SAN DIEGO – Democrats united via Zoom on Tuesday night in a show of support for the candidacy of Terra Lawson-Remer, who is seeking to oust Republican County Supervisor Kristin Gaspar in the technically non-partisan race in the 3rd Supervisorial District.
Rallying the political troops via Internet appearances were three members of Congress – Susan Davis, Juan Vargas, and Mike Levin – while the fourth member of the Congressional delegation, Scott Peters, listed his name as a backer of Lawson-Remer.
In brief appearances witnessed by some 450 Internet users, State Senate President pro tempore Toni Atkins (D-San Diego) zoomed in from Sacramento, where she was keeping herself in political quarantine in order to participate In budget negotiations with California Gov. Gavin Newsom. Assemblyman Brian Maienschein, a former Republican who crossed over to the Democratic party, also was in Sacramento, quipping that he knew the importance of flipping a district from “Red to Blue.”
The parade of Lawson-Remer’s political endorsers also included Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, who appeared on screen with her husband, San Diego County Supervisor Nathan Fletcher, who emphasized that if Lawon-Remer is able to defeat Gaspar, the county Board of Supervisors will be run for the first time in a generation by Democrats rather than by Republicans.
Although the count is now four Republicans (Greg Cox, Dianne Jacob, Jim Desmond, and Gaspar) with Fletcher being the sole Democrat, Cox and Jacob are retiring. In the race to replace Cox, there are two Democrats in the November runoff – Ben Hueso and Nora Vargas – so that means that Fletcher, now in the middle of his term, will have at least one Democratic colleague. So, attention of both parties is focused on the 3rd Supervisorial District, with Democrats fired up for Lawson-Remer, and Republicans determined to keep Gaspar in office.
Lawson-Remer predicted that Republicans will be able to raise more money in the race, “but we will not be out-organized.”
Among Democratic endorsers of Lawson-Remer are both Assemblyman Todd Gloria and San Diego City Councilwoman Barbara Bry, rival candidates on the Nov. 3 ballot for mayor of San Diego. City Councilwoman Dr. Jennifer Campbell also has endorsed Lawson-Remer, who has both a PhD in economics and a law degree, is known in political circles as a top political organizer, and has taught university-level courses in public policy.
Her prowess as a political campaigner was touted by Congressman Levin, who held up a campaign T-shirt saying “Flip the 49th,” and credited her for organizing the campaign to switch his 49th Congressional District from Republican to Democrat. In the 2018 election, Levin defeated Diane Harkey, a Republican member of the State Board of Equalization, in the traditionally GOP district after the incumbent Republican, U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa decided not to seek reelection that year. Since that time, Issa launched a campaign in the 50th Congressional District, which became vacant when former Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-San Diego, was forced to resign in a scandal over the misappropriation of campaign funds. Issa made it to next November’s runoff against Democrat Ammar Campa-Najjar, another of Lawson-Remer’s endorsers.
Further words of encouragement for Lawson-Remer were offered on Zoom by Keith Maddox, the Executive Secretary Treasurer of the San Diego & Imperial Counties Labor Council, and by Will Rodriguez Kennedy, the chairman of the San Diego County Democratic Party as well as president of California Young Democrats.
Many of the short speeches tied Gaspar to President Trump, saying that she has been a big supporter of the President’s idea to build a wall along the U.S-Mexico border, has been as unsympathetic as he to asylum seekers, and had turned a deaf ear to the plea for hazard pay for health care workers during the coronavirus pandemic. Noting that Gaspar also opposes a woman’s right to choose, Fletcher described his supervisorial colleague as the “living embodiment of Donald Trump in San Diego.”
The hour-long Zoom meeting also had its lighter moments. State Senate President pro tempore Toni Atkins said she first met Lawson-Remer when the latter was a high school student working as an intern for then City Councilman Juan Vargas. At the time, Atkins was a top aide to City Councilwoman Christine Kehoe, who preceded her to the state Assembly and later to the State Senate.
Atkins described Lawson-Remer as a “policy wonk, scholar, and an activist,” noting that she had worked in the Treasury Department during the administration of President Barack Obama, and understands not only how to get elected, but also how to establish good relations with the community she serves.
Juan Vargas, remembering the time that Lawson-Remer worked as a high school student in his council office, told of the occasion that she disagreed with him on a council-imposed curfew of 10 p.m. for minors, arguing that some of her fellow high school students were more responsible than people much older and that the curfew therefore was unfair. Vargas remembered Lawson-Remer debating former City Attorney Casey Gwynn on the issue, and “she creamed him – she is so smart!”
Davis said that she knew Lawson-Remer since the latter was a little girl. Her father, Larry Remer, continues to be a well-known Democratic political consultant in San Diego. Davis, a 20-year veteran of Congress, who served previously in the State Assembly and before that on the San Diego Unified School District board, said she looks forward to Lawson-Remer having a similarly long career in public office. “Women are rooting for one another!” the congresswoman said.
Lawson-Remer spoke at the beginning and end of the Zoom rally. She said the next County Board of Supervisors will have many challenges, including how to provide necessary health and recovery programs during and after the coronavirus pandemic, as well as in grappling to end the “systemic racism” that has been the subject of nationwide protests ever since the Minneapolis police killing on May 25 of African-American George Floyd.
Over her career, Lawson-Remer said, she has been involved in various progressive movements, including opposition to Prop. 187 of 1994, which sought to make undocumented immigrants ineligible for public services; support for the Farm Workers Union led by Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta; calling for state divestment from fossil fuels, and campaigns to abolish predatory “redlining” by banks and mortgage companies in minority neighborhoods.
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Donald H. Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com
Don – Good article on the San Diego County 3d District Supervisor Race.
Len Krouner