The Red(neck) Scare

It’s one of those races that most of us know nothing about, an electoral backwater where many voters will decide between punching holes randomly or skipping the race altogether. Just as in every election year past, most registered Democrats will again be asked to pick six candidates from a list of names they have never heard of to represent them on the Sacramento County Democratic Party Central Committee.

What the average voter might not notice is that the list of candidates this year is considerably longer than it was two years ago, at least for those who reside in the Fifth and Ninth Assembly Districts. In fact, according to Sacramento County elections officials, the race for Central Committee is more contentious this year than anyone can remember.

The reason why depends on whom you ask. About half of the names on the ballot will have the word “incumbent” beside their name. Many of them have been elected over and over again, with little or no opposition, for years. And then there are the challengers, many of whom appear on the ballot with working class titles like sheet metal worker, ironworker, electrician and school bus driver.

That latter group is making some incumbents and long-time Democratic Party operatives nervous. They say the challengers represent a mob of union workers, led by local labor leader Bill Camp, who is out to take over the local Democratic Party. Others say the incumbents are “paranoid,” and that they are trying to do whatever it takes to hold on to their power.

Two-time incumbent Harold Fong is among those in the first camp, the anti-Camp camp.

He worries that many constituent groups of the local party—environmentalists, women and people of color, for example—stand to lose their voice in the party, and that the committee would become a tool of local union leadership.

“This man is trying to take control of the committee. The face of the Democratic Party is going to change overnight,” said Fong.

That is why Fong and other incumbents have decided to band together to repel the union horde.

Camp, the alleged ringleader, is secretary of the Sacramento Central Labor Council, an outspoken labor activist with a history of bumping heads with the local Democratic Party machine.

A native South Carolinian with a pronounced Southern accent and red suspenders, Camp said he has encouraged many union members to run for the committee. Camp is also on the slate, running in the Ninth Assembly District. When asked why he is running, Camp jokes in a self-effacing way, “As far as I can tell there aren’t any hillbilly rednecks on there right now.”

The truth, he says, is that union locals across the country are encouraging their members to run for local office. That has long been the policy of the AFL-CIO, and was reaffirmed by President John Sweeney after the controversial presidential election of 2000.

“He has consistently said that labor people should run for local office and be politically involved in their communities. And the locals here in Sacramento said we should do our share,” said Camp.

When asked about the allegation that he is trying to take over the local party, Camp declares “horseshit.”

“This race isn’t about Bill Camp,” he said. “I don’t tell people what to do. Today’s labor movement doesn’t tell people what to do.”

A spot on the local Democratic Central Committee, just like its counterparts in the Green, Republican and other parties, is hardly a prestigious political position. Committee members are volunteers and they don’t get a lot of recognition from the larger public for their hard work. But the central committees do serve as a sort of “farm team” for people to run for higher office.

More importantly, the committees do much of the legwork for higher profile campaigns like Sacramento City Council or California Assembly. They coordinate volunteers to walk precincts or run phone banks. And they discuss issues that will make up the agenda of the larger political party. The Central Committee also decides which candidates to endorse. And that’s where the fights begin.

The incumbents concede that it is true that the national AFL-CIO has encouraged its members to run for local office. But many members of the current Central Committee are union members themselves, and have been largely supportive of labor issues. The real issue, said Harold Fong, is that Bill Camp has a vendetta against the current members of the committee.

Two years ago, Camp was on the losing end of an intraparty fight over the mayoral election. He was a vocal supporter of then-City Councilman Rob Kerth. But the committee endorsed Heather Fargo, also a councilmember, in large part because Fargo was a lifelong Democrat and Kerth had been a registered Republican until three years before the election.

The fight over the endorsement was a bitter one, as was the split between labor unions and other Democrats over Measure O, a countywide ballot measure that would have allowed developer C.C. Myers to build a gated seniors community in a protected stretch of east Sacramento County. Camp and the Labor Council sided with Myers, mostly, Camp said at the time, because Myers had a reputation for being fair to union workers. Kerth lost. Myers lost. And the incumbents say Camp has never forgotten.

“He’s just being vindictive and holding a grudge,” said Rich Wake, who has been on the Central Committee since 1992.

But Camp maintains that the feud was well behind him and that the Labor Council has developed a good working relationship with Mayor Fargo. “This has nothing to do with that old stuff,” said Camp.

Tom Lawson, who also works for the Central Labor Council and is running for a Central Committee seat in the Fifth Assembly District, said the vendetta charges don’t hold up, and he is puzzled as to why the committee doesn’t welcome and encourage anybody who is interested in running for the committee.

“I have to laugh at it. I thought we were living in a democratic society here,” said Lawson, adding that he is running because the council hasn’t done a good enough job of advocating for issues like affordable housing and the living wage campaign.

“I believe there are some opportunities for some new faces to hammer out a more progressive agenda for the party.”

Not all of the so-called labor slate are union members. Fred Dutton, CEO of the medical consulting firm Dutton and Associates, will also get labor’s endorsement. He acknowledged that he has a good reputation among the local labor community, and had much in common with Bill Camp. But he said he was unaware that he was part of any “slate” organized by the labor secretary.

He suggested that the attention being focused on Bill Camp might be a ruse thrown up by incumbents who aren’t used to having competition. “If I was an incumbent, I’d be feeling a little nervous too,” Dutton said. “Maybe they are just trying to protect their turf.”

It is clear that the incumbents are circling their wagons. They are forming a group to raise money to defeat the labor insurgency and re-elect themselves. They haven’t come up with a name for their slate yet, but Harold Fong said “Working Families Coalition” is a strong contender. Their reaction to the challengers will raise the stakes considerably in what has historically been an overlooked corner of local politics.

The incumbent “coalition” is raising money to put out a slate mailer to every Democratic household in the county, something unheard of in this race. During the last election, no candidate reported raising any money. If the slate mailer campaign escalates, the costs could easily reach tens of thousands of dollars. That might not seem like much, but it is new territory for this race, and it could mean money being diverted away from issues that both sides support, such as a bond measure to benefit the Los Rios Community College District.

“We have to do our very best to defeat these people,” said incumbent Rich Wake. “Now we’re going to have to raise a large amount of money and Bill Camp caused that to happen.”

The group had been contemplating using money from within the central committees funds to run the campaign. That idea was scrapped after some members expressed concerns that the move would appear unethical and possibly be illegal. Not all of the incumbents will appear on the incumbent slate mailer that will go out before the election.

Marianna Bauske is one of the incumbents running for a seat in the Fifth Assembly District. She has been denied a spot on the mailer because she received an endorsement from Bill Camp. She said she received phone calls from two committee members who were furious that she accepted the endorsement, although there are no rules prohibiting her from being endorsed by any group.

“This is getting way out of hand,” she said. “I don’t need that kind of harassment.”

She called the idea of sitting Central Committee members endorsing themselves “self-serving.” “The only people who are upset are those who are afraid they are going to lose their position. Some people seem to think they are entitled to a seat on the committee.”

The committee’s treatment of Bauske didn’t sit well with Bill Camp. “Why would somebody do that to a hard-working Democrat. Why mess with people like that?”

Harold Fong, ironically borrowing a page from a certain Republican politician, put it this way, “The feeling is, ‘you’re either with us or you’re against us.’ ”