The California Senate Debate Confirms the State Is Doomed

T he race to replace the late California senator Dianne Feinstein has come down to three Democrats and one Republican. On March 5, Californians will vote in a nonpartisan blanket primary to settle on two of these candidates to face off against each other in November. Toward that end, local media outlets hosted a debate on Monday night. It was a valuable exercise insofar as it demonstrated why California is defined by its unrealized potential.

The debate opened with questions about the ongoing crisis at the Southern border — the migrant inflows, improperly treated sewage seeping its way from Mexico into American waterways, and whether Joe Biden can and should take executive action to mitigate the disaster. For the most part, the candidates determined that the crisis is a result not of inaction on Biden’s part but on Congress’s.

Representatives Adam Schiff and Katie Porter blamed the problem on a lack of “resources,” and said there was a need for Washington to “invest” in states’ ability to detect drugs at ports of entry and increase the number of immigration judges to speed up the processing of claims. But no true solution to the migrant crisis can be reached without “comprehensive immigration reform,” said Schiff, before promising to “do away with the filibuster” if elected.

If that sounds confused, it’s elegant in its simplicity compared with the arguments made by Porter and her fellow candidate, Representative Barbara Lee. When asked if Biden should take executive action to close the border, Porter maintained that Biden has robust unilateral authority and should make the most of it — a claim that counters the arguments made by the White House in support of the recently scrapped bipartisan border-security deal.

Lee did Porter one better. “What we need to do is invest in cities and counties that are helping immigrants, given the [Republican] governors’ abilities to send immigrants to other states, and what they’re doing is dividing immigrants from residents,” she said. She later added that “low-income people, people of color, and Latinos” on both sides of the border are most affected by the scourge of undrinkable water.

For his part, Republican candidate Steve Garvey maintained that it was incumbent on Biden to solve the crisis he inaugurated and over which he presides. Ho hum.

Moving on, the candidates were asked how they plan to address “the economy,” which a recent survey showed was voters’ most pressing concern. The moderators turned to Porter and asked her to define “wealth inequality.” “There’s no magic line,” the congresswoman replied. “It’s the gap that is the problem.” She went on to extemporize on her plan to address housing affordability and prescription-drug costs, which the moderators noted had nothing to do with the question they’d asked.

Lee was pressed to explain how her proposal to boost California’s minimum wage by 700 percent to $50 per hour was in any way sustainable. “Just do the math,” she replied. “I have got to be focused on what California needs, and what the affordability factor is when we calculate this wage.” Again, an answer to a question no one posed.

What’s most important is for the state and federal government to do their utmost to use anti-trust laws to prevent local grocery stores from merging, according to Schiff. Beyond that, he posited, a windfall-profits tax on the companies “gouging us” might make a dent in California’s high cost of living.

Boringly enough, Garvey rejected these utopian schemes, opposed a massive minimum-wage hike that makes commodities like fast food unaffordable, and backed deregulation in markets like housing to increase supply and chip away at inflation. Yawn.

When it comes to California’s homelessness crisis, Lee talked up her record on expanding anti-homeless task forces, access to Section 8 housing, and eviction restrictions on property owners, and proposed allowing the Department of Housing and Urban Development to subsidize first and last months’ rents and security deposits. “You want to know why people are living on the street? It’s because we’re paying poverty wages,” Schiff insisted. “Try to find a house anywhere in California when you’re earning minimum wage.” Indeed, that’s a struggle almost anywhere, and always was. As to why Congress hasn’t intervened, Porter attributed that to elected officials’ focus on “Wall Street donors and catering to them.”

Once again, Garvey vaulted into the conversation only to insist that it was “inhumane” to allow the homeless population to erect impromptu encampments in city parks, beaches, and parking lots. The true problem here, he insisted, was “drugs and mental illness.” How tedious.

Have progressive criminal-justice reforms gone too far, contributing to an epidemic in violent and property crimes? Only Lee said “no” outright. “Enhanced sentences don’t reduce crime,” she averred. By contrast, Porter and Schiff strung together elaborate basilicas of doubletalk designed to convey their agreement with Lee without saying as much outright. “What we’re seeing is not a result of the ballot proposition,” Schiff said of lax statutory mechanisms to enforce the law. “The data just doesn’t show that.” Porter agreed. “I don’t think we should return to the so-called ‘tough on crime’ polices of the 1990s, [which] resulted in terrible racial discrimination and set back communities of color for generations.”

When the subject turned to Donald Trump, all candidates pledged to certify an election he won, but the Democrats in the field added that he “shouldn’t be on the ballot” for constitutional reasons. Without defending the former president’s conduct, boring old Garvey chimed in to insist that the real threat to democracy was the “deconstruction of the Constitution, packing the court,” and “doing away with the filibuster.” Schiff took special exception to this, insisting that Trump already “packed the Supreme Court” by appointing justices to fill vacancies (which is not what “court packing” means). Nonsense? Sure. But that non sequitur allowed him to inject abortion into a debate in which it was otherwise absent.

Only on national security and foreign policy did the candidates display some seriousness. No one equivocated about the brutality of Hamas, and all but Lee admitted that the terrorist group’s continued control over the Gaza Strip was untenable. While the Democratic candidates paid obeisance to the shibboleth of a two-state solution, Garvey called the idea “naïve” and a nonstarter for at least a “generation.” Nor did the candidates attempt to justify Vladimir Putin’s war of expansionism and conquest in Ukraine. They assigned blame for the attacks on U.S. outposts in Iraq and Syria to Iran, albeit without going so far as to endorse retaliatory strikes on Iranian territory. After spending much of the evening defending Biden, Schiff even allowed himself a modest critique of the president’s claim that Israel’s conduct was “over the top.” “I don’t know that I would express it the way the president has,” he said. It was a welcome display, but the level of sobriety the candidates brought to bear on foreign affairs only emphasized their frivolity on domestic matters.

The debate clarified only the politics of this moment. Schiff’s effort to direct his attacks toward Garvey suggests his campaign still believes a conventional faceoff between the two parties in November is in the cards. Porter’s attacks on Schiff indicate that he is still the candidate to beat. The Democrats’ desire to shield Biden from attacks over his age demonstrate that the party knows it is stuck with him. And Garvey’s languid demeanor and commonsense approach to the issues implies that his campaign feels no urgency to make a “moment” happen for its candidate, which is likely reflective of his chances in this race. In short, the state of California is up a creek. But we knew that already.