How does California work (or not)?

We are getting ready for parts of California to burn down again this year, same as last year and every year since colonization. The Spanish, the Mexican, and now the U.S. periods have in common that they did not allow the native peoples to do the controlled burns they had practiced for thousands of years. The lack of controlled burns leads to uncontrolled wildfires, followed by uncontrollable flash flooding.

Later in the year, our poorly managed watersheds will flood again.

One would not know that we have fire and rainy seasons from anything that was said during our primary election debates and top two elections that took place June 2. It was not an issue. Not the land management, and not fire smart building regulations. We continue to allow the lands to become tinder boxes and then give permits to build out of cheap tinder.

The California media did not really talk much about California’s other serious problems either, leaving the conversation topics to be chosen by the political classes. There did not seem to be much of a market among campaign donors for fire ecology environmental planning. Nor was there much of a market for holding large business sectors to account.

The most we got was some talk about how there should be less regulation for the rebuilding of incinerated areas around Los Angeles, and how much we can act offended because the mayor of that city was on a trip when those fires broke out.

The Democrats all got a chance to speak out against the Trump administration.

Other California issues that get no real discussion include our distorted tax system, our nonfunctional electoral law, out-of-control insurance costs, and our serious failures in education. Somehow, we got through another election without discussing our high incarceration rate and large numbers of people who end up back in prison after rehabilitation and reintegration fail.

One could go on a long time talking about California issues that were not part of the recent debates in our California elections, from pesticide use to high oil prices to our need for government reform.

Xavier Becerra, who is now our presumed next governor, does not have a track record on any of these issues, and he did not propose anything during the primary election.

Becerra was good at not being Donald Trump, and he is running in November against a guy who is cut from the Trump media mold and has Trump’s endorsement.

The election is over, by the way. Expect few, if any, surprises at the general election. Maybe Los Angeles, but don’t hold your breath.

And who is our next governor? Before Eric Swalwell was caught sexually assaulting his staff, Becerra was down at the bottom of the pile with the also-running. Suddenly the corporate Democrats came to his campaign with funding and endorsements. He dropped his support for single-payer health care and suddenly was the front runner. Official California Democrat leaders are not as left-wing as Midwest Republicans claim, and when it comes to single-payer health care, they are not on the same page as most Californians of both parties, who support it.

California has an unworkable electoral system that we are not fixing. The top two primary system was a concession to the Republicans, made back when the body builder was governor.

The system was set up assuming two or three contestants. It breaks down when selecting from a larger number of candidates.

My ballot had a full page of 61 governor candidates in small print.

Even with Democrat voters outnumbering Republicans two to one, we came close to putting two Republicans into the runoff because Democrat candidates outnumbered Republican ones at over five to one. The final top two candidates did not have much more than half the vote between them. The Democrats had a few candidates in single digits, who added up to enough votes to create a narrow count at the top.

Ranked choice voting would fix this. No leading politicians are working on that.

The only reforms proposed were ones that would advantage one side or the other and keep people like us Greens off the field.

There are other reasons California needs constitutional reform.

We have a much-abused initiative system. Affluent interests employ people to stand outside grocery stores to misrepresent their initiatives while collecting signatures. There are always a few of these on the ballot, making an end run around the state legislature and local governments. One particularly deceptive one provided more money for schools, which was their sales pitch, but then set aside public funds for private charter schools, which they didn’t talk about until the deal was done and private school advocates turned up at school boards to claim the money.

This money-soaked initiative circus is defended abusing the term “direct democracy”.

I don’t know what we get out of directly electing a school superintendent, lieutenant governor, insurance commissioner, secretary of state, or attorney general. We certainly did not get any discussion of the issues. With the insurance commissioner, that really stands out at a time when the insurance companies are aggravating the housing crisis by terminating policies and leaving the state. They took the money and ran.

The Federal system, and most states, have these positions appointed by the executive and confirmed by the legislative branch, and such people can get fired.

We Greens get lectured about how we should not exist, or at least not be running candidates against Democrats, because it “splits the vote” and runs the risk of electing a Republican. Normally this is not true, but in the top two system, it is very true.

We Greens get lectured, but no Democrat with low polls stepped aside in 2026 to avoid the risk of the Republicans winning both of the top two governor spots. Several candidates held on despite their low poll numbers. Put that on your white board.

I came away questioning the responsible leadership abilities of the Democrats in general and the also-ran candidates in particular.

Politicians pushing their own careers despite the damage to their political party is also akin to France, where 40 percent of the public votes for the left, but there are too many left parties, so the runoff is between the right and the far right.

Be clear, we Greens did not do better. With our friends in the Peace and Freedom Party, we stayed in the race despite the destructive open primary system.

I wonder if we don’t have a dysfunctional political culture that is just not up for intelligent, ethical reform. For all the arrogant talk we hear from the nicely dressed people who tell us what to think, I don’t remember anyone noticing the resemblance to France. They are supposedly better educated and more experienced than the rest of us. Have they heard of other countries?

The political class does not mention Mexico either, with its history of term limits. Mexicans and Mexican Americans are one of the largest groups here, and this state used to be formally part of Mexico. We finally got some term limits passed, but I have no memory of anyone discussing the experience and history of the people next door, with their 100 percent term limit laws. The 1910 Revolution against dictator Porfirio Diaz was originally named the no-reelection movement. We could learn some lessons from their experience.

The New York Times editorial board wrote a harsh critique of the slow election count saying that it would be so simple to have the votes counted “on time”. I think they wanted full results on Tuesday night for their Wednesday edition. Their simple solution is to change our electoral law so that vote by mail ballots have to be mailed in early.

One of the reasons that the right wing has some sway in California is that our local Democrats don’t do a very good job at some things, but the time it takes to count the votes is not one of those things. What they are doing is following the law. That law was written by the Republicans.

When I first became active in the Green Party, I ran for a local seat as a symbolic gesture and to raise awareness around restorative justice. A Green Party friend who sat on the Berkeley School Board sat me down and explained that there was not only a policy argument but also a problem with governance.

The system in California has become byzantine, with all kinds of stakeholders gathered around the only party winning elections. The Democrats easily win elections because they are better than the Republicans on abortion, immigration, health care, civil rights, and public welfare. Not enough attention is paid to little issues like how a business improvement district is funded and run. People complain about high taxes and trash on the street, but elect people based on where they stand on national issues. Few Democrats are willing to not wait their turn and run against safe seat incumbents. Not a recipe for self-improvement.

A few years ago, I was involved in a group that wanted to fix up an abandoned city park with an old baseball diamond. We found a foundation willing to pay for it. The parks department told us that the only way we could do it was to give all the donation cash to the parks department, and only they would manage the project and only they could choose the vendors. A woman at the meeting stood up and said: “That is an arrogance that the results don’t justify.”

That describes a lot of government around here.

Don Macleay is the author of Internacionalista: Working and Living in Nicaragua, 1982-87, to be published by Blue Ear Books. He lives in Oakland, California.