It would seem a conservative firebrand from a generation ago and the public defender of the state’s most liberal city would have little in common. However, on political strategy, at least, Howard Jarvis, the prime mover behind Proposition 13 and Jeff Adachi, San Francisco Public Defender and newly minted mayoral candidate, made similar political moves with like motivations in mind.
With 40 minutes to spare before the deadline to register as a candidate for mayor, Adachi filed his papers for the office bringing to 16 the number of candidates who seek to be San Francisco’s mayor.
Likewise, Howard Jarvis ran for mayor of Los Angeles in 1977. Both men took on the mayoral runs with a similar purpose in mind – not necessarily to be elected mayor but to use the candidate spotlight to pound the bully pulpit for governance changes each thought was essential. Adachi wants to reform the public pension system. Jarvis’s goal was to change the state property tax formula.
Both men turned to the tactic of running for a high profile political office to bring attention to their causes after failing to advance their reforms through the initiative process. Adachi’s ballot measure on pension reform failed last year. He has qualified another measure for the ballot. Jarvis failed a couple of times to even qualify a ballot proposition for the statewide ballot before turning to the mayor’s race.
Both the Adachi and Jarvis reform efforts were aimed at the life-blood of government – revenue, how much is taken from the taxpayers and how it is used. Taxpayers are concerned with both sides of the tax/spend equation.
Adachi argues that reforms must be made to the pension system because the growing costs of public employee pensions and health care costs are eating up larger portions of the city budget. That leaves less revenue to fund basic city services. If reforms do not come to the system, he argues, consequences to the city’s taxpayers could mean fewer services and/or higher taxes to cover increased pension and health care costs while paying for basic city functions.
The threat of higher taxes because government revenue was not managed properly was Jarvis’s main concern. He campaigned against exploding property taxes, which put a crushing burden on taxpayers. He argued that tax revenue could be used more efficiently reducing the demand for more taxation.
With so much to occupy voters, it is often hard for those who push policy change to focus the voters’ attention. A run for mayor is an opportunity to educate the voter in the context of an election campaign, something both Adachi and Jarvis understood.
In the Los Angeles mayoral election of 1977, Jarvis polled nearly 10-percent of the vote and finished third in a field of 12. Of course, a year later he went on to great success as the spearhead of the Proposition 13 property tax amendment. The final chapter of Adachi’s quest is yet to be written.
The language used in pursuing fiscal reform is even similar, although delivered in each man’s distinctive style.
Adachi said the purpose of his campaign is to “restore the integrity and financial accountability to the city.”
Jarvis told his attorney, “The first thing I’m going to do if I win this election is put a big sign on the door of the mayor’s office, and do you know what it’s going to say?”
“No,” the attorney said.
“That’s exactly right,” Jarvis said, “No!”