Vote Out All Incumbents

February 12, 2008 at 11:58 am in Politics

For the sake of our city, the time has come to clean house.

Los Angeles has lots of problems. We talk about them here a lot. Gangs. Traffic. Schools. Housing. The list goes on, and so does the discussion. We get a lot of comments both agreeing and disagreeing with what we say. In the end, all of us – writers, readers, commenters, are left feeling frustrated and defeated. We are not in any position of power to make the changes that will improve life in L.A.

Or are we?

What if every registered voter went to the polls and voted out the incumbent for every office? EVERY SINGLE OFFICE. City Council. County Supervisor. Mayor. Senator. In a presidential election year where change is the theme, should we not also send a message to the people we’ve elected to run our city?

Don’t get me wrong, there are some good public servants currently holding office. But, for every decent elected official, there are 20 others who are too content to make the changes we need. “We’ll tackle that tomorrow,” they might say, as they pose for their photo op.

No. There is no tomorrow. Not for the single mother who has to catch a crowded bus to go to her second job, hoping to avoid foreclosure. Not for the Gulf War veteran who is dumped on Skid Row by a local hospital because he has nowhere else to go. There is no tomorrow for any of us. There is today. We elect and pay you to do the job of making this city great today. Not tomorrow. That is the message we should be sending.

The time has come to clean house. The time has come to vote all incumbents out of their comfy office. What have we got to lose?

“I forgot that I was hired to do a job for you and that it was just a temp job at that.”

- Dave

LOS ANGELES COUNTY PRIMARY ELECTION
JUNE 3, 2008

FEDERAL
United States Representative (22nd, 25th thru 39th, 42nd and 46th Districts)

STATE LEGISLATIVE
State Senate (17th , 19th , 21st , 23rd , 25th , 27th , and 29th Districts)
State Assembly (36th thru 61st Districts)

COUNTY CENTRAL COMMITTEE
(36th thru 61st Districts, Elected by Assembly District)
Democratic/Republican/American Independent Parties

CENTRAL COMMITTEE
(36th thru 61st Districts, Elected by Assembly District)
Peace and Freedom Party

COUNTY COUNCIL
(17th, 19th thru 30th and 32nd Districts, Elected by State Senate District)
Green Party

COUNTY
Supervisor (2nd , 4th and 5th Districts)
District Attorney
Superior Court Judges (Approx. 153 Offices)
Los Angeles County
Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk
Election Coordination Section

LOS ANGELES CITY ELECTIONS
Primary Nominating Election – Tuesday, March 3, 2009
General Municipal Election – Tuesday, May 19, 2009

LAVote.net

15 Comments »

http://eecue.com Dave Bullock

Can you give some insight on why you feel that every single publicly elected official of our city should be voted out? From what I’ve seen they’ve been doing a good job for the most part.
michael#1

I could go blindfolded, spin in a circle, throw a rock and still pick better than what we’re stuck with.
Jason Burns

As I said, I don’t think every single official is doing a bad job. But, L.A. does have some pretty big problems that we’ve been dragging our feet on.

In general, elected officials have a tendency to become complacent in their jobs, and are more concerned with getting re-elected than making things happen. There is no end in sight to L.A.’s gang problem, the school system is a mess, and we can’t even build one subway line to Santa Monica without taking 10 years to do it. I think we’d be fooling ourselves to say that local and state government has gotten the job done.

Small victories are great. But, we cannot continue to celebrate them without wondering when someone is going to bring us a big one – like a viable mass transit system or permanent homelessness solution.
Les

You would still have to elect someone.

I think a better plan would be to study the candidates, find out their positions on the issues and make an informed decision. Voting is about making compromises. No candidate will believe the same as you, so you have to find and support the candidates who you feel best reflect your values and beliefs. Support can be through volunteering, donating money or even posting lawn signs.

Participation and informed decision making would be a better goal then simply voting out the incumbents.
frazgo

Oh Jason I get your irritation I have it in my corner of LA too. Since they don’t come up for re-election all at once it will be difficult to do a clean sweep.

I’m with Les, learn who is doing the job, figure out who isn’t, decide what you think is wrong and speak up and get involved.
AT&T’s bitch

We definitely need to vote Feinstein out of office after the disgraceful FISA bill passing she was involved with today.
ruth666

Good as it sounds on first look, it’s just as lazy and irresponsible to vote them all out as it is to leave them all in.

It’s a pretty safe bet that at least 99% of the people running for public office (or safely ensconced in it) are greedy, lying criminals.

Not such great odds….
westwoodnc

Well there goes the Democrats.
spinsLPs

You would have to be pretty ill informed to want to go and replace Henry Waxman from the 30th district. He’s one of the best watchdogs we’ve got in Washington.
http://blogging.la David Markland

Instead of voting all the politicans out, we should boot out all of the residents who fail to pay attention to local politics and actually vote in the first place.
http://militantangeleno.blogspot.com militant angeleno

There are some suckers in office, and they definitely need to get voted out.

However, even the Militant wouldn’t make such a blanket statement. There are quite a few elected officials who are doing their jobs.

The REAL problem is MIDDLE MANAGEMENT. Quite often the people at the top have the best intentions (though many times they’re sorely out of touch), the ones at the bottom suffer and the ones in the middle are really the ones doing the evil work. Los Angeles City government is full of not necessarily career politicians but career bureaucrats who suck up to the politicians just to deliver incompetence or mediocrity, and the rest of the city suffers. The Militant won’t name names, but the person in charge of Villaraigosa’s massive tree-planting initiative is one classic example.
http://militantangeleno.blogspot.com militant angeleno

Spinslps: Waxman is also a baldheaded, bucktoothed, pig-nosed elitist who ONLY cares about the wealthiest constituents in his district. He hates the poor. Naw, scratch that. The poor aren’t even worth his time to bother hating.

When you can’t vote him out, re-apportionment is the next best thing.
http://NoOnPropS.com Walter Moore

When you vote Villaraigosa out, please consider voting me in. My name is Walter Moore, and I’m running for Mayor of L.A. The election is March 3, 2009. My website is http://WalterMooreForMayor.com.
Thanks.
http://NoOnPropS.com Walter Moore

When you vote Villaraigosa out, please consider voting me in. My name is Walter Moore, and I’m running for Mayor of L.A. The election is March 3, 2009. My website is http://WalterMooreForMayor.com.
Thanks.
Judy

Oh my god, whatever you do, don’t vote for Walter Moore.

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