I can’t exactly get mad at Santa Barbara County voters for not feeling motivated to make their voices heard on June 7. Most of the candidates were running unopposed, and unless you felt strongly that the 16-year reign of Sheriff Bill Brown needed to end or that Superintendent of Schools Susan Salcido needed to be unseated by a crazy right-winger, what was there to motivate you?
Oh wait, almost every elected office in state administration had several candidates vying for it on June 7. Those people will eventually decide state policy on everything from debt to insurance rules. But I guess that would have meant a lot of reading for voters!
Poor voters. Having to educate themselves about things they don’t pay attention to.
The Supreme Court of the United States decided the mid-term elections needed a little bit of spice! So Roe v. Wade no longer stands. Now, one-issue voters will flood into the general election, right? Maybe?
And although we may feel “safe”—like a women’s right to privacy, health care, and reproductive rights are protected—in California, maybe it’s time to start paying attention.
Because California still has a lot of work to do to entomb those protections into its constitution, according to pro-choice advocates. We need more than court rulings, executive orders, and vaguely worded laws. We need legislation.
If the recent years of national political turmoil have taught you anything, it should be that your vote actually matters. It determines the way health care is administered to the public at the federal, state, and local levels. It determines who makes the decisions that impact your life—the lives of your friends, family, and fellow Americans—and it determines what decisions elected officials make.
Apathy isn’t the answer folks! If anything, we need more commonsense solutions, grassroots action, and hope.
Hah! Just kidding. We need actual solutions, and it’s going to take way more than feigned grassroots action, such as those form letters people send to newspapers and elected officials. And hope is the thing that you hang onto while you push through the hard work of collaborating with others who you may not see eye-to-eye with, of negotiating with people who you need to find common ground with, of volunteering to do more than hold a sign in front of city hall.
It’s going to take an elongated attention span—one that lasts longer than the anger-inducing event of the moment. It’s going to take education about how our system actually works. Change is a long game.
Which the Lompoc City Council can frustratingly attest to. After asking its staff in May to look into what the city could do to not contract with Santa Barbara County for animal services, city staff recently told the council that any changes would take at least a year to put into place.
“My position on this is I’m more frustrated with the conversation than the lack of services from the county,” Councilmember Gilda Cordova said during the June 21 meeting.
Meanwhile, Mayor Jenelle Osborne looked at the positive side after describing the city as being “caught over a barrel.” “What we have been provided tonight is a window,” she said. Hopefully it’s enough time to make the changes necessary for city residents.
The canary sees a window for the pro-choice movement. Send sign ideas to canary@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Jun 30 – Jul 7, 2022.