AB 400 Op Ed
Share this pageWhen you step into the voting booth on Tuesday, March 5, there are two words you won’t find anywhere on your ballot: community volunteer.
Candidates for office will describe themselves as butchers, bakers and candlestick makers; or more likely as doctors, lawyers, and electrical engineers. But you won’t find candidates describing themselves as “community volunteers”—because they can’t.
State law requires that a ballot designation be limited to the candidate’s principal profession, vocation or occupation. A “community volunteer” is out of luck, and left with limited options.
Homemaker is allowed, if one cares to use it. Mother or father is allowed, and available to some (no matter how little or much time they’ve devoted to this essential role). Otherwise, hardworking community volunteers who run for office are obliged to leave their ballot designations blank, suggesting to voters an utter lack of experience relevant to their candidacy.
To remedy this situation I’ve introduced Assembly Bill 400, which would simply allow bona fide community volunteers to identify themselves as such when running for office. I’ve done so because the current practice is ill-advised on at least three counts.
First, it ignores the critical work performed by non-profit agencies throughout the State. Non-profit community organizations provide an extraordinary range of essential services, and are in and of themselves “big business”, contributing more than $28 billion annually to the California economy. And many of these non-profits rely heavily on volunteers.
California is blessed to have an estimated 10 million volunteers contributing service on a regular basis, half a million of whom are full-time volunteers. Yet these millions of volunteers, including those who generously volunteer on a full-time basis, are precluded from identifying themselves as community volunteers on the ballot.
Second, the current law works a particular disadvantage on women, who for years have done more than their share of community volunteer work. The President of the League of Women Voters, for example, can’t describe herself as a “community volunteer” on the ballot as a candidate for City Council. Likewise, the head of the PTA is precluded from using the “community volunteer” designation as a candidate for School Board. Whether it’s the Chair of the local Sierra Club, a volunteer staffer at the Suicide Prevention hotline, or a full-time volunteer who serves meals to the homeless, none of these folks may describe themselves on a ballot as a “community volunteer.”
Finally, the current law, by withholding information, does a disservice to the voters. Ballot designations are provided precisely because voters want to know what skills and experience a candidate brings to his or her candidacy.
When someone is identified as a doctor, lawyer or educator, we know something about his or her training and experience. That’s helpful information. So too would it be helpful to know that an individual’s candidacy is informed by experience working in and on behalf of the community—and that such work has been done out of a charitable impulse.
Surprisingly, although AB 400 has passed the Assembly and is on its way to the Senate, it met with some skepticism on the floor of the State Assembly. Some members of the Assembly worried that the term “community volunteer” was vague, and potentially subject to abuse.
But the same could be said of terms like “businessperson”, which could lawfully be used to describe a hardware store owner, high-tech CEO, K-mart cashier, or the neighborhood paperboy/girl. Similarly, the term “teacher” could legitimately be used by a high school English teacher, a judo instructor or someone who teaches traffic school.
More importantly though, the law already provides a well developed procedure for establishing the legitimacy of a ballot designation, and for challenging ballot designations that are false or misleading. That same process could easily be applied to the use and potential abuse of the “community volunteer” designation.
Two little words: community volunteer. I’d like to see them on the ballot; to recognize the importance of our non-profits, to give volunteers the credit and encouragement they deserve for their good works, and to give voters the information they need and want to make informed choices. If AB 400 passes, and is signed by the Governor, it will do just that.
(State Assemblyman Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto) represents portions of San Mateo and Santa Clara Counties)