Orange County will cast votes for new OC Board of Supervisors seat early next year

DEMOCRATIC CLUB

By Mary Larson

LW contributor

This has been one of the most difficult years. in recent U.S. history. An editorial in the Los Angeles Times said that “the pandemic revealed that an employment-based healthcare system can crumble when it’s most needed; that warehousing our elderly is not just unkind, but deadly; that our social safety nets have been dangerously frayed by the complacency of a long economic expansion; and that policies that perpetuate racial and economic disparity are still deeply embedded in our society.”

Nevertheless, there are reasons to be thankful as the year winds down. The 2020 General Election is finally over, at least as far as Orange County goes. As of Nov. 25, there were only 17 ballots left to be counted. Every contest has been decided, even the one in which the challenger won by a single vote. One and one-half million people (87.3 percent of the county’s registered voters) cast their ballots at vote centers, by mail, or by use of drop boxes. This turnout was 25 percent higher than in the 2016 presidential election. Both President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris will finally start receiving the president’s daily intelligence brief, marking another step toward a transition of power. All elements of the Democratic Party at the national level appear to be working with one another.

However, as much as we might want to take a vacation from the political scene, elections are not over for Leisure World residents. Orange County residents will be voting again in late February or early March to replace Republican Michelle Steel as the District 2 representative on the Orange County Board of Supervisors.

Republicans have had a monopoly on county government for over 30 years, but with a 44,644vote advantage over Republicans in District 2, Democrats have the numbers to change that. As they prepare for this upcoming election, Democratic Club members and an expanded list of supporters mobilized during the last few months will focus on lessons learned during the recently completed General Election.

For background information on the importance of the Orange County Board of Supervisors, Democratic Club members are encouraged to review a 2017 presentation to club members by Attorney Brandon Love. The article attempts to shine some light on a particular blind spot of collective political conscience. It can be downloaded from the Democratic Club’s website at https:// sblwdems. wordpress. com/analysis-of-orange-countygovernment/.

•••• If you are a Democrat or a supporter and want to know more about the club, subscribe to the free electronic newsletter by emailing the editor, Mary Larson, at mlarson.telfords@gmail.com or by calling (562) 296-8521 with your full contact information.

Democrats are urged to join the club or renew their membership. An application form can be found online at https://sblwdems. wordpress.com/democratic-clubmembership- 2/. Memberships received during November or December will not need to be renewed until Jan. 1, 2022.