Two Republicans in the California State Legislature are now voting for legislation sponsored by the state’s construction unions, following several years of unified, principled caucus resistance to such schemes. One might think that former Republican legislators Brett Granlund, Anthony Pescetti, and Ken Maddox are back from term-limited exile, in disguise.

Union leaders and lobbyists are thrilled! They can now label their costly, self-serving bills as “bipartisan” while labeling their more principled critics as “extremist.”

A Bipartisan Attack on Constitutional Rights, Local Control, and Fiscal Responsibility

Most prominent among the union-backed bills with Republican support is Senate Bill 7. This bill would withhold state funding for any of the state’s 121 charter cities that exercise their right under the state constitution to set their own government-mandated wage rate policies for purely municipal construction.

SB 7 undermines the principle of local control over local funds and the fundamental structure of constitutional federalism. It also punishes fiscally responsible cities that recognize how state-mandated… Read More

San Diego Politics & Media Mashup

I’m not sure what’s worse: suggesting the Republican Party is racist or calling someone a criminal while offering no evidence to support the claim.

Congressman Bob Filner, running for mayor in San Diego, did both of those things in a span of a few days.

Adding fuel to the fire was local labor Lorena Gonzalez. More on her in a minute. First, Filner.

At a mayoral debate Thursday, Filner played the race card while refuting a point by City Councilman and mayoral candidate Carl DeMaio.

“They (the Republican Party) are a party that does not believe that the people of color in this nation deserve an equal chance, they do not believe that Mexico is worthy of respect as a nation,” Filner said, according to KPBS.

Monday on KOGO, host LaDona Harvey noted that Filner basically accused her and a whole bunch of other people of being racist without offering any proof.

Within the hour, Filner was doing the same thing —… Read More

The rumors about Democrat Bob Filner signing Republican political consultant Tom Shepard to run his San Diego mayoral campaign became reality on Wednesday.

The U-T San Diego posted astoryabout the move last night. A blog post went up on San Diego Rostra about the same time. And there was Tony Krvaric’s email blast. The chair of local GOP didn’t mince words. His subject line: “BREAKING: Tom Shepard betrays our reform effort and signs on with Bob Filner!”

Krvaric closed by saying: “PS. The Republican Party of San Diego County will not do business with him ever again as long as I remain chairman. Elephants don’t forget – and principles matter.”

Shepard is a friend and a mentor. We’ve worked together. I admire and respect him. He took the loss in the June primary hard — he represented Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher, who finished third behind DeMaio… Read More

San Diego Politics & Media Mashup

Republican Carl DeMaio has hired a Democrat and Democrat Bob Filner is on board with pension reform.

Who spiked the water in San Diego?

Relax. There’s no need to panic. The water is clean…I mean drinkable. So why are we seeing New Carl and New Bob popping up in stories?

Here’s the thing — election season is nearly in full swing and DeMaio and Filner, the two men running to become San Diego’s next mayor, have to figure out how to appeal to the middle in order to come out on top in November. In San Diego, 40 percent of registered voters are Democrats and 28 percent are registered Republican.

Math is leading both candidates to stray from their core philosophies and make decisions they never would have made leading up to the June… Read More

Let’s begin with praise. The online news folks at Voice of San Diego deserve big props for diving in head first with a great concept – a political festival centered around the first San Diego 2012 mayoral debate or as they called it Politifest 2011.

However, due to no filtering of candidates, it felt more freak show than what they dubbed a “Lincoln – Douglas” style county fair debate.

Though top-tier candidates, Rep. Bob Filner and Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher, participated – they were not “the talk” of the debate.

The “It” kid of the event, Rob Harter, called himself “Girly Girly.”

He opened up with a diatribe about how men are evil, ruining the world with war and guns. Oh, did I happen to mention this event took place on the grounds of the old Naval Training Center, where sailors like my father, attended boot camp?

Yes, clearly the Lincoln candidate.

Meaning wacky retired teacher and magician Loch David… Read More

A debate’s raging in San Diego. A debate over debates.

It’s a curious thing. The moment San Diego mayoral candidate Councilman Carl DeMaio turned down a Voice of San Diego hosted candidates debate, among others already accepted by Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher and Congressman Bob Filner, suddenly he was the target of much speculation (District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis is also not expected to participate).

The result was what we media consultants lovingly call organic news. Suddenly, DeMaio’s name was everywhere – on social media, in headlines and churning in the poliwonk rumor mills. Then, the situation took an even stranger move – Fletcher and Filner sent DeMaio and Dumanis a letter asking them to join them in three upcoming scheduled debates.

In the letter, the pair wrote: “You have… Read More