Aguilar: Santa Clara County’s District 4 race should not be uncontested

This year marks 30 years since my mother brought our family to the United States. I was a child then, too young to fully understand what migration asks of a family, the sacrifice, the uncertainty and the faith that a different place might offer your children a safer and more dignified future. I have spent much of my life trying to honor that decision.

Over the last three decades, I have lived the promise and contradictions of this country as an immigrant, public servant and sociologist. I have worked inside institutions that ask the public for trust and have seen how fragile that trust can become when accountability weakens.

That is why uncontested local races should concern all of us.

Recent reporting by San José Spotlight showed that only two Santa Clara County races this cycle are competitive, with District 4 Supervisor Susan Ellenberg again running unopposed. She was also  unopposed in 2022.

As Garrick Percival, chair of the political science department at San José State University, told San José Spotlight, “More choice is always better for voters. I don’t think it’s great to have uncontested races.”

District 4 is too important and too diverse to be reduced to political inevitability.

This is not an argument against incumbency itself. Some incumbents are effective and deserve reelection. But reelection should still be earned in a process where voters are presented with a real choice. Political scientists have long treated electoral competition as a core mechanism of democratic accountability, and scholarship on uncontested elections underscores that competition shapes incentives and how accountability is experienced in practice.

That matters because county government matters. In California, counties are central actors in health and behavioral health systems, and county decision-making directly affects the daily lives of families, older adults, immigrants, and other vulnerable residents. In Santa Clara County, a supervisor’s decisions can shape public and behavioral health, housing-related pressures, safety and the accessibility of services people rely on every day. These are not theoretical or abstract responsibilities. They touch people where they live. That is precisely why these offices should not drift into unchallenged continuity.

I understand why many people hesitate to run for local office. It takes time, scrutiny, resources and a willingness to be publicly evaluated. For newcomers to local politics, the barriers can feel even higher. But if we say we believe in democracy, then we should also believe communities benefit when more people are willing to step forward, test ideas and challenge assumptions about who gets to govern.

I was born in Honduras, a country where too many people know what corruption, impunity and institutional weakness can do to public life. Honduras scored 22 out of 100 and ranked 157 out of 182 countries in Transparency International’s 2025 Corruption Perceptions Index. Freedom House’s 2025 report on Honduras states that “institutional weakness, corruption, violence and impunity undermine the overall stability of Honduras.”

The 2025 Global Organized Crime Index country profile for Honduras likewise reports that impunity remains prevalent in parts of the justice system. My family came here believing in something better. Thirty years later, I still do. But democracy cannot simply be something we praise in speeches. It has to be practiced. It has to be renewed. Sometimes that renewal begins with something very basic, giving voters more than one option.

District 4 deserves more than an uncontested race. No community should be asked to treat an uncontested race as healthy by default.

And for those who believe another option should still be possible, the process is not yet closed. For California’s June 2, 2026 primary, the official write-in filing period runs from April 6 through May 19, 2026. If you live in a district facing an uncontested race, consider whether you, or someone you respect, is being called to step forward. I know this much: I would like to move through this primary season with real choices, not political autopilot.

Hansel Alejandro Aguilar, Ph.D. is a sociologist originally from Puerto Cortés, Honduras, who resides in Santa Clara County District 4. His research focuses on migration, transnationalism and human rights. He is an online adjunct professor with George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia and served as the first permanent Director of Police Accountability for Berkeley.