What Is Social Democracy?

The political philosophy I follow is called Social Democracy. 

I believe in two interrelated principles that guide this philosophy:

• The empowerment of citizens (civic empowerment)

• Fact-informed civil discourse. 

To speak to the first point, the empowerment of citizens is not just the right to vote, but the active cultivation of civic virtues among them. Civic virtues include not just exercising the right to vote but also defending other citizen's right to vote. This comes with a commitment to respect other citizens in our democracy (especially one's political opponents). I also believe we have the duty to make political participation an inviting and hospitable environment. Important metrics to measure this civic empowerment include the rate of voter turnout in elections, and should also include research data on whether or not citizens have the means to run for office, are willing to run for office, or can even imagine themselves (or someone like themself) on the ballot. In a Social Democracy, if any of these metrics are low, it is our obligation to take actions that improve the metrics.

Fact-informed civil discourse goes back to the birth of modern democracy in the Enlightenment era, as articulated in philosopher David Hume's "An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals", which described the necessity to distinguish facts from basic values. In Social Democracy, there is a recognition that valuing fact-informed discourse is a key part of citizen empowerment - as it creates a civic common ground where we productively discuss the issues we face together. When citizens can see the value in data collection and understand the means by which scientifically grounded analysis of that data is produced, the resulting factually-informed citizens are more effective at improving their own lives.

Whether those issues be climate change, civil rights, public health, or the housing crisis, the resulting fact-based data results in an informed citizenry crafting and voting for policies that measurably make the world a kinder, more prosperous, and equitable place.

If you would like to learn more about Social Democracy, please view the excellent historical account of its development in "How Denmark Invented Social Democracy" on YouTube.

Andrew Crockett’s Core Positions: COMPETENCE

On your next plane trip, how would you feel if you found out your pilot had crashed his prior flight? Or maybe a pilot who crashed twice? How about a pilot who crashed the Assessor’s Office three times in the last 28 years?

Would you also feel uneasy if you were flying in an old rattletrap plane like something out of an Indiana Jones movie? And your pilot assures you that he’s giving you a bargain because his good old aircraft was state-of-the-art half a century ago? Because that’s essentially the Santa Clara County Assessor’s Office’s 1970’s-era computer database. And, over the decades, the incumbent has repeatedly failed to upgrade it, then bragged about the money he’s saved. 

For a smooth flight to the future of Santa Clara County, elect Andrew Crockett, CPA, as Santa Clara County Assessor. Because I will ensure that the old rattletrap Assessor’s database finally gets upgraded to reflect the brilliance of Silicon Valley. This upgrade needs happen soon: the cost of the upgrade will only increase over time. The old COBOL programmers we need to export the data are rapidly going extinct!

Cheapness is an expensive habit. By kicking the can down the road, enormous costs will now be inflicted on the taxpayers of Santa Clara County. Costs because of lost upgrade opportunities the incumbent has wasted over the past 28 years! These missed opportunities mean we will need to pay up to $50 million dollars to upgrade in the years ahead. This cost would have only been around $5 million back in 1995, when the incumbent was first elected. Because of his managerial inability to act, the technology that runs the office is now an antique that more properly belongs in the Computer History Museum. 

Andrew Crockett, CPA, believes in expert-led, data-driven decision making and will bring us into the 2020s!

Andrew Crockett’s Core Positions: HOUSING

People ask me why the Assessor’s data is relevant to our current housing crisis. Let me put it this way: Would you agree to surgery if the Doctor was going to just “figure it out along the way?” Of course not - and yet, our officials are currently trying to solve the housing crisis by doing just that! Why? Because they have no authoritative data to help diagnose factors in the crisis. But what if I told you that the present Santa Clara County Assessor has the authoritative data RIGHT NOW? Not only that, the Assessor has actively avoided making this data available to civic, community, and nonprofit agencies for 28 years!

How is he doing this? It’s all in the fees. Want a copy of the “Property Characteristics File”? How deep are your pockets? For the same data that is provided for free in Florida, or is available for $350 in San Francisco, a copy of this file will set you back $47,195 in Santa Clara County. Yes, you heard that right! The incumbent keeps public data collected at taxpayer expense behind a 47 thousand dollar paywall. That’s more than the annual budget of many small nonprofits for a spreadsheet file that fits onto a single CD. His excuse is it’s “not his job” to make this data available to the same people that pay for his budget.

Furthermore, what if you heard that the incumbent is even proud that our rents are increasing, because it benefits investors? I might add that these are the same investors that are presently outbidding first-time homebuyers! In the last decade, Santa Clara County homeownership has fallen 11.9%, according to the Santa Clara County Office of the Assessor’s 2020-2021 Annual Report, yet the incumbent claims in that same report that this is due to a “trend by Millenials [sic] to rent rather than buy.” Considering that rents are often higher than house payments, what else is going on? What insights might be gained from analyzing the data collected by the Assessor’s Office? Perhaps investors buying rental properties have priced first time buyers out of the market. What other factors might be blocking South Bay working families from getting out of the rental trap? Is this trap something the incumbent has helped to create? Some claim data isn’t valuable. Consider that the Assessor’s Office thinks it’s worth $47K, just see it.

We must escape this “Stone Age”, and as Assessor Andrew Crockett, I will make sure the Assessor’s data is available to appropriate stakeholders, and work with them to make the information useful to their needs.

You paid for this data: and I want you to benefit from it - with better planned communities, ample housing, and the ability for anyone who wants to buy a home to have an honest chance at achieving that dream.