Assemblyman Evan Low, representing Santa Clara in Sacramento, is on a campaign to get Donald Trump off the California ballot. Hmmm. Low appears to have become a self-appointed judge and jury.
It does not matter if you hate Trump, tolerate Trump or approve of Trump. Until and unless former President Trump is found guilty of a crime by a judge and jury, he is entitled to be a candidate. This is not a determination to be made by an elected representative.
Residents appointed Low to represent the people of this district, including Santa Clara. This does not permit Low to think for his constituents, his job is to represent and protect them. All of them. Considering Donald Trump received 74 million votes indicates there are a lot of voters who hold a different point of view about whether or not he should be on the ballot.
If Evan Low is really representing our district, why hasn’t he proposed a repeal or revision to AB 44 that permits “free theft without incarceration” up to $950? This amounts to aiding and abetting crime. However, Evan Low should still be on the ballot.
If we become a country that loses the right to dissent, we have lost our country. We must have dissent, disagreement and diversity. A one-party system is a dictatorship. Eliminating an opponent by legislation is detrimental and destructive to democracy…our democracy.
Santa Clara has recently witnessed the result of a single strain of thought held by the previous council majority. This was an unhealthy experience for residents and the City. During Mayor Lisa Gillmor’s reign while holding a majority of council votes, Santa Clara in FY 2016/17, had a $19.9 million surplus. Four years later, when her majority council departed, FY 2020/21, the City had a $22 million deficit. A deficit the current council is still battling to fix.
It was the ballot however that set Santa Clara on the right highway. Residents determined that Gillmor’s regime lacked responsibility and elected a new council majority.
Of course, there was dissension. Some folks thought there were unworthy candidates. Others thought the current council was doing just fine. It was the people, the voters, who made the decision because options were made available on the ballot.
Santa Clara voters may once again be asked to decide in March 2024. The Charter Review Committee could advise the council to place a charter amendment on the ballot to make the police chief or city clerk or both positions elected. But it will be up to the voters to decide the direction of the City, not one man or woman or a small group of them.
So, Assemblyman Low, while your opinion is your own, take us to a new high and let democracy decide our destiny which is best determined by all our voters, not a representative of some voters.
View Comments (4)
Your editorial very timely prompts the critically important question--Why are the Democratic Party and its elected representatives, such as California Assembly member Evan Low, acting so antidemocratically these days? They do not like President Trump because he was a more effective and honest President than the current occupant of the White House and because they are genuinely afraid that he will beat their candidate in the next election. In essence, they simply do not trust the American people (i.e., the very same "We the People" who did duly ordain and establish our Constitution back in 1787) to make an intelligent and virtuous choice for President in 2024 like we did in 1788 (General Washington), 1860 (Honest Abe Lincoln), 1952 (General Eisenhower), 1980 (Governor Reagan), and tens of millions of us did in 2016 (President Trump).
So Democratic Party politicos, like Low, want to go, hat in hand, to some unelected judges and ask those geniuses to kick President Trump off our ballots and thereby tyrannically disempower the entire American people from democratically choosing the next Chief Executive of THEIR federal government. Who do he and his scheming little cabal think that they are? King George III? Chairman Khruschev? Some other politically ambitious Democrat District Attorneys are going one step further by trying to throw President Trump into prison based on spurious charges via sham trials akin to what the Bolsheviks use to do their political enemies in the old Soviet Union. (In an interesting local parallel, we have a very politically ambitious district attorney who is trying to put one of our duly elected Council members out of office by prosecuting him for two alleged process crimes that have yet to be tried while our stores are closing down because he has failed to do his job and stop the ongoing shoplifting and shop raiding epidemic.) Is this a new trend? If you can't beat them, then throw them into prison. Yet, we shall overcome.
I do disagree with you on one historical procedural point. I do not think that a candidate should be disqualified from running for President even if he is in jail as you appear to suggest (in passing) in your editorial. If that were the case, then the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., would have been disqualified from running for the Birmingham City Council while he was in the Birmingham Jail. The Socialist candidate for President back in 1920, Eugene Debs, would have been taken off the ballot because he was in prison at the time for sedition (for speaking out against WWI during that war). Finally, during the Irish War of Independence against the British Empire from 1916 to 1921, even the British government allowed imprisoned Irish rebels to get on the ballot and about 30 of them won election to the Parliament by massive majorities under the slogan, "Put him in, to get him out" (i.e., put him into Parliament to get him out of prison). During the American War of Independence, 140 years earlier, the British government also placed many of our Patriot legislators in prison, but they still held their offices.
Bottom line, the DEMOCRATIC PARTY is simply going to have to trust the American people to DEMOCRATICALLY make the right choice in 2024 (even if that choice is an imprisoned Patriot). Otherwise, in all honesty, they should change their name to the Anti-Democratic Party or the Unelected Judges Party or the Arrogant Elitist Party.
"During Mayor Lisa Gillmor’s reign while holding a majority of council votes, Santa Clara in FY 2016/17, had a $19.9 million surplus. Four years later, when her majority council departed, FY 2020/21, the City had a $22 million deficit."
Did you forget that COVID-19 hit the world and cities took a beating???
How about this: If you ever want to publicly debate *ANY* issue, please reach out to me. I would very much like to have you on our YouTube program: Public Trust Review. While we typically do it over Zoom, I would suggest we have it in person. Please reach out here: svvoice@kvartan.com
I look forward to it.
Kirk Vartan
Miles,
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I have problems with your publication's biased coverage of Santa Clara politics and matters related to Levi's Stadium but it does publish a lot of valuable local reporting. Your "Milestones" continue to be an embarrassment to your publication and everyone who works for it.
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"If Evan Low is really representing our district, why hasn’t he proposed a repeal or revision to AB 44 that permits “free theft without incarceration” up to $950?"
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You are lying about this once again. There was no change in criminality of stealing anything under $950 in value. There was a change in the threshold of what contitutes felony theft as opposed to misdemeanor with that threshold being increased from $400 to $950. Misdemeanor theft is still a crime and is still punishable with jail time. Furthermore $950 is still below the national average and in Texas the threshold for a felony is $2500.
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And you do not even have the assembly bill correct. It was AB 47 and not "AB 44" that increased the threshold for felonies.
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It is an impressive contortion of hypocrisy for you to try to bring this up as something that Evan Low should do as a matter of honoring democratic principles. You want him to try to overturn a law that was passed by a referendum that all California citizens could vote in and which was overwhelmingly passed by a 60 to 40% margin?
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You argue for overturning a law enacted through popular referendum by a wide margin to support your argument that it is undemocratic to disqualify Trump from the ballot because he tried to fraudulently overturn a legitimate democratic election?
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This entire column is lies and hypocrisy stacked up on each other. Evan Low is not and would not make this determination alone. He is asking the secretary of state to turn to our state courts for guidance. The state courts guidance or ruling would be subject to the constitutional authority of our nation's supreme court.
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And the argument for it does not rely upon conviction for any of the dozens of criminal charges that Trump is now facing. It is based upon the fourteenth amendment of our national constitution which forbids someone from running for office if they engage in insurrection or rebellion.
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I feel sorry for everyone working at your publication to see their masthead sullied with these lies and hypocrisies published underneath it. Do them and everyone else a favor and stick to summarizing Forty Niner games.
All your comments are needlessly going to cause Miles of accusing you of carrying water for Lady Gillmor again.