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# Last week’s primary just the beginning of silly season
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/last-weeks-primary-just-the-beginning-of-silly-season/
- Published: 2006-06-12T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-25T00:14:58.000Z
- Author: Bill Bauer
- Tags: Opinion, Malibu, #archive-import

Despite low voter turnout, last Tuesday’s primary election was one of the most interesting in years. The real excitement was in last week’s 41st Assembly District Democratic primary. Four strong contenders ran and each had a specific appeal.

Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District board member Julia Brownley scored 11,380 votes against second-place Barry Groveman’s 8,734\. Coming in third was attorney and part-time college professor Jonathan Levey. A distant fourth place went to anti-war activist Kelly Hayes-Raitt.

Last week (SMDP, June 5, 2006, page 4), I suggested that Brownley might not do well because of the leftist lean of our political picture here in Santa Monica. I was obviously wrong about that and thought, district wide, a more pragmatic and common sense candidate would prevail. The “crazy Santa Monica” image of our politics apparently wasn’t a factor this time around.

Analysts in news reports said a low voter turnout increased the influence of hard-core activists which resulted in victory for the more ideological candidates. Brownley received one out of every three votes cast in the Democratic primary here in the liberal 41st. The district has 233,552 registered voters with a 48 to 29 percent margin of Democrats over Republicans. That means that Democrat Brownley will surely be elected to office in the fall election as a result of the votes of less than 5 percent of the district’s total voters who picked her in the primary.

There’s another requirement for winning and that’s the “snow them with paper” factor. In our city elections, candidates with enough money to produce lots of slick, glossy, multiple-page, four-color brochures always get tons of votes. In our last municipal election, the most glossy brochures came from, or for, Bobby Shriver who also got the most votes.

In last week’s Assembly race, there were enough political brochures to wallpaper a small bedroom. I received 12 color mailers from Brownley’s campaign which included six jumbo postcards and six color brochures. Groveman’s campaign mailed out a multi-page booklet, six color brochures, one jumbo post-card plus a letter from Groveman himself and another letter from Shriver endorsing him.

Levey sent me four jumbo color post-cards, three color brochures and a book, “Ideas in Action.” Despite pledging to limit campaign spending, Kelly Hayes-Raitt’s campaign still managed to mail seven smaller folding, color postcards and an endorsement letter from actor Martin Sheen.

Again, the number of mailings and amount of paper received corresponds to the order in which the candidates finished. Keep in mind, I’m a registered “Independent,” not a Democrat. Nor did I receive any special mailings because of my Daily Press column.

Santa Monicans for Renters’ Rights (SMRR) co-chair Denny Zane managed Brownley’s campaign.He did his job well,lining up key labor and party endorsements including outgoing Assemblywoman Fran Pavley and State Senator Sheila Kuehl. In a primary election, the more endorsements the better.

I got one of those recorded campaign calls from none other than the Zanester, himself last Tuesday morning. Identifying himself as SMRR co-chair, he said that SMRR endorsed Brownley because in Sacramento she’d be a defender of rent control and renters rights. Well, maybe.

What Zane didn’t say was that his pitch was paid for by Brownley and that he also was compensated to deliver SMRR’s and other key endorsements. As of April 28, Zane had been paid $28,000 by Brownley’s campaign according to the State of California Cal-Access Web site.

Brownley’s endorsement by SMRR obviously generated extra votes here in Santa Monica. Groveman missed the “official” Democratic endorsement and seemed to have lackluster support from the usual Democratic power bases such as organized labor. He did receive some endorsements from many community leaders though.

And the hands-down, silliest image of the campaign was a color photo in one of Brownley’s brochures of “tough girls” Brownley, Pavley and Kuehl -- feet firmly planted, leaning forward and shaking their fists. You go get ‘em, ladies.

We can all look forward to November when local candidates will vie for seats on the City Council, the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District Board of Education and Santa Monica College Board of Trustees. The fun has already begun. (Bill Bauer is 40-year observer of local politics.

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on June 12, 2006.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/061206.pdf?ref=smdp.com)