The People Are The Boss Of Elected Officials
This is a cross-post of a column I authored in the Voice of OC, asking when is it going to far for a Board of Supervisors to make it harder for a countywide elected officeholder to do their job?
This column ran on the Voice of Orange County website and can be found here. I am sharing here on my own Substack as well, I hope you enjoy it. I am trying to make an important point here about who is the boss of elected officials. Hint: It’s not other elected officials.
You can also listen to this post on our podcast feed, So, Does It Matter? SPOKEN. It is available on your favorite podcast app. And you can listen to it here.
⏰ 6 minute read
Fleischman: The People Are The Boss Of Elected Officials
A recent Orange County Grand Jury report recommended converting the elected Treasurer-Tax Collector into an appointed position and giving supervisors power to remove independently elected officials by a super-majority vote. The timing matters. Just 10 days earlier, Orange County voters had sent the opposite message, returning Treasurer-Tax Collector Shari Freidenrich to office with more than 70 percent of the vote. The Grand Jury offered an institutional critique. The voters delivered a resounding public affirmation.
That raises a question that goes well beyond any one officeholder or controversy: In a democratic republic, who is actually in charge?
The answer is supposed to be simple: the voters are. That may sound obvious. But recent events in Orange County suggest county insiders have a different answer in mind.
For years, Freidenrich has been at odds with some members of the Board of Supervisors and county bureaucracy, disputes that have spilled into public view. Having followed this closely, I’ve reached my own conclusion: much of what has been portrayed as scandal strikes me as disagreement over management style and priorities, not evidence of criminality or financial misconduct. But even if one accepts every criticism of Freidenrich, that still does not answer the central question: who decides?
Late in 2024, supervisors stripped Freidenrich of authority over the county’s multibillion-dollar investment pool — an imprudent move that made her the only county treasurer in California not responsible for managing this core function and that undermined the very independence voters elected her to exercise. They then handed that authority to her own deputy, Dana Schultz. Schultz later ran against Freidenrich for the office, using power the supervisors had transferred from Freidenrich to build her case for replacing her. That is not a footnote to the controversy. It is the story.
The voters settled it anyway. They returned Freidenrich by more than 70 percent.
The Board of Supervisors did not respond by respecting that mandate. After voters spoke, supervisors approved deep staffing cuts to Freidenrich’s office. When she warned those cuts would impair her ability to perform the duties voters elected her to carry out, the answer was not deference. It was another vote to weaken the office anyway.
This is no longer merely a dispute over management style. It is a contest over whether an independently elected official is allowed to remain independent after the voters have spoken.
John Moorlach understands this from both sides, having served as Treasurer-Tax Collector before joining the Board of Supervisors. He has publicly questioned stripping investment authority from the office — breaking with his own board colleagues to make that point. His larger conclusion is simple: for elected offices, voters are the remedy. That is exactly right. If county leaders believe this office should be restructured, they can make that case openly to voters. What they should not do is quietly drain authority from an independently elected office because they dislike how its officeholder exercises independent judgment.
This should concern every Orange County voter regardless of what they think about Freidenrich. A new UCI-OC Poll found that half of residents believe county government is run by a few big interests, while only 23 percent believe it works for everyone — and that finding cut across party lines. Republicans, Democrats and independents all landed within a few points of each other. This is not a partisan anxiety. It is a civic warning.
The principle extends beyond this office. Substitute the Sheriff, the District Attorney, the Assessor — any independently elected county official. California elects these offices separately precisely because voters chose not to hand all authority to five politicians and a bureaucracy. The District Attorney, Sheriff and Treasurer-Tax Collector do not work for the Board of Supervisors or report to its administrators. Their boss is the voter.
There must be accountability for misconduct and criminal behavior. Those mechanisms already exist — elections, recalls, prosecutions, audits, ethics rules, public scrutiny. Ex-Supervisor Andrew Do was investigated, charged, and pleaded guilty in federal court. That is accountability. But there is a profound difference between accountability and control.
If county government can strip authority, cut staffing and transfer responsibilities until an independently elected office can no longer function, voters may still elect that official — but they no longer control it. Someone else does.
American government intentionally divides power. Independent offices are supposed to remain independent, even when they make decisions others dislike. That is not a flaw in the system. That is the system.
Elections are not advisory opinions. In Orange County right now, it is worth asking whether anyone in county government still understands that.
Jon Fleischman is a California political strategist and commentator whose writings can be found at SoDoesItMatter.com. He lives in Yorba Linda with his family.
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