1990 Lynwood Mayoral Election (Straight Outta Lynwood)

The 1990 Lynwood Mayoral Election was held on Saturday, November 3rd, 1990. Democratic nominee, incumbent Alfred M. Yankovic was re-elected to a second term as mayor, defeating city council member, Republican nominee Louis J. Heine, and consumer activist, Green Party nominee Ricardo Sanchez. This election also marked the start of the Green Party being a major party, in fact, in 1998, the Green party would win the mayoral election.

Alfred M. Yankovic, the front-runner of most of the primary, easily rewon the Democratic party nomination, only facing token opposition thanks to a period of economic growth during 1990 and the fact that very few candidates ran for the nomination, while city councilor, Louis J. Heine defeated businessman Brooks Evan and political journalist Randell Smith in a razor thin margin, for the Republican nomination. In the Green party, activist Ricardo Sanchez became the first Green party nominee to run for mayor in Lynwood.

Ultimately, Yankovic won a somewhat disappointing margin, taking 53.8% of votes, with Heine and Sanchez getting the rest, with Heine narrowly winning second place, with 23.5% of votes cast in the election, while Sanchez out-performing most polls with 22.7%. Over 6,000 more voters voted for this election. While Yankovic was able to win 2,115 more voters, his percentage fell 3.49% compared to last year's election.

Sanchez

=Background= After a surprising victory in 1989, Yankovic assumed mayorship on Saturday, January 20 of 1990. 2 weeks after inauguration, Yankovic signed many laws, including; the Fair Tax Pay Act which increased taxes on households making more than $60,000 per year by 25%, and the New Decade Reform Act which increased the budget and spending for many public services by, at least 30%. The increased budgets such as education, health, and infrastructure, paid in part by, the new tax increase.

More personally, Yankovic's first feature-length film UHF, released on August 12th of 1989, became a box office hit, generating over $21.2 million dollars, or over 4 times the budget. It's reception was also positive. On review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 87% rating based on 76 reviews, with an average score of 8.2/10. Thanks to the good movie release, his similarly named album, UHF became one of his most popular albums at the time, only behind Even Worse.

During January of 1990, consumer activist Ricardo Sanchez announced that he would be running for mayor. At first, it was unknown what party he would be running for, as he did not specify, but 2 weeks after his announcement Sanchez would officially run for mayor as the Green Party nominee.

Democratic Nomination
Following the Fair Tax Pay Act and the New Decade Reform Act being very popular, especially to low-income voters, Yankovic's chance of winning was increased by a lot. Thanks to this, many influential Democrats did not run for mayor.

Republican Nomination
After their crushing defeat in 1989, many City Council Republicans lost their seats thanks to Democrats riding Yankovic's coattails. Louis Henie, 2nd District city councilor became the front runner for the 1990 primary, while dark-horse candidates Brooks Evan and political journalist Randell Smith, also ran for the nomination.

While considered the likely winner, Henie won by a very thin margin (308 votes out of 7,841).

Green Party Nomination
Being the first Green party nominee to run for mayor, Sanchez was written out of most people's radar. His campaign was mostly helped by grassroots efforts by younger Lynwooders who felt disenfranchised by both main parties.

Candidates
In order to be listed on the ballot, candidates were required to submit petitions between January 1 and May 20.

The total of three candidates on the November mayoral ballot is record-setting for Lynwood mayoral elections, thanks to the end of 2 party dominance in 1990.

Candidates who had ballot access prior to Sanchez v. Lynwood
=General Election=

Ballot Access
Initially, Sanchez and the Green Party were unable to gain ballot access until Sanchez sued the city in order to gain access to the election.