With ‘strong mayor’ and rent control wins, Steinberg schools Sacramento activists

Sacramento’s small but increasingly loud anti-establishment activist movement got a dose of reality this past week. Two stinging defeats made it clear that knee-jerk opposition to the city’s elected leaders, along with petitions and tweets, are no match for the will of Sacramento’s voters.

Last Friday, a Superior Court judge crushed activists’ hopes of forcing the Sacramento City Council to place a rent control measure on the November ballot. The activists moved forward with their own measure after breaking a deal with the City Council.

As part of that deal, activists agreed to scrap their own measure if the council adopted rent control reforms. Councilmembers upheld their end, but one activist, Michelle Pariset, broke the deal. She tried to move forward with the ballot measure despite the agreement.

When the City Council refused to put her measure on the ballot, Pariset fought the city in court, arguing that signatures on a petition in support of the measure meant it had to go on the ballot.

The judge disagreed.

“Sacramento Superior Court Judge Steven M. Gevercer issued the ruling Friday, allowing the city to leave the measure off the ballot,” wrote Theresa Clift of The Sacramento Bee. “Even though the measure collected the required number of signatures last year, city charters cannot be changed by a direct initiative, the decision read.”

Katie Valenzuela, who supported the rent control ballot measure and will be sworn in as District 4 council representative in December, called the judge’s decision a “dangerous” precedent. Pariset said she’ll appeal. But it seems unlikely that any court will agree that Pariset’s petition should hold more sway than the councilmembers elected by voters to make decisions on their behalf.

On Tuesday, vocal activist groups also lost the fight to keep Mayor Darrell Steinberg’s package of “strong mayor” reforms off of the November ballot. In a 6-3 vote, the City Council moved to let voters decide whether Sacramento mayors should have more executive decision-making power, as they do in cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Steinberg, a veteran legislator, sweetened the deal with a series of reforms designed to appeal to progressive voters. Steinberg wrote in a public letter that his proposed charter amendment would “respond to the demands for change by requiring that every major decision we make as a city analyze the impact on people of color, on women, on LGBTQ residents, and on any other disadvantaged population. It would require that we analyze the effect of our decisions on small businesses. It would introduce participatory budgeting to our city in a real way.”

Once again, Steinberg’s opponents reflexively sprang into action. They depicted his proposal as a “power grab” and the end of democracy as we know it. They attempted to cast Steinberg — a progressive Democrat —as a would-be dictator. In the end, after hours of debate, and after Steinberg modified his proposal to reflect community feedback, the mayor won the argument. Sacramento voters will decide the fate of Steinberg’s reform package this fall.

There are lessons in this. First, Sacramento needs strong community organizations that question its leaders and hold them accountable. Yet the overblown and dishonest tactics used by some Sacramento activists do a great disservice to the cause of progress.

By breaking the rent control deal, these activists demonstrated a lack of trustworthiness. How can anyone take seriously the proposals of those who break deals and press their losing cause in court?

Second, elections have consequences. Sacramento voters entrust their elected leaders to make decisions on their behalf. Those decisions usually require consensus and compromise. Activists must push for as much change as possible, and our democratic system provides many opportunities for victory. Valenzuela, a Democratic Socialist, proved this by unseating incumbent councilman Steve Hansen in March.

As this past week proved, however, rote naysaying and reflexive opposition to Sacramento’s democratically-elected majority is no recipe for success in a system governed by representatives rather than retweets. Valenzuela’s one vote on the council will not be enough to determine policy.

If Sacramento’s activists want real power, they must learn to persuade as well as protest. Mayor Steinberg has demonstrated the ability to win elections on a citywide scale. Instead of seeing him as an enemy, perhaps they should view him as a mentor in the art of getting things done.

This story was originally published August 6, 2020 at 5:00 AM.