Government Unions have turned California into a one-party state with Democrats firmly in control
With the November 8 election already ten days ago, we are now conditioned to accept that some final results will not be known until December 16, five weeks later. Counting proceeds at a crawl in counties up and down the state, and those among us with housebroken political sentiments are expected to be impressed at the diligent performance of our election professionals.
In truth, however, no major nation on earth takes this long to count ballots, and no state in America takes as long as California to count ballots. As of November 14, there were still 15 races for a seat in the U.S. Congress that remained undecided. Eight of them, more than half, are here in California.
What has happened to the election process in California is a travesty. For over 30 years, political power has steadily drifted towards what is now a one party state. Democrats control all the higher state offices, from Governor to State Superintendent of Public Instruction, and none of that will change. In the state legislature, Democrats control what is referred to as a mega-majority in both the assembly and the senate. Unlike a super-majority, where two-thirds of the seats in a chamber are occupied by members of a single party, a mega-majority means that three-quarters of the seats are controlled by one party. That, too, will not change once final results are announced.
The reason for this dominance by one party can be misleading, however, because it isn’t a party so much as a political machine, controlled by government unions, that exercises power in Sacramento.
Years of closed shop government employment union dues have gone to supporting campaigns to elect politicians obedient to these unions. After SCOTUS in a 2016 ruling relieved government employees of mandatory payment of union dues (or “agency fees”), union membership is down, but remains formidable, enforced by intimidating in-house peer pressure by union operatives. Union dues now average over $1000 per government employee, and with over a million state and local government employees still belonging to government unions in California, these unions have over a billion dollars per year to work with. As the government workforce grows, so grows the financial underpinning of even more union domination.
In particular, the growth of SEIU along with the teachers unions has created the two primary sources of the political destruction of California, funded by our own tax dollars to work against us. We voted for “education,” and empowered the teachers union to destroy curricula in favor of indoctrinating a generation of young Californians to resent their nation, reject hard work, mistrust one another based on the color of their skin, and acquire narcissistic self-esteem instead of marketable skills. We voted for humane social services, and instead we got insatiable, inefficient SEIU hiring.
These unions move in unison, threaten one and the entire machine moves against anyone who dares to take them on.
Giving California away to government unions was phase one in the destruction of California’s democracy. Winning elections that might otherwise be competitive has devolved into a formulaic contest where only one political machine has the money and manpower to participate; the government unions. Phase two was already underway as we entered a new decade in 2020, but the COVID pandemic enabled its full implementation in a matter of months. The “reforms” enacted rest on four fundamental changes: universal mailed ballots, early voting, same day voter registration, and ballot harvesting.
If early voting trends show the union backed Democrat is facing an opponent whose voters are turning out in stronger than anticipated numbers, they immediately invest more money in ballot harvesting during the weeks before election day. The ballot harvesters, using apps on their cell phones that are tied into proprietary databases, know which household residents have registered with which party. Early voting lets them know how many votes they will need, and ballot harvesting lets them control how many votes they will get. It’s all legal.
In cases where an election remains close in the final days prior to the election, same day registration is the next weapon deployed by the machine. Even though in the just completed election the last day to register to vote as a traditional voter was October 24, paid and volunteer operatives could assist people with same-day registration as a “conditional voter” right up until and through Election Day, November 8. They know exactly who to register.
For example, the teachers union has ensured that the vast majority of young voters are thoroughly conditioned to vote for Democrats, and to despise Republicans. The machine has a profile for every eligible voter in the state. It knows where every person under age 30 is living, and if they’re not registered, it sends operatives to get them a same-day registration and a provisional ballot, which they can then harvest. And it’s all legal.
Such is the reality of elections in California today. Yet no one is allowed to question the ethics of ballot harvesting, or the accuracy of the registered voter database from which ballots are mailed to everyone, or the injustice of taxpayer-funded government unions recruiting candidates, paying for their campaigns, and using their massive political machine to scientifically ensure their victory.”
To have a fair election, Californians must return to time tested methods. If you want to vote, you have to register six weeks or more before the election. Then on election day, you go to a polling center, present an ID, and receive a paper ballot. You mark the ballot manually to ensure the markings actually reflect what you were voting for or against. Then all these ballots are tabulated at the precinct and county level, reported at the end of the night, and saved for future audit. That is a corruption-proof voting process.
Instead, we wait for weeks to get results that used to be ready in hours. All the while, we hope against all odds that the ideas our favored candidates fought for attracted enough voters to beat the machine.
A version of this article originally appeared in Epoch Times.
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