Derek Shearer a battle, but not the war, 1983, 1982, 1981
In an article headlined In 'People's Republic of Santa Monica,' Voters Turn to the Right, the New York Times (Sunday, April 17) reported that the April 12 election "appeared to be a strong repudiation of the policies of a group described by its supporters as 'progressive' and by its critics as 'socialistic.'"
As with most mainstream reporting of politics in Santa Monica, the New York Times article is wide off the mark. While the local coalition Santa Monicans for Renters' Rights (SMRR) did narrowly lose all of the three open council seats, SMRR won three seats on the elected Rent Control Board and defeated a real estate-backed initiative - Prop. A - that would have weakened the rent control law and opened the door to widespread condominium conversion. Most important, SMRR forced its more conservative opponents - the All-Santa Monica Coalition - to run on its issues and to concede that rent control is in Santa Monica to stay.
The Los Angeles Herald Examiner recognized this with an editorial titled "Victory in Defeat," complimenting SMRR on its innovative city programs and raising of civic consciousness and political participation (see excerpts)*. So, it appears that rent control and the city programs implemented by the council over the past two years will not be greatly affected by the election results.
But why did SMRR lose the council seats, including the seat of Mayor Ruth Goldway* (who lost by fewer than 300 votes?)
The technical answer is turnout. Voters in the homeowner precincts of the city came out to vote in record numbers - more than 80 percent in some precincts - and the opposition slate carried these areas by margins of 80 to 90 percent. In the renter precincts, turnout dropped by 5 to 10 percent. Overall, city turnout was 45 percent, compared to 51 percent two years ago when SMRR won all four open seats on the council. With a turnout similar to two years ago, SMRR would have won a narrow victory, and Ruth Goldway* would have held her seat.
Why did homeowners turn out in record numbers and why did some renters stay home?
The answer is two-fold and goes to the heart of the difficulty of enacting progressive social change in the U.S.
The opposition - a coalition of the downtown business interests, the local newspaper, real estate forces and homeowner groups - motivated and mobilized their homeowner base. They did this by attacking the city government on several fronts over the past two years and by organizing door-to-door in homeowner areas. The motivating force was fear. Organizers of one group called Concerned Homeowners repeatedly charged that the SMRR majority on the city council planned to rezone the R-1 home areas to allow for multi-family dwellings, and that soon they will be forced to rent their spare rooms to minorities. Rumors were spread that the city government planned to enact controls on the resale price of private homes. The Homeowner newsletter also claimed that the city was planning to set up "energy police" who would demand access to people's homes to check their bathrooms for low-flow shower heads.
The conservative local newspaper, the Santa Monica Evening Outlook, played a key role in spreading these spurious charges and evoking feelings of fear among homeowners. In editorials, in letters to the editor columns and in biased news reporting, the paper did everything it could to paint the city council majority as unreasonable, harsh radicals, bent on destroying the private property of the middle class.
Other media coverage of the city government also enflamed such fears. After the SMRR victory two years ago, opponents printed up red bumper stickers with a hammer and sickle and the words "Welcome to the People's Republic of Santa Monica." When the CBS news show 60 Minutes filmed a report on Santa Monica's new government, they highlighted this bumper sticker and discussed the council with words like "Communist." Letters to the Evening Outlook and articles in the Concerned Homeowners newsletter continually charged that Santa Monica had been taken over by a Communist coup. In 1982, during Private Property Week, local realtors rented an armored personnel carrier, parked it in front of city hall and paraded with signs saying "Soviet Monica."
Even though the city council made efforts to treat all areas of the city equally and to improve police and sanitation services to homeowners as well as renter areas, the ideological attack struck a responsive chord with homeowners.
The SMRR council members and the SMRR organization (not really an organization, but a coalition of groups including the local chapter of the Campaign for Economic Democracy and the Santa Monica Democratic Club), underestimated the depth of anger and fear among homeowners that was generated by the conservative attacks. SMRR leadership tended to view its most vocal opponents such as the Evening Outlook as Reaganites and right-wingers who were out of touch with the majority of voters. SMRR ignored the cumulative effect of these day-in and day-out attacks and made no attempt to reach out directly, through neighborhood meetings or coffees in homeowner areas, to explain its programs and policies. SMRR did redesign and expand the city's newsletter that goes to all residents, but this did not counter the daily reporting of the Outlook and the sensationalist national press.
Reformers who win elections, such as Kucinich in Cleveland or SMRR in Santa Monica, and who seriously try to carry out a program of structural reform and democratization of urban life should expect to be attacked by the media and by business interests like banks, developers and the real estate industry. There is no point in bemoaning this fact. It is a given in American politics. These forces are strong and they dominate most urban governments. Recognizing this reality, people on the left must go directly to their constituents with a commonsense message. SMRR built support this way among renters around the issue of rent control and renters' rights, but it did not sufficiently reach out to homeowners with its message on other urban policies (most of which benefit homeowners and renters alike.)
The other weakness of SMRR is organizational. SMRR is a coalition of independent groups, each with its own agenda, not a political party. After SMRR's victory two years ago, some members proposed that SMRR convert itself into a mass membership organization - a kind of city-based party with regular conventions, an elected leadership, an office, paid organizers and staff. The proposal was vetoed by the coalition's groups and SMRR operated at low visibility until this spring's election. SMRR members spent long hours as newly appointed members of city boards and commissions, and SMRR's leadership - its council and rent board members - put in long hours at low pay working in the city government. But SMRR as an organization did not capitalize on the base of support it had developed in the winning 1981 campaign.
While conservatives were producing {criticisms}, there was no SMRR newsletter to explain new city policies or to motivate SMRR supporters by reporting on the conservative attacks on the city government. Most important, SMRR's natural leadership - its elected officials - met regularly with SMRR members, but not systematically with the average voter.
When the time came for the spring election, the lack of an organized base among renters showed up at the polls in the lower renter turnout. SMRR's opponents were smart enough to concede the issue of rent control and renters' rights. In fact, in renter areas the conservatives handed out literature calling themselves "the real renters' rights team," and pledged to defend the rent control law.
As in the past, SMRR's opponents outspent them almost five-to-one. The conservatives hired a professional campaign management firm and receives hundreds of thousands of dollars from real estate-related interests, while SMRR relied on low-paid staff, volunteers and thousands of small contributions from renters. But this is the nature of American politics - reformers are almost always outspent and outgunned by professionals."