the old guard and the League of Women voter types to Measure A doesn’t seem personal.
It’s a different story with the progressives and the emerging leaders of Sacramento. As summer has turned to fall, a real animosity toward Steinberg has grown among Sacramento’s next generation of leaders.
Some of this is Steinberg’s fault but some of it isn’t. Yet he takes the heat for it anyway because of the way he governs and the way Sacramento is currently governed.
While the mayor of San Jose dropped an executive mayor proposal in July because of brewing opposition, Steinberg pressed forward with his because Steinberg is, if nothing else, fully committed to his belief in his brand and his powers of persuasion.
But COVID-19 and the George Floyd killing have increased Sacramento’s sensitivity to racial and ethnic inequality. Steinberg found a changed community. Young activists wanted more say in how to make their community better and did not want those terms dictated to them by a white man and career politician.
The younger generation of Sacramento is fully invested in Katie Valenzuela and Mai Vang, two millennials trying to bring a younger perspective to local politics. Valenzuela will be sworn into the City Council in December and Vang will follow if she wins her south Sacramento run off Nov. 3. Measure A would change the council before they get sworn in.
Steinberg borrowed some progressive ideas and folded them into Measure A in a way that made it look like he stole them. He did, in the finest tradition of American politics. That’s what politicians do.
Steinberg, 61, does politics better than anyone in the region has in a very long time. But what he’s running into is a new generation he can’t beguile with his charm the way he has with his generation.
An Ethics Commission and a Fair Housing and Human Rights Commission are part of Measure A. To progressives, this is a form co-opting and nullifying the power of community voices by empowering the city government to oversee them. Without any binding language in Measure A to make these committees any different than past failed committees, Steinberg’s opposition was formed.
Screwed-up government? Sacramento County
Steinberg is who he is: He thinks elected officials should call the shots because they are elected by the people. That belief earned him enemies this fall.
If that rigid belief backfires on Steinberg, then it’s on him. However, he does take heat for stuff that is not his fault. Some of the heat he takes actually makes his case for changing Sacramento’s form of government. Even if Vang joins Valenzuela on the council, that would still create a two-vote minority on a dais with zero votes to “defund police” in any way.
Steinberg’s current powers as mayor are tempered by fellow council members such as Angelique Ashby and Jeff Harris, who either worship the police or fight any measures to fund programs for diverse communities, or both.
Council members get to hide unpopular beliefs while Steinberg takes the heat for them. Under the current system, the police chief answers to the city manager and not the mayor.
Struggling communities left behind? Perks for political horse trading practiced by the most cunning council members? Smart city managers of the past who learned how to play city council members off each other? All this l has happened. The current system ain’t perfect.
But the saddest development of all in the Measure A fight is how young, dynamic future leaders have thrown their lot in with city firefighters to battle Steinberg. Spoiler alert for the advocates: They fight fires, but they also fight allocations to communities of color and they will be fighting you soon enough with more money than you have.
Meanwhile, we may wake up on Nov. 4 and realize that the best chance to fix the county was wasted because people fought Darrell Steinberg with the intensity they should have focused on Scott Jones and his friends.
