Voice for Democracy

Newsletter of Californians for Electoral Reform

Fall 2005

Tales From the Endorsement-Seeking Trail

To get endorsements from public officials and candidates for office, you need access, some minimal hardware, and lots of perseverance. That’s the moral of these tales from the endorsement-seeking trail.

There are various types of access, and I've recently had some success with two: knowing someone who knows an office-holder or candidate, and showing up where they are. But first, to capitalize on your access, you need the proper hardware. I've taken to carrying around a pen and forms printed with the sentence, "I endorse having instant runoff elec­tions for city and county offices in Los Angeles County." The forms ask simply for signature, printed name, and date.

The first Los Angeles VoteFIRE lobbying visit was to the City Hall office of Los Angeles City Councilmember Tom LaBonge. It went well enough, but we went in without a printed endorsement form!  At lunch beforehand, the Vote­FIRE group drafted endorsement language, but during the meeting it sat handwritten on a yellow pad. We had good access to Mr. LaBonge because he and the leader of our delegation, Denise Munro Robb, know each other.  Actually, she ran against him. But they're on remarkably good terms, perhaps because she's a Green Party member and he's a Democrat. Still, without a form, we didn't get an endorsement.

Ms. Robb also knows Councilmember Eric Garcetti, and I had the pleasure of watching them laugh like old friends at his district office. We left with an endorsement and key chains that says "Voting is Key."

Two good acquaintances of newly elected Councilmember Bill Rosendahl helped his endorsement become VoteFIRE's first. Both acquaintances were on a first name basis with the councilmember, who signed a plain-text form. I later added an American Flag-based logo to the top of the form, but wonder if that embellishment is too much, so I keep text-only versions at hand.

Both council members signed our endorsement at district offices, rather than at City Hall. We don't have enough data for a scientific finding, but it's possible that less formal surroundings are more likely to produce endorsements.

A casual party produced the best crop of endorsements so far--three! The Pacific Palisades Democratic Club holds an annual garden party, and I attended hoping to get Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's endorsement. Instead, I left with signatures of State Senator Debra Bowen (no surprise, given her sponsorship of SB 596), Assembly Member Fran Pavely, and Julia Brownley, a candidate for Ms. Pavely's seat. A wonderful thing about events like this is that elected officials attend them and are quite approachable there.  Any staffers usually stay in the background.

I got to talk with County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky at the party. I hadn't expected him to be there, but the supervisor's endorsement of instant runoffs would probably give us the whole enchilada, because he has supervisory responsibility for the county elections office. I think I made some progress with him, but not with Mayor Villaraigosa.  After the mayor spoke, I flashed the flag-logo form at him. Though he's said he likes the instant runoff idea, he said he didn't "want to do it that way." I'm still waiting to find out how he does want to do it.