With 100 percent of the votes still not cast–and more to the point, not going to be–the results are official: Michael Shane Ellis, the so-called “worst school board member in Long Beach history,” has defeated Randy Gordon, the so-called “self-appointed mayor of Long Beach.”

The troubled Ellis will not face the recall election sought by the troubling Gordon, CEO of the Long Beach Area Chamber of Commerce, who lately has been pouring his organization’s money and influence into referendums to reverse the decisions of voters and their local representatives.

Gordon, who famously gave Ellis the “worst-ever” label last fall, couldn’t collect enough signatures by the May 14 deadline to qualify a recall initiative for this November’s ballot. Instead, Ellis becomes the first ever to survive an assault by Gordon, who we started calling “the self-appointed mayor of Long Beach” last year when he began steamrolling elected Mayor Bob Foster and the council.

“Please don’t call me that,” Gordon pleaded at the time. “I certainly don’t consider myself the mayor.”

We’ll have to think about that–because after what just happened in Gordon’s campaign against Ellis, he doesn’t seem so mayoral, anymore. But first we’re going to think about this: How bad does somebody like Gordon have to be to lose to a guy like Ellis?

Ellis has been a mess since joining the school board in April 2006-winning an uncontested election when incumbent Suja Lowenthal suddenly quit the race to run for City Council. He’s pleaded guilty to a DUI and no-contest to leaving the scene of a traffic accident and driving with a suspended license. He’s violated his probation for both. He’s had a poor attendance record at board meetings, was censured and asked to resign by school board colleagues and has failed to turn in a required statement of his economic interests–or even to reveal his address.

Despite all those transgressions and three months to exploit them, Gordon’s street team couldn’t gather the necessary 6,944 signatures. Gordon didn’t return phone calls from the District requesting an explanation–his silence was rather uncharacteristic, to say the least–and he sounded rather chagrined in comments that appeared in the Press-Telegram.

“Obviously, we would have difficulty making the [May 14] deadline,” Gordon told the P-T’s Kevin Butler. “I’m not saying we wouldn’t make it, but I’m not sure we would, either. Gordon also suggested that the Chamber’s signature-gatherers were at a disadvantage against those employed by the promoters of state propositions.

But Gordon hired a political consultant and spent untold amounts on his anti-Ellis effort, too. He was shooting his mouth off pretty confidently–and very idealistically–when he launched the campaign.

“The Long Beach Chamber cannot sit back and let an unethical person lead one of the nation’s biggest school districts,” Gordon proclaimed then, claiming it was a terrible example to the kids. ”We need about 8,000 signatures, and I think we can do that. In case you haven’t noticed, we’re pretty good at this.”

Pretty good? Until now they’ve been undefeated.

Last year, Gordon used signature-gathering campaigns to stymie two ordinances that the Mayor and City Council had passed to protect working people–one prohibiting big-box stores from undercutting union jobs by selling groceries, the other offering lowly paid workers in hotels located on city land the choice to join a union. Gordon’s lists of signatures required Long Beach to put those ordinances to a public vote. But when the council began to plan the referendums that Gordon had made necessary–referendums that, together, carried a $500,000 cost–Gordon attacked them for wasting the taxpayers’ money. And the council backed down.

All this has played out since 2006, when the Chamber sued the City of Long Beach to overturn its Campaign Reform Act, a voter-approved initiative that placed limits on political contributions. It won a court decision that is currently being appealed.

In the meantime, Gordon has made no secret that the Chamber has been raising lots of money for its Political Action Committee (PAC)–nor that the organization intends to spend it. However, he emphasizes that PAC funds are separate from the Chamber’s membership dues and promises that no membership money will be spent on political operations “as long as I’m CEO.”

“We don’t need to do that,” Gordon has been snorting. “There are enough people out there to give us [PAC] money over and above that.”

With such heavy moneybags to dangle before candidates and to swing at incumbents, it’s hard to understand how a no-account like Ellis was able to survive–until you consider the results of the April 8 school board elections, which suggest that the furor over Ellis wasn’t really the issue at all.

Victories by Chamber-supported incumbents Felton Williams and Jon Meyer ensures a Chamber-supported majority on the board–that is, an insurmountable advantage over board members supported by the teachers union–for two years … which is how much longer Ellis will be in office. In other words, Gordon’s campaign against Ellis was little more than a strategy to protect the Chamber-favored majority, in case either Williams or Meyer had lost in the election.

Gordon suddenly thinks that living with the so-called “worst school board member in Long Beach history” until 2010 seems … well … livable. We’ll go along with that. As for living with the so-called “self-appointed mayor of Long Beach”? Not so much, we think.

Tags: DUI, Felton Williams, Jon Meyer, Long Beach Chamber of Commerce, long beach school board, Michael Shane Ellis, randy gordon, Recall election, suja lowenthal