Cool as a cucumber and almost twice as smart, Anaheim City Council member Kris Murray put on a performance to remember at last night’s Council meeting. And by “a performance to remember,” I mean that you’ll be seeing bits of it being played over and over again in court, starting as early as next Tuesday.
While the two women who joined her in 3-2 majorities regarding fixing Anaheim’s political representation problems, Lucille Kring and Gail Eastman, both had their moments last night, it was clearly Murray’s show. And by “show,” I mean complete with choreography, as Murray danced with a demographer — who is probably intended as an expert witness for the city, but who after last night may be more likely to be called by the plaintiffs — to make it seem like Anaheim’s problems are already solved.
Whatever you do, no matter how much you skip of this piece, please be sure to read section 2 down at the end. It’ll be worth it. Also, of course, read Cynthia Ward’s well-formed cry of anguish today as well!
Tom Tait, Lucille Kring, and Gail Eastman listen to a lecture on demographics.
1. A Perfectly Executed Swan Dive
Murray gave the sort of bravura performance show that pleases clients who are supremely confident that the public will buy what they’re selling, but it’s the sort of demonstration that tends to panic their attorneys — especially if, as is the case with last night, it has been memorialized in video. Murray presented a case that can survive only if presented without contradiction, rising to greater and greater heights of self-delusion about its impregnability until she finally stepped off the diving board and executed a perfect swan dive — into an empty pool.
The court system, where the ACLU case against Anaheim for violation of the California Voting Rights Act is now headed for an hearing next week and then (absent what will likely be a painful and expensive settlement) a doomed and even more expensive trial, doesn’t work like that. You don’t get to filibuster unchallenged, the way that you can from a Council dais. There’s no protection for you if your argument is delusional. And Murray’s argument is very, very delusional. The trial will inevitably lead to an expensive defeat for the city. (That’s OK, though — Murray won’t have to pay it herself. That’s what taxpayers are for.)
This material is really too rich for just one story. I’m getting this one out early out of a desire to first document the news. I will have a follow-up later today — and more once the video is available. For now, let’s just go with the facts.
The trio of councilwomen initially voted for a package to implement a “candidate residency” requirement by ordinance, then to put that requirement on the ballot in 2014 as a charter revision, and finally to place on the ballot a proposal to raise the number of Council seats (not counting the Mayor) from 4 to 6. Under this proposal, the public will not get to vote on whether there should be 8 districts. Murray’s justification for this is that the expert witness report — which I will lovingly critique as early as today — says that that would be bad for Latinos, despite that Latino leaders (and voting rights attorneys, and courts) overwhelmingly disagree. (But who are you going to believe — them, or the woman apparently doing an extended imitation of Kristen Wiig’s supporting role in Knocked Up?)
Murray’s virtuoso performance roused the 3-2 Council majority to reject putting a proposal for actual districting onto the 2014 ballot, as requested by the Citizens Advisory Commission. The tenor of her remarks were in part a rehash of the arguments presented by the Anaheim Chamber of Commerce in a somewhat desperate looking e-mail blast on Tuesday.
Action Alert: Don’t Let Them Carve Up Anaheim…
Tonight the Anaheim City Council will vote on whether to put single-member council districts on the June 2014 ballot.
The Anaheim Chamber of Commerce opposes this measure, which is supported by a coalition of radical organizations who want to divide the city into council enclaves — and Anaheim voters would lose the at-large election right they have enjoyed for 156 years: holding all councilmembers accountable by having the opportunity to vote on all council candidates.
Last month, the City Council approved reasonable changes supported by the Anaheim Chamber of Commerce: electing the council from residency-based districts that are voted on at-large, and asking voters to increase the council from 4 to 6 members. These changes would ensure all areas of Anaheim are represented while holding councilmembers accountable to ALL Anaheim voters, and increasing opportunities for Anaheim citizens to serve.
It is urgent that you immediately e-mail our mayor and Councilmembers and ask them to oppose placing single-members.
Your voice must be heard NOW!
…
Support their June 11 vote to create residency-based council districts that are elected at-large, and to ask voters whether they want to increase the council to 6 members.
A simple message making the above points will be powerful! We need to flood our council’s inbox so we are urging you to take action now to preserve a united Anaheim!
Todd Ament
President & CEO
Anaheim Chamber of Commerce
Note that the stench of overconfidence is palpably absent from this e-mail blast. No scent of cucumber, no spoor of Murray. I get the sense that the Chamber was actually concerned that Gail Eastman might well have voted against them yesterday — I wonder how they might have gotten that idea — which hopefully would have been accompanied by Jordan Brandman holding fast and casting a decisive vote against Team Murray.
(That statement gives me a good chance to say: I give Jordan credit for voting the right way on districting last night. Many people won’t give him much credit because he had a “free pass” to do what Democrats and Latinos — and especially a particular Latina Democrat in Congress who went out on a limb for him here — wanted him to do if he knew that Eastman and Kring were voting with Murray. I’m glad that he took the right path here and that he said some things to which he might be held. It’s helpful. His detractors will note that it’s not definitive — and they’re right about that. But still — better that this story be about Murray’s vote than about his.)
I’ll come out later with my story about the demographer’s report — you won’t believe that a story about demography could really be interesting, of course, but for now I ask you to trust in my skills — that Kris Murray made very clear was the blockbuster piece of evidence supporting Anaheim’s case. She made continual reference to it. She showed complete belief in it. (Popping that bubble will be a joy. But that’s not for now.) For now, let’s talk about something else she said.
2. Kris Murray’s Startling Admission
At one point, Murray celebrated the Council’s wonderful action of introducing a candidacy residency requirement — which I’ve come to think of as the “let’s mess with (Anaheim Hills Democrat) Lorri Galloway” provision — in these terms: it was important to have a Council Member living in a given district so that people could come to their representative with their problems. Yes — yes it is! I appreciate Murray’s admission.
Here’s the problem: what happens if that Council member does a lousy job of being available to the people in their non-voting district?
Under “real” districting — a concept that Mayor Tom Tait tried to explain to Murray at length without success towards the end — the people in a district with a representative who is doing a lousy job of representing them can simply vote the person out of office. That’s democracy, right?
But under Murray’s “residency requirement only” plan — the Santa Ana Plan — they can’t do that! They could vote unanimously against a representative who is doing a terrible job of hearing them out, fighting for them, bringing information to them, etc. — and the rest of the city could just keep voting that person right back in. Murray’s plan takes away accountability to the voters. That’s its point!
Do you know what you call it when people have a representative they can go see, but that representative is not one of their choosing and is not one that they can remove? It’s called “colonialism.” The term “Anaheim Colony” is about to get new meaning.
So, Murray’s argument that it’s great for people to have a local representative — which seems to have been really impressive to her — turns out to work against her, because a representative that is assigned to a district by the rest of the city, one that cannot be removed by the citizens of the district in an election, isn’t really a representative at all. That person is more like a colonial governor.
That sound you hear is of air escaping from Kris Murray’s balloon. She lost Anaheim’s case last night with her oblivious overconfidence — and the damages will be paid for out of Anaheim residents’ taxes. And it’s going to cost her supporters a whole lot to try to make voters forget it.
I think it’s worth reminding people that the Latina Democrat you mention is quite familiar with the obstacles faced by a candidate running citywide in Anaheim (access to adequate resources, geographic vastness, etc). She ran for city council in 1994, coming in 7th out of 11 candidates. Next cycle she chose to try to take out a 10 term incumbent congressman instead and found success there. Anaheim’s loss turned out to be Central OC’s gain.
Cool as a cucumber and almost twice as smart,
I keep coming back and re-reading that. Nicely played, sir.
It’s just a rough estimate. Quite rough, in fact.
I would not underestimate Ms Murray, because it would be underestimating her advisors: the Chamber of Commerce and the Pringle group. They are not fools. They succeeded in delaying a resolution on our own, no matter how much the lawsuit costs. In the meantime, they steamrolled their agenda, and got what they wanted, especially the hotel subsidy. There is no guarantee that the judge will adopt the lawsuit remedy. If he does, they will adjust their strategy to keep control of the council, they have the money. They may get rid of their current blog operator, as a minor goodwill gesture.
I’m not underestimating Murray, I’m estimating her.
These people expect no pushback and no consequences. It’s made them lazy and stupid.
They may well keep control of the council, but the price will be city governance more responsive to the community. That “radical objective” is what people seek — and they will eventually see that it’s easier to give in. Disney & such may not be able to loot the public treasury quite so easily for their pet projects, but Disney can afford not to scam the public. It’s actually better for them not to be associated with the likes of Murray.
I have client work for much of the day (some holiday!), but I’ll have my review of the Demographer’s Report out by tomorrow.
Ricardo, I must respectfully disagree with only one aspect of your comment, that of the Chamber of Commerce being anywhere near an advisory capacity here. They are not part of the brain trust. The Chamber is only a hammer in the toolbox, used as needed and then left in the workshop until the next project. As an advocacy non-profit they are in the unique position to get their hands dirty and say and do the things that elected leaders are unable to say or do. But the relationship morphed as leaders discovered the Chamber willing to be used beyond even previous expectations. There is clearly very little some are unwilling to do for a long term contract.
Let’s face it, if the Chamber had the assembled brain power to be true players at the Masters of the Universe game, they would not be constantly groveling for more money from everyone from Disney to the City, because they had run out. Like Matt Cunningham, Todd Ament is permitted to dabble in their world, to see just enough of it from the cocktail party to feel like a part of it, but never quite being included in the big money deals that make enough to break free of the strings and those who pull them. Their position as power brokers is a veneer, like a movie set that looks like a solid brick apartment building, but turns out to be plywood and cardboard.
And to continue Ricardo’s thoughts about Murray and her advisors, remember that the advice is only as good as the implementation. It takes a very rare personality to screw over an entire segment of the population and be slick enough to get away with it, and Murray lacks the charm to do that long term. The policy wonk-speak allowed her to get away with looking like the smartest chick in the room for a time, but the phoniness is showing, and the public is catching on, especially when she gets crossed, she goes pretty quickly from determined woman who knows her mind, to petty, mean-spirited harpy, and one is admired, the other not so much (as one of the Bitch with a capital C club myself can report) she simply fails to think it through on a global scale, doing things like showing up at a garden work day in a blinding white pencil skirt, staying for a photo op, and bailing to leave the real grunt labor to the volunteers who have been there since dawn and will be there until nightfall. Those who wash the day’s grime off with the memory of the leaders who swoop in to get a photo and credit, they remember, and it is those little mini-leaders who the neighbors turn to when asking for help filling out an absentee ballot.
The real chess master is the Stealth Mayor, the guy who refuses to get the memo that his office is occupied by another, the guy who steams at the ears (and turns beet red when crossed) at the very thought that the new Mayor’s popularity ratings exceed the highest of his predecessor’s at any given time. Hence the constant hammering of Tom Tait in newspaper ads, robo calls, email blasts, snarky references during Council Communications or Council-written editorials, and of course the blood money blog you refer to. Frankly I don’t care whether they continue, they are irrelevant, their visit logs show the only people reading over there are either already vested in their group-think, or Vern going over there to poke holes in their “logic”. If anything, let them leave it up, it keeps them busy, like giving kids pots and pans to play with on the floor so Mom can get dinner ready, the noise can be bothersome, but it keeps them from getting into truly destructive activity. (My mom was smart enough to give us dishpans with corn starch and measuring cups, kept us busy, wasn’t noisy like banging aluminum cookware, and unlike sand it didn’t hurt if we ate it. But I somehow doubt the eight people sharing a brain over there would be content to make faux sand castles in a rubbermaid bin, so let them bang their pots together until nap time, sooner or later they will wear themselves out.)
A complete set of blueprints from a masterful architect can still produce a hot mess of a project, if the contractor and trades are sub-standard. Therein is the flaw in the plan, not that it is not laid out to perfection, I can see elements that go back years, an absolute genius set this up on a long-con scheme for an enormous payday. No, the flaw is that it relies on a collection of individuals who are gullible (and/or greedy) enough to take direction from others without grasping the notion that the directions may not be in their best interest, which means those in visible command of the process may not be sharp enough to pull off the process in public view, short of walking them through step by step with an earpiece and command center. (remind me again why we do not have an electronics policy forbidding texting at the dais?)
I sound jaded, but if I thought “they” had won, I would be curled up in the fetal position, wondering how bad the short sale on my house would screw me over in an effort to get out of town. Instead I put my time and energy into being here, desperately crying out like Horton Hears A Who, alerting Anaheim before they “boil that dustspeck.” I scream at the top of my lungs not in frustration, but to share with others because I believe there are people in Anaheim sharp enough to get what is going on, and if we come together we are far more powerful than their manipulation of the system ever will be.
What will be their undoing is ego, and very, very thin skin. A really good dictator understands he can maintain absolute power, or be loved, but you cannot do both. This crowd wants to shove their self serving agenda down our throats AND be thanked for it! They are so Hell bent on having their self image stroked that they will even shut down public dissent in the form of Public Comments at the podium, Public Hearings on massive works projects, or offering citizens the right to vote.
Look at the stuff that makes them nuttiest, it is not being voted against, THEY OWN THE MAJORITY yet they still run ads, and make snarky remarks, it is not enough to win, they must be praised for it, and acting on emotion never ends well. This, my friend, is where we win, right here, because the bickering has become so headline grabbing that now all of America is watching Anaheim, there is no hiding now, and this is where we watch the veneer slip. Grab the popcorn.
Cynthia, thanks for your observations. You know the players and history of our city much better than I do. Let’s hope that the changes needed to have a responsive government to our communities materialize soon. Happy 4th of July!
Damn Cindy, your comments are better than many blogger’s stories. (On the other blogs I mean, of course, on the other blogs!)
PS what the heck is a pencil skirt?
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ISV_0SkI_Lo/T0Ie0M-s-tI/AAAAAAAACF8/cjWg-1t8nIk/s1600/3.jpg
Cynthia — virtuoso writing, as usual on Anaheimiana.
This is their weakness — and I’ll say out loud (again) so that they can pinball around the city hall fruitlessly trying to figure out ways to evade it: this sort of thing doesn’t work when Disney is the sponsor, because Disney is in the business of being loved.
If this were Seattle and the sponsor were Boeing, or St. Louis and the sponsor were Monsanto, or even Irvine with the sponsor being the Irvine Company, then they might get away with it because those companies don’t actually need to be loved. Disney does. It’s a strength in many ways — and in some ways, as here, a weakness.
When you want to be loved, you don’t have Kris Murray as your public champion. You don’t ask to be represented by the cold and heartless cartoon villain. If your errant middle managers, who think that an expensive new streetcar serving Disney without ostensibly involving Disney is more important than maintaining a “good guy” image, are choosing to be represented by the likes of Murray, then they clearly need more oversight and retraining and reassignment to a place where they can do less damage. I say that as one who, in general, likes Disney — at least when it doesn’t act like Scrooge McDuck. I wish them success — not pillage.
Murray’s shtick only works if she is the smartest woman in the room — but she isn’t. Butter won’t melt in her mouth when she lies and distorts, but that’s not enough: you also have to have good judgment, including the wisdom not to believe your own bullshit. It’s through her and Pringle’s actions that the room got a whole lot bigger, with many more people looking in the windows.
That’s why you have this plan to cram through who-knows-what through the Charter Review Committee — which, I predict, will now include Pringle (as a choice by the rest of the committee) now that the “700 Form Threat” has been beaten back by a 4-to-Tait vote — while they still have the power. It’s why that as-yet-unwritten proposal (except in Curt Pringle’s file drawer, I suppose) is already doomed (although it’s going to be a great organizing tool for Team Pringle’s opponents.
The mask is getting ripped off, week by week, and Disney Inc. is eventually going to wake up to it — and be royally pissed at the self-serving chicanery of its “servants.”