THE RIEHL WORLD: Politics differ in two cities

First published in San Diego's North County Times, March 26, 2010

If you walk the seawall late at night along Carlsbad Boulevard, you may hear voices in the distance sounding the alarm: "To arms! To arms! The unions are coming! The unions are coming!"

The familiar warning cry began with a Feb. 20 headline in this newspaper: "City's unions expected to play active role in mayoral election."

From the day City Councilman Keith Blackburn declared his candidacy for mayor, tongues have been wagging about how police and firefighters unions have announced their intent to do whatever they can to put the former police officer in the seat that Bud Lewis occupied for a quarter of a century.

Unlike in Oceanside, labor unions have not played a major role in Carlsbad City Council politics. With more union involvement, will North County's model municipality of political civility be in danger of being sucked into the all-consuming black hole of partisanship that plagues its northern neighbor?

That brings up the question of whether unions alone can change the climate of city government. If the two cities were alike in other ways, adding union influence might have a similar impact. But a closer look at how the cities differ in the challenges facing their city officials suggests Carlsbad voters may have nothing to fear but fear itself.

For starters, take a look at the budget charts of taxing and spending on the Web sites of the two cities. Carlsbad's pie chart shows 57 percent of revenue coming from taxes and 18 percent of expenditures going to public safety. In Oceanside, taxes generate 69 percent of income, while 62 percent of expenses go to public safety.

The ingredients of the two slices of the pie may not be directly comparable, but in politics, public perceptions count most. Questions about where the money comes from and where it goes are the hot-button issues that can lead to dysfunctional politics in every city. Their budget charts alone suggest that Carlsbad and Oceanside officials face very different city finance issues.

An online respondent to the Feb. 20 newspaper article urged his fellow citizens not to vote for any candidate who gets a penny of union support. He should be reminded that the generous city employee retirement benefits that folks like him complain about were created by a council with nary a member beholden to union financial support. The seeds of Carlsbad's budget vulnerability were planted during the years of an economic boom that city officials apparently thought would never end.

Councilman Matt Hall, another candidate for mayor, was among those decision makers.

Maybe Carlsbad voters should be less afraid of labor unions and more interested in new leadership.

Rights and teachable moments

By RICHARD RIEHL -- For the North County Times | Posted: March 12, 2010

Two opinion pieces about our constitutional rights appeared in this space recently, each providing a teachable moment.

On Feb. 28, a staff columnist, citing the First Amendment's protection of free speech, justified the right of UC San Diego students to hold an off-campus "Compton Cookout" party mocking Black History Month. He invited those who were offended to hold their own party to make fun of conservative white students.

The Compton Cookout was, indeed, an exercise of free speech, vile as it was for the hurtful racial stereotypes it promoted. The local office of the ACLU, that favorite whipping boy of social conservatives, urged that disciplinary action not be taken against the party's student organizers and praised the university for scheduling a teach-in to counter "offensive speech with more speech."

But suggesting that those offended by the Compton Cookout should hold a party making fun of conservative white students is a good example of what has been so damaging to our political discourse lately. If you're looking for shouting-match sound bites that reinforce political stereotypes, tune in to Glenn Beck or Keith Olbermann any day of the week. You'll find lots of free speech there, but not much in the way of enlightenment about complex issues.

A few days after the free speech column appeared, a local pundit railed against those who challenge the legality of Proposition 8 on the grounds that it violates the Fourteenth Amendment's provision for equal protection under the law. He complained that churches opposed to same-sex marriage are even now being discriminated against for their religious beliefs, a violation of their First Amendment rights.

When it comes to legalizing same-sex marriage, are we forced to choose between the First and Fourteenth Amendments? Are the rights of freedom of religion and equal protection under the law mutually exclusive? I don't think so.

As evidence that churches have already lost their right to religious free expression, the columnist claimed that a Massachusetts Catholic Charities organization had to end its adoption work because the state discriminated against the group for its religious beliefs. But nobody was forced to abandon either their religious beliefs or practices. The adoption agency chose to end its service to the public because it refused to obey the state's anti-discrimination law.

The Catholic Church's right to free religious expression was protected, while same-sex couples retained their right to equal protection under the law. The losers here were children without parents.

During the recent federal court trial in San Francisco, a witness defending Proposition 8 was asked how same-sex marriage threatens traditional marriage.

After a long pause, he replied, "I don't know."

Now, that was a teachable moment.