Queasy About Secession

There I was, writing a little column that began:

“So that ‘poison pill’ may not be lethal, after all.

“Oh, maybe it’s a little bitter. But by now you’d think the Valleyistas would have learned to take their medicine like grown-ups, without all the whining.

“Yes, they whine. Yet it’s hard not to have some sympathy for those rebels who would bust the big, troubled city of Los Angeles in two, enabling the San Fernando Valley to be a big, troubled city unto itself.

“They suffer such radical mood swings. As political movements go, this one is manic depressive. . . .”

It was moving swiftly along Friday afternoon when the political editor walked up with some annoying news--yet another twist in this roller coaster.

“Secession: The Escape!” is making me queasy. First it just sits there. Then the issue rockets up to 100 mph. Then it feels so strange and weightless. And then it picks up speed all over again.

And where it’s heading, nobody knows.

Assemblymen Tom McClintock (R-Northridge) and Bob Hertzberg (D-Sherman Oaks) seem to think they can steer the issue. Their bulletin Friday was something of a corkscrew: a threat to launch a statewide initiative to promote Valley secession.

Given all the twists that have come before, this threat seemed in an odd way appropriate. Understand, I’m not saying an initiative is appropriate. The serious California initiatives concern such sweeping issues as property taxes, illegal immigration and affirmative action. Exactly why McClintock and Hertzberg think voters from Crescent City to Calexico would care about Valley secession is something that strains my brain. They must think it would somehow advance their careers--I mean, their cause.

Maybe that’s a cheap shot, but they made me amend my column. Already the week had provided plenty of intrigue and comedy.

*

Wednesday found the Valleyistas apoplectic because their favorite bill had been amended so that it would apply to every city in California, not just Los Angeles. You non-Valleyistas out there may be puzzled why this would be described as “sabotage,” a “poison pill.” The dire rhetoric puzzled me.

But the very next day, the Valleyistas were feeling much better. That’s because the most powerful man in the state Legislature, Senate President Pro Tem Bill Lockyer (D-Hayward), said he supported the amended bill and predicted it would pass. Given Lockyer’s influence, the rebels’ spirits soared.

This behavior fit a pattern with the Valleyistas. When they don’t get their way, they get angry and moan and groan. Then after awhile, they realize it’s not so bad as they thought.

Remember the roots of this cause. To put it very simply, the Valleyistas believe passionately that the San Fernando Valley is treated unfairly. Sometimes this is demonstrably true, sometimes this is demonstrably false, sometimes it’s a judgment call. Certainly many Valley residents share some of the Valleyistas’ concerns but are not sold on their political approach. Otherwise, their candidates would have fared much better in the recent charter reform elections.

The Valleyistas respond to this perceived injustice, the supposed second-class citizenship of Valley residents, by complaining of “tyranny” from the duly elected City Council and asking for special privileges. The initial bills introduced by former Assemblywoman Paula Boland and her successor McClintock initially pushed the extraordinarily undemocratic idea that the future of a great city could be decided in a regionally segregated election. They wanted Valley residents to have an exclusive vote and every other Angeleno to have no vote at all.

That was their idea of fairness.

When people such as City Councilman Mike Feuer and Lockyer said, gee, don’t you think that every citizen should have a vote, Boland and her confederates got angry, blasted their critics and complained that a citywide election would doom their campaign.

*

It took some doing, but now the bill would indeed substitute a citywide vote for the City Council’s veto power. This didn’t hurt the Valleyistas’ bill or their cause at all. It made their effort more credible. Why, it probably even made the bill constitutional.

The latest amendment, the so-called “poison pill,” is not so obviously a matter of fairness, but the principle is similar. State Sen. Richard Polanco (D-Los Angeles), a sharp foe of the secession movement, argues that if this bill is good policy for Los Angeles, it should be good for cities throughout California. This at least will force lawmakers throughout the state to consider the legislation on its merits, not simply as a bargaining chip, as the Valleyistas would prefer.

But just a day after the Valleyistas realized Polanco’s amendment wasn’t necessarily lethal, McClintock and Hertzberg started talking about an initiative, apparently hoping to put pressure on the upper house.

Lockyer, in an interview with my colleague Nancy Hill-Holtzman, warned that the Senate may not appreciate such tactics. An initiative, he said, “seems like an odd thing to do when you are on the verge of victory.” If they were trying to pressure the Senate, he added, “that would probably cause the immediate death of the bill. . . . They certainly are capable of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.”

The screaming you may someday hear would be the Valleyistas on that last precipitous plunge on their roller coaster. They’d step off, dizzy and nauseous and right where they started.

Scott Harris’ column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. Readers may write to him at The Times’ Valley Edition, 20000 Prairie St., Chatsworth, CA 91311, or via e-mail at [email protected] Please include a phone number.