Leap Analyzes Factors in Tight Race Between Underdog Retired Lieutenant and Incumbent Sheriff

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Public Policy lecturer Jorja Leap was featured in a Los Angeles Daily News article discussing factors contributing to the unexpectedly tight race for Los Angeles County sheriff. While incumbent sheriffs are traditionally successful at winning re-election, the 2018 midterm elections marked a notable shift, with retired lieutenant Alex Villanueva currently in the lead. Although opponent and incumbent sheriff Jim McDonnell is higher ranked, has more experience and had a better-funded campaign, Villanueva attracted significant support from unions and Latino voters. Leap noted the “collateral damage” of “voters who were primarily interested in other races and voted for Villanueva because of demographics or party support.” Leap and other experts debate whether Villanueva’s success thus far is a result of voters’ placing less value on incumbency, McDonnell’s overestimation of the power of name recognition, or the confusion prompted by Villanueva’s ballot designation as sheriff’s lieutenant, effectively muting the candidates’ different levels of experience.

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‘Put On Your Seatbelts,’ Peterson Says of Coming Election Fallout

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Mark Peterson, professor of public policy, political science and law, spoke to Elite Daily about the November 2018 midterm elections and the implications of a Democratic majority in the House of Representatives. Such an outcome would lead to an increase in investigations against Donald Trump and his administration and an end to Trump’s legislative agenda, he said. “It is possible some common ground will be found on some issues, such as investments in infrastructure, but even they will be caught not only in the vise of extraordinary partisan polarization and mutual distrust, but also the enormous constraints imposed by the erupting budget deficit and rapidly accumulating debt.” In a follow-up article, Peterson considered the stakes if the GOP had held on to a House majority. “A slender majority would mean that the Republicans would have to be extremely cautious about issues that divide their conference,” such as health care, he said.

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Gilens on Ranked-Choice Voting to Bolster Democracy

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Just in time for the midterm elections, UCLA Luskin Policy Professor Martin Gilens co-wrote an American Prospect article with Northwestern University Professor Benjamin Page proposing extensive yet perhaps much needed changes to our democratic process. The first and foremost change that Gilens advocates is a transition from our current system of plurality voting or “first past the post” to a system called rank-choice voting, or RCV. Our current system can produce elected officials who are not representative of their districts; this was the case in Maine’s 2010 gubernatorial election, in which far-right politician Paul LePage won with 38 percent of the popular vote, which was split among three candidates. After this upset, Maine instituted RCV, a system where “voters do not just pick one candidate; they rank all the candidates in order of preference, from most favored to least favored.” This system, if applied nationally, would reduce party polarization as well as produce more representative elected officials, the article said. 

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DeShazo Remarks on Rise of CCAs in Future of Clean, Cheap Energy

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J.R. DeShazo, director of the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation (LCI),  is featured in a Comstock’s article assessing publicly owned electric-power-purchasing organizations in a transient energy market. The growth of so-called Community Choice Aggregators (CCAs) as an alternative to municipal and investor-owned utilities is transforming the energy market. CCAs offer cheaper and cleaner power, but their future hinges on their ability to navigate regulatory and market changes. DeShazo, who is also chair of Public Policy at UCLA Luskin, is cautious about predicting the long-term success of CCAs, citing past bankruptcies of large utilities as a result of “wrong conditions and bad policy by the legislature.” Climate change and the resulting shifts in environmental policy make electricity and the energy market as a whole competitive arenas. If they are able to overcome the obstacles in their path, “CCAs may serve the majority of the state’s consumers now served by the big three investor-owned utilities within 10 years,” the article stated, citing a July report from LCI.

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Yaroslavsky on O.C. Republican’s Reelection Bid

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ABC News spoke to Zev Yaroslavsky, director of the Los Angeles Initiative at UCLA Luskin, for its report on Orange County Republican Dana Rohrabacher’s bid for reelection to the House of Representatives. Rohrabacher, the article noted, is a staunch Reaganite who took an unexpected ideological turn in advocating closer ties with Russia. In the November 2018 midterm elections, he is one of several California Republicans scrambling to defend his seat. Observers noted that Rohrabacher’s longevity and conservative record give him a strong change of reelection.  “He’s been around for almost 30 years in Congress,” said Yaroslavsky, who has known Rohrabacher for decades. “Don’t underestimate him because he will fight.”

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New Rules Could Disenfranchise American Indians, Akee Says

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Changes to North Dakota’s voting requirements threaten to disenfranchise thousands of American Indians, UCLA Luskin’s Randall Akee explained in a podcast for the Brookings Institution, where he is currently a fellow. A U.S. Supreme Court action, less than a month before the November 2018 election, permitted the changes, which require voters to produce identification that includes a street address. Many of North Dakota’s American Indians live on reservations and use a P.O. Box instead of a street address, said Akee, an associate professor of public policy. The new requirements could sway some very close races, including Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp’s battle to keep her seat, he said. Akee noted that American Indians did not get the right to vote until 1924. “It’s been less than a century that they’ve been allowed to participate in the voting process. And that’s why this particular turn of events, of disenfranchising Native Americans on reservations, is so distasteful.”

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Which Voters Will Turn Out? Leap Weighs In on Sheriff’s Race

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As California’s general elections rapidly approach, much of the local media focus has turned to the Los Angeles County’s sheriff’s race. The incumbent, Sheriff Jim McDonnell, is generally favored to win. However, retired sheriff’s lieutenant Alex Villanueva managed to force a runoff with strong Latino support in the June primaries, according to the Los Angeles Daily News. If elected, Villanueva would be the county’s first Democratic sheriff in 138 years. The article noted that the current political and social climate could benefit Villanueva, who aligns himself with progressive ideologies. Voter turnout will undoubtedly be a major factor, UCLA Luskin’s Jorja Leap told the Daily News. “Will the ethnic and racial groups subjected to disparity, will they get out and vote?” said Leap, adjunct professor of social welfare. “Will law and order, and people who believe in a more conservative, badge-heavy approach, get out and vote? [The outcome] depends on that.”

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Mukhija Comments on Program to House Homeless in Backyards

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UCLA Luskin Urban Planning Chair Vinit Mukhija commented in a New York Times story about a program to offer homeowners incentives to house the homeless in their backyards. Pilot programs in the city and county of Los Angeles offer subsidies for the construction of so-called granny flats that would be rented for a set number of years to those in need of shelter. The programs are seen as a creative, if limited, way to address the affordable housing crisis, which Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti called “the biggest humanitarian crisis in this city.” “In the total picture of homelessness, we know this will not necessarily change that much,” Mukhija said. “The value goes beyond that, though, because it is finally somewhat of a departure of the purity of single-family housing in the region. It’s a good step to change what people here really consider a dogma of private housing.”

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Yaroslavsky Weighs In on the Ballot Battle Over Rent Control

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Zev Yaroslavsky, director of the Los Angeles Initiative at UCLA Luskin, shared his expertise on housing policy with several media outlets covering the November 2018 ballot measure that would give California cities more power to curb rising rents. “The state doesn’t do anything for renters. It does everything for property owners and developers,” Yaroslavsky told the Christian Science Monitor. “If we keep this up for another generation, we’re going to have far more homelessness than we do now.” The Monitor’s article on the fight over Proposition 10 cited the Los Angeles Initiative’s 2018 Quality of Life Index, which found that more than a quarter of L.A. County’s 10.1 million residents had worried about losing their home in the previous year. “These are the people who are a lost job or eviction notice away from winding up on the streets,” Yaroslavsky said.  The Monitor also cited a UCLA Luskin Center for History and Policy working paper on the historical roots of the affordable housing crisis in Los Angeles. Yaroslavsky has also been quoted in Proposition 10 coverage from Bloomberg News, the Guardian and Curbed LA.

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Manville, Monkkonen Investigate Roots of Animosity Toward Housing Developers

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UCLA associate professors Michael Manville and Paavo Monkkonen were recently featured in an article on Sightline highlighting their research on neighborhood opposition to new building. Even more than perceived harm and self-interest, Manville and Monkkonen found that “the most powerful opposition frame is about the developer,” specifically when a developer “is likely to earn a large profit from the building.” Despite the apparent motivation to “enforce community norms of fairness” by reining in developers who strive to maximize personal profits, Manville and Monkkonen note the potential flaws of this approach. Manville and Monkkonen illustrate the potentially “vicious cycle of regulation and resentment” as a result of anti-developer attitudes in which “punishing developers … [risks] thwarting affordability, punishing people who need homes, [and] discouraging all but the least likable, deepest-pocketed and most aggressive developers from building.” Despite the foundations of a moral argument against profit-driven developers, Manville and Monkkonen propose a shift in focus to the accessibility and affordability of “homes of all shapes and sizes [for] neighbors of all income levels.”

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