Summary: The death of Fourth District Riverside County Supervisor John Benoit came as a shock to the political community in the Coachella Valley, but sadly, not as a surprise. In a year in which we have been bereft of such people as Glenn Frey, Prince, and Carrie Fisher, we in our Pleasant Desert must add John’s name to that doleful litany. If 2016 sucks, we find ourselves forced here to embrace the suck, swallow hard, and say goodbye to John Benoit.
Riverside County Supervisor John Benoit died earlier this week. His passing offers a curious parallel to the experience of his predecessor in the Fourth Supervisorial District seat, Roy Wilson, who also died in office.
I first met John Benoit in early 2003, when as a newly elected and installed City Councilmember for Cathedral City, I made the semi-obligatory pilgrimage to Sacramento to attend the League of California Cities orientation for incoming elected city officials. Part of my task while there was to introduce myself to the various elected officials in the Assembly and the Other House representing Cathedral City.
Among them was then-Assemblymember John Benoit, representing an adjacent district to my own. Though one of my colleagues was at pains to out me to the Republican Assembl member as a liberal Democrat, her effort to stir up animosity between us backfired. As I left John’s office, leaving my impatient colleague in the corridor outside, John and I quietly assured each other that on matters where common ground was possible, he would be happy to work with me and my colleagues.
That was the beginning of a political friendship between we two Francophones that lasted until John’s death. We both had discovered that, at least in his office in Sacramento, the American tradition, inherited from our British forebears, of political civility and bipartisan cooperation was not yet dead.
In due course, John left the Assembly after being termed out and then, when Roy Wilson passed away, leaving an empty Fourth Supervisorial District seat, John was the logical choice to succeed him. John resigned his then-seat in the state Senate and returned to the Valley to take up Roy’s mantle. When the time came for John to seek election to the seat for a full term in his own right, I was happy to offer him my support.
I did so because, notwithstanding the partisan tribalism that has come to infect our national politics, my experience with John at the state and local level had been positive, beneficial, and informative. Though a number of local Democrats took exception to my crossing the aisle to support John’s candidacy, I did so because I felt that he had demonstrated a pragmatic ability to listen to, and work with, Democrats at the local level. It was my pleasure, during the supervisorial campaign, to offer John such counsel as I could in his race.
When John came up for reelection in 2014, I was happy to support him again, though I was heavily pressured by local Democrats to support termed-out Assemblymember Manuel Perez. I again opted to proffer my support to John because I had formed a good working relationship with them, because he was a known quantity, and, above all, because his district staff looked like California. By that, I mean that his district staff literally included all sorts and conditions of Californians. Native American, Anglo, African American, Latino, straight, queerfolk, Republican, and Democrat alike. I could not say the same thing about Manuel Perez when he was a member of the Assembly. For me, as an openly queer man, the diversity of John’s office staff spoke volumes about the authenticity of his commitment to represent the entirety of his richly diverse constituency.
Moreover, John’s constituent services were top drawer. One never had the feeling that constituent services were only available to contributors, to fellow Republicans, or to members of a particular favorite ethnic or identity grouping. John’s offices did constituent services the way constituent services are supposed to be done; and having referred more than one client to Supervisor Benoit’s office, I was pleased by the reports that came back to me from them.
As County Supervisor, John managed that increasingly rare feat in local politics; he was, despite his Republican affiliation, truly “trans-partisan” in his approach. By “trans-partisan” I mean that he was able to transcend partisanship and the political tribalism that have marred our country so badly in recent years. In my working with John, even when he was in the Legislature as a partisan official, he could find common ground with even a liberal Democrat on issues that were simply too important to see through a partisan lens. After all, potholes don’t take a blind bit of notice of the partisanship of the driver whose day they ruin.
On issues of partisan politics, we could disagree agreeably, sparring with each other but never descending to ugly personal issues or angry triumphalism. And when we sparred, we remained terrible friends and amiable adversaries.
It was a pleasure to have been able to number John Benoit among my friends. I shall miss him terribly.
Requiem Æternam Dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat super eis. Amen.
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