By Ken Stone
The Times of San Diego
SAN DIEGO — Bonnie Dumanis formally entered the race for county supervisor Tuesday, Sept. 5, fulfilling predictions she would try to parlay her district attorney credentials into a new political role.
The Republican joined the officially nonpartisan race by filing paperwork with the San Diego County Registrar of Voters Office.
Her Form 501 “Candidate Intention Statement” was signed Sept. 1, and her Form 410 — naming her fund-raising committee as “Bonnie Dumanis for Supervisor 2018” — lists April Boling as treasurer.
Boling, a CPA and former head of the San Diego County Taxpayers Association, has a long history working with GOP candidates and causes. She also was chair of the City of San Diego Pension Reform Committee.
Dumanis aims to succeed Ron Roberts in the San Diego-centric Fourth District, which has more than twice as many registered Democrats as Republicans. The GOP supervisor is being termed out.
She would face the likes of former Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher in the June primary, along with fellow Democrats Lori Saldaña, Omar Passons and Ken Malbrough. Marcia Nordstrom was the first Republican to join the race for the four-year seat.
Fletcher, the Republican-turned-independent-turned-Democrat married to state Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher, last week got a boost toward the county party’s early endorsement for supervisor when one of the Democrats’ four area committees recommended him.
The San Diego Union-Tribune last week said Democrats moved to endorse Fletcher even before the June 2018 primary in an effort to discourage Dumnanis from joining the race.
Dumanis was elected San Diego County district attorney in 2003, when she defeated incumbent Paul Pfingst. She ran unopposed in 2006 and 2010 and won re-election in the June 2014 primary with 55 percent of the vote.
She stepped down as the county’s top prosecutor on July 7.
In April, when she announced her date for leaving the DA’s Office, Dumanis was quoted as saying: “I have not decided if I will be a candidate or not. I believe my experience, and the critical role that the board plays in public safety and policy issues, would make me an effective member.”
But Dumanis, 65, said her resignation was meant to avoid creating “any conflict with, or distraction from, the important work of the District Attorney’s Office.”
Then-Superior Court Judge Dumanis became the first openly gay district attorney in the country, and was quoted in The New York Times as saying: “My orientation doesn’t have anything to do with the job and I don’t intend it to have anything to do with the job. It is a part of me that I am proud of. And I do, by the way, have an agenda, and that is public safety.”
Reacting to the news, county Democratic Party Chairwoman Jessica Hayes said: “Voters are tired of the GOP status quo in county government, and they will reject … Dumanis’ record of failure, deception and corruption. San Diegans aren’t looking for a candidate that cuts shady backroom deals, colludes with foreign campaign donors, and used a murdered daughter as a campaign prop.”
Hayes called Dumanis a “disgraced former Republican DA” and added in a statement: “Working people in San Diego deserve progressive change on the Board of Supervisors and a county government that works to help our most vulnerable communities, not a corrupt, insider politician who was the subject of an FBI investigation.”
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Preceding Times of San Diego story shared with San Diego Jewish World under the auspices of the San Diego Online News Association (SDONA). Dumanis is a member of San Diego’s Jewish community.