Silicon Valley Business Journal: In San Jose mayor’s race, it’s union-backed Cortese vs. Liccardo, a pension reformer
By Greg Baumann
The race for the San Jose mayor’s office, a symbolic battle in the fight over how to manage skyrocketing public-employee pension costs in cities across California, looks to be a contest between union-backed Dave Cortese and Sam Liccardo, a pension reformer who drew unprecedented levels of support from Silicon Valley CEOs.
Cortese, a Santa Clara supervisor, received 33.5 percent, or 27,677 votes in the primary, which leads up to a November runoff election, according to preliminary results from the registrar of voters website. Liccardo, the San Jose councilmember for the downtown district, won 25.1 percent, or 20,643 votes.
It was a close race for the second spot, with Madison Nguyen, another councilmember, drawing 17,416 votes, or 21.17 percent.
In the congressional race for district 17, incumbent Mike Honda and challeger Ro Khanna, both Democrats, advanced to the November vote. Honda drew about twice as many votes as Khanna, who portrayed himself as a new ally to the technology industry.
Santa Clara County residents cast 166,360 ballots in the midterm election, putting voter turnout at 20.64 percent. The winner of the Nov. 4 runoff for mayor will take office in 2015.
The race to be the next mayor of San Jose, Silicon Valley’s southern urban hub, is laden with implications both locally and statewide for business and labor. Mayor Chuck Reed, who is termed out, made trimming San Jose’s future pension liabilities his mission. He engineered the Measure B, which rolled back some pension costs, with the support of 70 percent of the public’s vote, arguing the city wouldn’t be able to provide basic services in the future because of pension costs.
A defeat in the November election of Reed’s philosophical ally, Liccardo, would put at risk much progress Reed made in reducing the future costs of pensions for public employees. Cortese, a Santa Clara County supervisor, has campaigned on rolling back some pension cuts that were approved by voters.
A win by Liccardo doesn’t guarantee that Reed’s pension reforms will come to pass because of court challenges from unions. But Cortese set himself apart from the other candidates by saying he would settle lawsuits that unions filed against the city after Measure B, which trimmed some public employee pensions, passed.
To view the full article, click here.