SF Chronicle: Democrat Steve Glazer risks union backlash

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Steve Glazer has spent decades in California politics, most of it in jobs that didn't generate headlines - as a political strategist, longtime adviser to Gov. Jerry Brown and, most recently, city councilman in the prosperous East Bay suburb of Orinda. 

Now that he's running for an East Bay Assembly seat, however, Glazer is inviting the spotlight by pushing a cause no other serious Democratic politician has touched - a ban on transit worker strikes.

The wrenching negotiations over a BART contract have prompted calls from some Republicans in Sacramento to legally bar transit workers from walking off the job. Such proposals probably will go nowhere in a Legislature controlled by Democrats who rely on labor money and manpower to win elections. 

Changes in how Californians elect their legislators, however - and, Glazer insists, changes in voters' attitudes toward both parties - have the 56-year-old councilman confident he's on to something.

Bending ears

On Tuesday, with thousands of commuters having gone to bed not knowing whether BART would be running in the morning, Glazer was out at 6 a.m. gathering signatures for an online petition calling for lawmakers to ban transit strikes - including on the system that provides 400,000 rides a day.

On Monday, Glazer hit all 44 BART stations in less than six hours to collect signatures for a petition on his effort's website, www.banBARTstrikes.com.

He says thousands of people have signed, though he didn't have a count Tuesday. "They're dismayed, then they're anxious - then they're mad," he said.

Labor leaders are unimpressed, saying Glazer is seizing on popular anger over the BART mess to lay the blame on one side. 

Steve Smith, spokesman for the California Labor Federation, said Glazer apparently "sees this dispute as an opportunity to score some cheap political points. 

"All of our energy and efforts are focused on reaching a fair settlement," Smith said. Glazer's petition drive, he said, is "not helpful to the primary goal."

Glazer defines himself as "a progressive Democrat who is fiscally conservative" - supportive of public-pension reform and more business-friendly regulations, and willing to take on labor, "the biggest (special) interest in the state."

Raising big money

He's among the top money-raisers statewide so far for next year's Assembly races, with most of it coming from small donors. "Not one drop," Glazer said, has come from labor.

"I'm redefining what it means to be a Democrat," Glazer said.

He notes that a law banning transit strikes wouldn't be unique. "Washington has it. Chicago has it. New York has it, even San Francisco has it," Glazer said.

Those cities - all Democratic, he said - have delivered the message to unions that "you cannot destroy our economy."

With a year to go before the election, Glazer's push to ban transit strikes sets up a potentially titanic clash between labor and business interests in the 16th Assembly District, which stretches from Orinda to south of Livermore. The district tilts to the left, but not overwhelmingly so - Democrats outnumber Republicans by 40 to 34 percent, with 22 percent of voters declining to state a party preference.

The seat is now held by Democrat Joan Buchanan, who will be termed out next year.

The race dramatizes the effects of recent changes in the state's political landscape. Those include legislative districts drawn by an impartial citizens commission rather than Democratic or Republican leaders, and a primary system under which the leading two vote-getters advance to the general election, regardless of party.

Glazer's chief Democratic rival is a labor favorite, Dublin Mayor Tim Sbranti, who heads the California Teachers Association political action committee.

Glazer has the advantage of a close connection to a popular governor that goes back to 1974, when he was a volunteer on Brown's first governor's race. 

Major backers

Sbranti, however, has some heft of his own - he boasts a long list of prominent Democratic endorsers, including state schools chief Tom Torlakson, Rep. Eric Swalwell of Dublin and state Sen. Loni Hancock of Berkeley. He is also being advised by Gale Kaufman, the powerhouse Sacramento political consultant who also advises the California Teachers Association 

Sbranti did not return calls seeking comment.

The only Republican in the race is attorney Catharine Baker of Pleasanton, a former legislative aide to the late GOP Rep. Sonny Bono and a moderate who favors same-sex marriage rights and abortion rights.

Baker predicts "a very expensive race" in which Glazer and Sbranti could bloody each other over issues dear to labor, leaving her the survivor. 

"I hear all the time - 'you're the kind of Republican we could support,' " Baker said. "Unlike the other candidates, I'm not deeply entrenched" with special interests.

Labor's skepticism

So far, Glazer has $238,000 in cash on hand for the race. Sbranti had $100,000 at the close of the second-quarter reporting period. Baker, who declared her candidacy after the filing period, won't be legally required to file until later this year.

Smith of the California Labor Federation said there are plenty of labor-friendly voters in the East Bay who could make life hard for Glazer, even in a district made up of wealthier suburbs in Alameda and Contra Costa counties.

"It seems, unfortunately, that recently his record is not one that is supportive of workers," Smith said.

Jon Fleischman, who runs the popular Republican website Flashreport.org, said the race is exposing a major fault line in the Democratic Party.

Fleischman noted that a local of the Service Employees International Union, one of the Democrats' biggest labor constituents, donated $15,000 to be a sponsor at this month's Republican state convention in Anaheim.

So "it's clear," he said, "that the labor unions will give money to the Republican Party before they will give it to Steve Glazer." 

Source: http://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/Democrat-Steve-Glazer-risks-union-backlash-4899266.php#page-2