California’s famously liberal city of West Hollywood is perhaps taking a more moderate turn after this 12 months’s midterm elections, with residents voting for candidates backed by the police department and native chamber of commerce over young progressive incumbents.
“It is often been seen as very progressive, but a whole lot of the residents are also aging into more moderate positions,” Jessica Levinson, an election law professor at Loyola Law School, told MSN of West Hollywood in a report Saturday.
Levinson’s comments come as town’s ultra-progressive city council has seemingly faced pushback from voters on this month’s midterm elections, most notably on problems with criminal justice.
John Heilman was a city councilman for 36 years and was once a part of what the Times called “one of the liberal within the state” of California. He helped usher in a recent era of progressive politics for town within the mid-Nineteen Eighties as a member of the nation’s first city council with an openly gay majority, passing rent control policies, limits on evictions, and bans on discrimination against gay residents.
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Hollywood Sign on November 17, 2020 in Hollywood, California.
(Photo by AaronP/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images))
Heilman lost his seat on the council to 2 younger and more liberal candidates following the 2020 election, a result that led to town taking a good larger turn to the left during the last two years.
However the policies are actually seemingly facing pushback from town’s voters, with Heilman in a robust position to regain his seat as the ultimate votes get counted. Heilman and moderate Mayor Lauren Meister were each backed by local law enforcement and the Chamber of Commerce and have been staked out to leads of three,718 and 5,770 votes respectively.
“Once I was first elected in 1984, I never dreamed that I might still have the chance to serve the community today,” Heilman told MSN, arguing city residents wanted “council members to give attention to public safety, homelessness and basic services” and to “see town work collaboratively with the business community.”
The outcomes may indicate pushback against the younger, more liberal council, which recently voted to make cuts to the police department and implement what was on the time the best minimum wage within the country.
A protester holds a ‘Defund The Police’ placard.
(Photo by Vuk Valcic/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
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With concerns about crime on the rise throughout the country, Levinson argued even some progressives could swing more moderate on the subject of their safety.
“Progressive and not-progressive doesn’t at all times cut cleanly on criminal justice issues,” Levinson told MSN. “When people feel their safety is threatened in any way, they have an inclination to not vote as liberal as perhaps they otherwise would.”
