Analysis: SCC Dems’ anti-Khamis expulsions reveal self-policing norms
Opp Now spoke with the California Policy Center’s VP Jackson Reese about the SCC Democratic Party’s latest actions to revoke endorsements of candidates who have recommended or endorsed nonpartisan Supervisor hopeful Johnny Khamis. While pulling local endorsements are generally unusual, says Reese, their frequency amongst organized progressives highlights their party’s hard-ball self-policing practices. To receive daily updates of new Opp Now stories, click here.
ON: Is it normal for parties to do this, to pull endorsements from candidates that don’t recommend others along the party line?
JR: Generally, it takes a pretty significant issue for a party to actively pull a candidate’s endorsement. These decisions are uncomfortable on a human level; they’re just not fun for anybody involved. Also, there tends to be way more public attention around endorsements being pulled than there is around endorsements actually being given. Finally, it takes much more coordination than just writing that they’re no longer endorsing that candidate. There’s lots of energy and time taken out of people’s days that made this happen.
This kind of thing doesn’t happen a lot, and it’s a huge deal when it happens (on top of the Supervisor race being inherently quite important). Clearly, the SCC Democratic Party is very frustrated with these local Dem candidates if they’re going to these lengths.
ON: You mention how onerous this process is for a party to revoke a candidate’s endorsement. What does this entail?
JR: Usually, the whole central committee of a local party must vote to pull an endorsement. If the majority voted to revoke these endorsements in the SCC, this issue of recommending Johnny Khamis has got to be very important to the Democratic Party.
ON: What kind of “pretty significant issues” would lead to getting your endorsement pulled?
JR: When I’ve heard of local endorsements being pulled, it’s usually when a candidate changes their partisan registration during the election cycle. Typically, parties won’t endorse anyone who isn’t a member of the party. I’ve also observed more ethical cases of revoked endorsements. For instance, the Republican Party of the Orange County stopped endorsing Assemblyman Tyler Diep in 2020 based on his voting patterns.
ON: What does this case study show, if anything, about modern-day Democrats in the SCC? After all, some are wondering if this situation would ever have transpired on the other side of the aisle — if a conservative candidate would be ex-communicated for endorsing a non-Republican.
JR: Overall, the Democratic Party is way better at self-policing than the Republican Party. I’d guess that statistically, Dems take back candidate endorsements more often than conservatives — probably not just around endorsing independent candidates, such as in this case, but for a variety of reasons. On the other hand, Republicans are more likely to live and let live. And if you look at the Libertarian party, the reason they have trouble organizing is that they’re also quite bad at self-policing.
Follow Opportunity Now on Twitter @svopportunity