“Some Wonder If California’s Election Chief Is Too Partisan”

KQED’s Scott Shafer:

“When the Secretary State’s office becomes a stepping stone to other office, it’s inevitable that it’s going to serve a kind of partisan purpose. And I think that that disserves the voters,” said U.C. Irvine Law Professor Rick Hasen, one of the nation’s leading election law experts. Hasen said the job should be above politics.

That does not describe the current Secretary of State. Padilla regularly endorses candidates for office and this year he has campaign committees to raise money for three statewide propositions, including ones to end the ban on affirmative action (Prop. 16) and another (Prop. 18) to allow 17-year-olds to vote in primary elections.

“[The Secretary of State] should be someone whose allegiance is first and foremost to the integrity of the election system. I certainly shouldn’t be endorsing candidates or serving on their committees,” Hasen said.

Indeed, Padilla has focused on lowering barriers to voting in California and has had to help implement a raft of new state laws doing just that. In the process, he’s been sued by Republicans who say he’s failed to rid voter rolls of dead or duplicated voters.

“So if you’re a Republican, you probably see Alex Padilla as really supporting Democratic causes. If you’re a Democrat, you probably see Alex Padilla is doing what he should be doing, which is expanding the ability of people to easily vote to make sure that the barriers to vote are very low,” said Loyola Law School’s Jessica Levinson.

In 2016 Padilla endorsed Hillary Clinton for president which she won over Sen. Bernie Sanders. At the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia that year, supporters of Sanders were furious at Padilla — shouting him down at a delegation breakfast — and claimed he had disadvantaged Sanders in the California primary.

It is episodes like that one that make Hasen, the law professor, say he would like to see the Secretary of State nominated by the governor, rather than be elected on their own.

“If I had a few million dollars, I would try to qualify a measure for the California ballot that would make the Secretary of State’s position a nonpartisan office,” Hasen said.

“What I’d like to see is have the governor nominate someone who is above politics to run the election system and have that person confirmed by a two-thirds vote of the Senate and the Assembly. That way you would have bipartisan buy-in on that person.”

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