This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.
A few years back, in one of our many conversations for the biography I wrote of him, Gov. Jerry Brown told me that he never put much stock in political experience — until he had some.
The man who was California’s governor twice — from 1975 to 1983 and again from 2011 to 2019 — was, in the first iteration, fresh and unconventional, and in the second, seasoned and effective. Each has its place.
The current election cycle in California and Los Angeles is a reminder of that, as the races for governor and mayor of Los Angeles highlight the tension between having a fresh political perspective and being an experienced government leader.
In the race for governor, Tom Steyer and Steve Hilton represent one version, while Xavier Becerra leads a field of current and former elected officials that represents the other.
Steyer, the billionaire hedge fund investor, and Hilton, the Fox political commentator, come from outside government and base their argument for themselves around the need for someone new, someone untainted by the messy work of political compromise or running a giant bureaucracy.
As Hilton says about himself: “To make real change happen in government, you need the ability to think differently, the courage to challenge establishment groupthink and the conviction to follow through.”
For Hilton, and especially for Steyer, the trouble with outsider qualifications is the assumption that making money translates into political leadership. Says who?
Governments don’t turn a profit. They can’t turn away customers. And they are required to provide services that the private sector can’t or won’t take on. Spotting promising investments is a fine way to turn a small fortune into a big one, but it’s no way to run a government.
And there’s an arrogance to all this. The rich guy candidate assumes that governing is not really that hard and that wealth is sufficient evidence of mastery to warrant a voter’s support. That’s no more true than thinking great ballplayers make great coaches or that the strongest person on an oil rig should run Chevron.
Voters see through it. The California political landscape is littered with the candidacies of rich people who thought they could persuade voters their skills were what the state needed in Sacramento or Washington. Cue Michael Huffington, Bill Simon, Meg Whitman, or Al Checchi.
That’s not to say Becerra — who has served in Congress, as California’s attorney general and as Secretary of Health and Human Services — or one of the other veteran candidates will easily walk away with a top spot in next week’s top-two primary. But there is something to be said for having experience and an appreciation for governing when you’re looking to run a government.
In Los Angeles, the distinction between those who appreciate government and those who don’t is even more stark, as the city considers who should serve as its next mayor. Mayor Karen Bass, the quintessentially experienced political leader, faces two significant challengers of opposite types.
Old guard vs new
City Councilmember Nithya Raman represents a conventional opponent. Raman, as a member of the council, spotted an opportunity to move up. That surprised City Hall, given her past support for Bass, but the idea of a council member running for mayor is hardly novel. Eric Garcetti served as a council member before becoming mayor, as had Antonio Villaraigosa.
Raman’s candidacy is built on an assumption about the Los Angeles electorate — that its steady move to the left in recent decades will leave Bass holding only the old guard and that Raman will appeal to younger, working-class voters, renters and critics of the police. Hers is not a challenge based on a differing approach to the mayor’s office; it takes on the incumbent by proposing new ideas and appealing to new voters rather than rejecting what it takes to serve.
Spencer Pratt is a horse of a different color. Pratt has no experience in government or any discernable knowledge about how it works. Asked recently about homelessness by Josh Haskell from ABC, Pratt insisted those who live on the street are “not homeless. They’re drug addicts … They are choosing to be on the streets because they want to do drugs.”
Pressed on what he would do with those people, Pratt first said the city had adequate space for all of them, then insisted he could build a “facility” where they could receive treatment. Such a facility, he added, could be built in three days.
He based that estimate on conversations he said he’d had with “all the CEOs of these companies. I said, ‘How long do these take?’ I met with FEMA and HUD…”
And where would that facility go? “On federal, beautiful, federal land, property,” he said, adding he “couldn’t give you the exact address” until he’s elected mayor.
That’s gibberish, of course. And it’s typical of Pratt’s dogged determination to insist that he’s the right candidate for mayor because he knows the least about the job.
Lurking beneath Pratt’s discombobulated ideas is a contradiction built into his view of the mayoralty. He regards the mayor’s office as extraordinarily powerful, so powerful that the right mayor, in his estimation, could have prevented the damage caused by the Palisades fire. That’s why he likes to blame Bass for burning down his house.
But the same Pratt also assumes that just anyone can run the mayor’s office. Otherwise, what could possibly qualify someone whose own website describes him as a “media entrepreneur, outspoken advocate, and emerging political leader,” who rose to “international prominence as the architect of modern reality television,” as the right person to govern the nation’s second-largest city?
Experience is not everything in government. Look no further than Donald Trump, whose first term in office equipped him for the second. But that experience mostly allows him to be more effective at being a despicable president. His prior turn as president has streamlined his attacks on immigrants, his militarization of American cities and his aimless war against Iran. Being good at executing bad ideas is hardly a plus.
Character, integrity and vision all matter, as do their lack.
But it’s also worth remembering this: Jerry Brown was a better governor his second time around.
