Angelenos Ignore the Instruction Manual
LOS ANGELES, California — Los Angeles voters have committed an act of political insubordination: Some want billionaires taxed and voters identified. Both. Simultaneously. Without waiting for instructions from a television panel.
The discovery emerged from California Post interviews ahead of Tuesday’s election, when residents expressed support for Proposition 40, a one-time 5% levy on billionaire wealth, and Proposition 39, which would require government identification at the polls. To political professionals, this combination is the ideological equivalent of ordering tofu with a side of brisket.
For years, voters have been assigned carefully packaged opinions. If you favor taxing the rich, you’re expected to recoil from voter identification. If you support voter ID, you’re supposed to defend the right of a billionaire to own seven houses and describe himself as financially anxious.
Los Angeles residents have apparently ignored the instruction manual.
Democratic Strategists Face a Polling Software Crisis
One Democratic strategist, speaking through the unmistakable posture of a person who has just watched a focus group escape, explained that the party may need to redesign its entire questionnaire.
“We ask whether people are progressive or conservative,” he said. “Now somebody wants to take money from a billionaire and show a driver’s license. Where do I put that? Under ‘other’? Our software doesn’t have a button for ‘thinking.'”
A campaign memo that circulated among consultants Monday, and was reviewed for this report, took a firmer line. Voters who express both positions, it advised, should be coded “unmodeled,” should not receive follow-up mailers, and should not, under any circumstances, be asked to explain themselves in writing.
What Propositions 39 and 40 Would Actually Do
Proposition 39 would require identification for in-person voters and specified ID digits on mailed ballot envelopes. The state would also offer free voter ID cards. Proposition 40 would tax qualifying billionaires’ assets once, with most anticipated proceeds directed toward healthcare. One proposal targets the ballot envelope. The other targets the yacht.
Both measures appear in the state’s list of qualified ballot measures, and the CalMatters voter guide has a page on each for anyone who wants to read before filling in a bubble. Few do. The fine print in the Legislative Analyst’s summary of the tax warns that the amount and the timing of the money are hard to predict, a condition one voter described as “also my relationship with my landlord.”
Poll Numbers Show Neither Measure Is a Sure Thing
Neither guarantees a victory. A late-cycle UC Berkeley-Los Angeles Times poll found 50% opposing the billionaire tax and 42% supporting it, while support for the voter-ID measure had also weakened. Interviews with individual Angelenos are not a statewide census. Apparently, even California has limits on how many opinions a sidewalk can represent.
Still, the crossover has threatened a sacred institution: the political consultant who charges $800 an hour to explain that ordinary people cannot possibly understand their own views.
One Voter Explains the Whole Thing Outside a Grocery Store
A voter outside a grocery store offered the sort of reasoning campaigns spend millions trying to prevent:
“If somebody has a billion dollars, they can contribute more. And if I’m voting, asking who I am doesn’t offend me. But could somebody explain why the parking meter needs my credit card and my childhood memories?”
Sacramento Staff Receive Two Talking-Point Folders
In Sacramento, aides reportedly responded by preparing two separate talking-point folders, one labeled fairness and the other security. Staff were advised never to open both at once, for fear of creating a bipartisan policy discussion.
A spokesperson for a state party committee, reached by phone, said the organization “respects the voters’ right to hold views, and looks forward to reviewing which of those views are approved.” Asked what would happen to the unapproved ones, the spokesperson said the committee would “circle back.”
The deeper danger is that voters might begin evaluating each proposition individually. They could favor higher taxes and lower spending. Support public schools and question administrators. Demand honest elections and honest budgets. Soon someone will ask why a government capable of identifying every parking violation cannot find the pothole that caused it.
Political parties will survive this emergency, provided they remember a fundamental democratic principle: voters are allowed to disagree with their own team.
Whether consultants can survive that principle remains under investigation.
Five Humorous Observations
- A billionaire owns seven houses and nobody has ever asked him for ID. Meanwhile I need two forms of identification to return a blender at Target, and the guy at the counter still looks at me like I’m smuggling it out.
- Five percent of a billionaire’s money. You know what he calls that? A rounding error. And he’ll still tell you he’s one bad quarter away from a Corolla.
- Political consultants charge eight hundred dollars an hour to tell you what you think. That’s not a job, that’s a psychic with a PowerPoint.
- We trust the DMV with our entire identity, which is wild, because it’s the only building in America where time is measured in geological eras.
- Los Angeles will wait ninety minutes for a taco truck and take offense at a ten-second ID check. Honestly, same energy, different line.