Public Policy Surveys at the Nexus of Bad Decisions: Sacramento County

(c) by Mark Dempsey

Josh Hoover, my California State Assemblyman, recently conducted an email survey of his constituents to understand what legislation he should support. To his credit, he shared the results of the survey. To his discredit, many of the questions asked were, in effect, push polling --Do you think crime has increased? His constituents responded "yes!"  Says City-Data.com:  "In the last 5 years Sacramento has seen decreasing violent crime and decline of property crime." 

That website also shows that crime increased when the economy tanked as the subprime/derivatives meltdown occurred, but economic remedies are seldom explored for either poverty or crime, despite studies showing they are connected. Already 70% of the County's spending, justice-related budget items are slated to consume an increasing share of Sacramento's budget. Sacramento City recently purchased an armored vehicle, and the County approved a $450 million addition to the jail. 

Are people fearing more crime because it's real, or because the news reports it so much? After all: "If it bleeds, it leads" is the mantra of the "ambulance news." I wonder.

Apparently Hoovers' constituents feel the economy is in a downturn or headed for one. This echoes public opinion elsewhere: "According to public opinion, the U.S. is seemingly in a semi-permanent recession, and the Fed has failed to improve matters….In reality, the economy is hot, unemployment is at record lows, and there’s no sign of a downturn any time soon."

But hey, an anecdote is as good as a statistic! Hoover's response to the survey: "This needs to change, and I look forward to working with you to work on fixing our state and turning things around."

These survey exercises remind me of one conducted by former Orangevale (Sacramento County) Supervisor Roberta MacGlashan. At a public meeting she asked the crowd to tell her the issues in County governance. Her assistants recorded these issues on big post-it notes stuck on the wall around the room, handed out three stickers to everyone, then had the crowd put stickers on the issues they thought important. After she counted the stickers, here are the top responses:

1. Keep Orangevale's tax revenues local.
2. Keep Orangevale's rural character
3. Get better retail (a big issue because Walmart just came to town).

It's plausible to ask people what they want, but without any mention of costs or consequences, it solicits fantasies and anecdotes. In short: it's a waste of time. It's roughly like asking a three-year-old what she wants for Christmas. 

So it's no surprise that the "issues" are phony. Orangevale is a primarily residential community, and such a place does not pay its own way in taxes--a fact cited during MacGlashan's meeting but ignored by the crowd. Keeping tax revenue local is roughly like keeping the Pope a Catholic. 

Orangevale's rural character conflicts with better shopping. Nieman-Marcus goes where the shoppers are; fewer shoppers in a rural area means more limited shopping. So the poll--cited repeatedly by Supervisor MacGlashan--was just an exercise in political kabuki.

Unfortunately, MacGlashan's successor, Sue Frost, is worse. Among other things, Frost voted to hand the land speculators in Elk Grove a massive payday by approving outlying development for a city with more than enough infill land. Ms. Frost also voted to burden the County with a $450 million dollar militarized homeless shelter (an addition to the County jail) but has not even considered handing the unhoused a voucher for housing. 

The City of Denver handed out vouchers and discovered arrests declined by 40%, and 77% of those assisted this way ultimately found their way out of homeless. It is cheaper and more compassionate not to put people in cages. But hey, the beatings must continue until morale improves!

Frost's survey just arrived too (could she and Hoover share political consultants?). My bet is the results will be similarly misguided. For example, her survey question about crime omitted white-collar crime. "Blue-collar" crime like muggings and burglaries costs $12 billion annually, says the FBI. White-collar crime costs $1 trillion. Per usual, the survey strains at a gnat while swallowing a camel.

Hoover and Frost are MAGA Republicans--not necessarily my favorites--but their party affiliation doesn't matter to me. What bothers me is their presumption that they know what the real issues are, when they are really just using outrage ginned up by their attacks on government--the only likely remedy to these problems--to fuel their own ambition for political power.

Meanwhile:

We've criminalized the poor.
We've criminalized the unhoused.
We've criminalized the hungry.

And now we're criminalizing humanitarians.

When you spend over 65% of your county budget on law enforcement, everyone begins to look like a criminal.
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— Krish Gundu (@kinsngops) March 4, 2023