‘It’s a Responsibility’; Pasadena Mayor Gordo Makes the Case for Voting

While a Pride flag was being raised over City Hall on Monday afternoon, more than two dozen Pasadena residents pulled up to the ballot drop box just outside the iconic building, stepped out of their cars, and deposited their ballots. It was perhaps, in its quiet way, a rebuttal to the prevailing mood heading into Tuesday’s California primary on June 2: voter apathy.

Across the state, turnout is expected to be low. Early ballot returns in several Los Angeles County communities have tracked well behind historical averages, and political observers have noted that younger voters account for a disproportionately small share of ballots cast so far.

The conditions — an off-year election, a crowded governor’s race with no clear frontrunner, and two of Pasadena’s three city council races lacking an active challenger — have done little to generate urgency at the local level.

Mayor Victor Gordo, in an interview Monday evening, pushed back against the disengagement.

“The most important responsibility that we have as citizens of this great country,” he said, “the most important responsibility and honor that comes with being a citizen of the United States of America is voting. Our democracy depends on it and the future of our country demands it.”

Gordo, who plans to cast his own ballot in person Tuesday morning at Villa Park, acknowledged the uncontested races but stopped well short of dismissing them.

He called on residents to move beyond voting itself — to serve on commissions, support candidates, and understand the issues at stake.

“It takes maintaining our freedom and liberty,” he said. “Our democracy takes work and takes people who are willing to be active participants in local government, county, state and federal government.”

The statewide ballot on Tuesday is consequential despite the muted energy.

The governor’s race — one of the most closely watched in the country this cycle — is a wide-open contest to succeed term-limited Gov. Gavin Newsom. With 61 candidates on the primary ballot and Democratic support fractured among several major contenders, including former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra, philanthropist Tom Steyer, and former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, there has been real concern that a divided Democratic electorate could allow two Republicans to advance to November under California’s top-two primary system. Former Fox News commentator Steve Hilton, boosted by a Trump endorsement in April, has emerged as the clear Republican frontrunner — a consolidation that has largely eased earlier fears of a two-Republican runoff and sidelined the other major GOP contender, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco.

The Legislature has also referred measures to the statewide ballot touching campaign finance reform and changes to the recall process. And voters across Los Angeles County will weigh in on local races and measures that will shape budgets, housing policy, and public services for years to come.

In Pasadena specifically, Vice Mayor Jess Rivas is running unopposed in District 5. District 3 incumbent Justin Jones faces a challenge from housing navigator Erica Margarita Muñoz, while in District 7, Councilmember Jason Lyon’s lone challenger, Alethea O’Toole, withdrew from the race too late to have her name removed from the printed ballot. City finances loom large for whoever prevails: a recent budget summary described the city’s finances as “stable but strained,” with growing deficits projected going forward. The Council will also decide the final look of roughly 50 acres of land along the abandoned 710 Freeway extension, and is in the process of selecting a permanent city manager following Miguel Márquez’s retirement in April 2026, with Assistant City Manager Matthew Hawkesworth serving as interim city manager.

Mayor Gordo, noting that the governor’s race and other statewide contests give voters plenty of reason to participate even where local races lack drama, put it plainly. “It’s not only an honor and a privilege to have that right,” he said, “but it’s also a responsibility to act on it.”