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As time has ticked away for November, the commission created by voters supposedly to erase political manipulation from city elections has, besides appearing impotent, looked increasingly political in its inaction. Since Prop. A's passage, the Elections Commission has done little to advance IRV beyond passing a couple of tepid resolutions -- one in March 2002 and another in August of this year -- supporting instant runoff voting in principle.
The latter gesture, before a hearing room packed with IRV fans, was especially uninspiring, after a motion by Commissioner Shadoian that called on the panel to support putting the system in place by November failed to muster a majority. Late last year, Tom Schulz, the panel's other IRV champion, tried and failed to get a majority of commissioners to adopt even a simple mission statement that called for them to hold the Elections Department accountable for its performance. He and Shadoian complain that Mendelson and Rosenthal have thwarted their efforts to advance IRV.
"The commission is a dysfunctional family and, sadly, it appears to be that way by design," says Schulz, a retired U.S. General Accounting Office investigator appointed to the commission by the Board of Supervisors. Shadoian, the school board appointee, offers a similar view. "We seem to be a commission that doesn't know what our duties are," he says. But others see it differently.
"The department has been doing nothing but working on [IRV]," insists current commission VP Mendelson, an attorney appointed by DA Terence Hallinan. Although Prop. E gives the commission oversight and policy-setting authority, Mendelson and Rosenthal insist that the commission shouldn't inject itself into the department's day-to-day operations. It's a view that the commission majority has come to share in doing little to press for IRV. "The law does say [implementation should occur by] November 2003, but if the director of the department comes back to us and says he can't do it, then it's not for us to say he can," says Commissioner Brenda Stowers, named to the panel by city Treasurer Susan Leal.
Rosenthal, a lawyer appointed by former Public Defender Kimiko Burton, has become a lightning rod of criticism for IRV backers since her misgivings about the new voting system became publicly known. "I don't know that I can fight [the perception] no matter what I do," she says, referring to accusations her panel has stood in IRV's way. "I just have to be repeating that I'm here to support John Arntz. My feelings about IRV have never been particularly relevant."
Meanwhile, Arntz -- staring at a gubernatorial recall, a city election in November, and quite possibly a December runoff of the kind IRV was intended to eliminate -- even now doesn't sound reassuring about putting IRV into effect in time for November 2004.
"It's certainly our goal," he says. "But there are still a lot of challenges."
