Alejo honors his mother Woman of the Year. Courtesy of Alejo’s office.

At a time when voters are increasingly convinced the system is rigged, some state legislators are making that perception worse by giving district-wide awards to their family members, critics say.

While it’s not uncommon for legislators to participate in award ceremonies recognizing constituents for their accomplishments, it’s becoming more common for those honorees to be friends and family members of the legislators.

In March, members of the Legislature honored women from their districts to be Woman of the Year: Assemblyman Luis Alejo picked his mother. In May, Assemblywoman Nora Campos selected as Small Business of the Year a brand new political strategy firm both her brother and her longtime political consultant work for, which had also held fundraisers for her. And just a few weeks ago, Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez picked her boyfriend, Nathan Fletcher, a former state legislator, to be Veteran of the Year.

“These ‘awards’ are a generally cost-free technique for buying some goodwill in the community,” said John J. Pitney, Jr., a Roy P. Crocker professor of politics at Claremont McKenna College. “Generally, they are harmless, but when lawmakers give them to their relatives, friends and squeezes, they just contribute to the sense that the political system is rigged.”  

“We already have a surplus of cynicism, and this nonsense makes it worse,” Pitney said.

Hurts the association

This was the first year Campos, a San Jose Democrat, chose to participate in the Small Business of the Year award, selecting Voler Strategic Advisors, which had been in business less than one year and does not have a working website.

The same month the award was given, Voler held a fundraiser for Campos’ Senate campaign — Campos is challenging Sen. Jim Beall, a fellow San Jose Democrat.

“This is absolutely not the spirit of the award,” said Samantha Toccoli, legislative coordinator for the California Small Business Association, one of the groups in charge of the program.

California Small Business Day was created by an Assembly resolution in 2000. Toccoli said she was unaware of any familial relationship between Campos and Voler and added that the organization is run by volunteers who have no way of efficiently vetting every honoree.

“I would hope that this reflects on the legislator and not the integrity or intention of our organization and the 25 other organizations that host the event,” Toccoli said. 

A Campos spokesperson countered that the award was technically given to Voler’s owner, not Campos’ brother, Xavier, who is a senior vice president, or her longtime political consultant and former communications director, Rolando Bonilla, who is Voler’s chief strategy officer.

Look no further

For Alejo, a Watsonville Democrat, it’s his last year in the Legislature, having been termed out and elected to the Monterey County Board of Supervisors — he said he “could not think of anyone better” for the award than his mother, Maria Luisa Alejo Covarrubias. 

“I wanted to honor my mother during my last year in the state Assembly,” Alejo said in a statement at the time. “Our mothers are our first teachers and made us who we are today. My mother has done so much for my family and for our local communities, and I could not think of anyone better for this year’s Woman of the Year for Assembly District 30.”

Alejo did not respond to requests for comment.

Cronyism?

Because Gonzalez’s boyfriend is a former legislator, her awarding Fletcher was more conspicuous than the two prior examples. On Instagram, Fletcher said: “Honored to be chosen as Veteran of the Year by my Assemblywoman:)” 

San Diego Republicans blasted Gonzalez, a San Diego Democrat, for choosing her boyfriend, which she defended on Facebook by highlighting Fletcher’s work with veterans, by denouncing the attacks as partisan and by blaming the media. She pointed out that others, including Republicans, had done the same.

“It is well known that Nathan and I are in a committed relationship, but there is a long line of assemblymembers who have picked husbands, wives, fathers, mothers and other relatives for recognition,” Gonzalez wrote. “Never once has it been questioned.”

Not who it is but how it looks

But the question isn’t so much whether Fletcher or any of the others are deserving of the awards, it’s a question of what message these actions send to the public, which is already weary from the perception of widespread double standards and cronyism. 

“These examples reflect poorly on the Legislature,” said David Wolfe, legislative director for the right-leaning Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association. “We need to ask if the awards program as a whole is in the best interest of California taxpayers.”

“If the Legislature truly desires to honor [taxpayers] it should rededicate the hours that they currently spend on pomp and circumstance shows like these and instead focus on fixing real problems, like our state’s $500 billion unfunded pension liability,” Wolfe said.

Lax leadership?

So far, the three incidents are isolated to Assembly Democrats and it’s unclear if Speaker Anthony Rendon, D-Lakewood — who waited more than two months to take action against a committee chairman accused of domestic violence and under a temporary and then three-year restraining order — will ask fellow legislators to abstain from taking actions that give the appearance of cronyism.

Rendon did not respond to requests for comment.

CalWatchdog has paid close attention to Nathan Fletcher over the past year, detailing the former union-trashing Republican assemblyman’s odyssey across the ideological spectrum.

When the local GOP wouldn’t endorse him over libertarian crusader Carl DeMaio in the 2012 San Diego mayor’s race, Fletcher declared the party unworthy of him and became an independent. He finished third in the June 2012 vote with 24.0 percent of the vote.

But then in May 2013, he shifted once again, declaring himself to be a Democrat. That 14 months beforehand he’d been a union-basher and now was a union-lover? Details, details. Incredibly, Fletcher asserted his core values never changed as he lurched from right to left.

On Wednesday, Fletcher conceded in the San Diego mayoral special election to replace resigned deviant Bob Filner, beaten by Republican Councilman Kevin Faulconer (44 percent of the vote) and Democratic Councilman David Alvarez (26 percent) — even though Alvarez was a virtual unknown until a month ago with just three years experience in politics.

Now? Fletcher has decided it’s time to move on. This account is from the U-T San Diego. Before his press conference, aides announced grandly that he was “leaving public life.” In fact, he gave himself plenty of wiggle room to return.

And he got 24.3 percent in this run for office. If he keeps picking up 0.3 percent in support each year, he might make a runoff by 2018, and in 2099, he could finally crack 50 percent support.

Faulconer the clear favorite to be next San Diego mayor

The runoff between Faulconer and Alvarez will be at some point in February.

Faulconer, 46, was president of the San Diego State student body before going into corporate PR. He’s been on the City Council since 2005 and has become an increasingly effective leader, especially since coming out from behind DeMaio’s imposing shadow over the past year. He helped negotiate Filner’s exit in August.

Helping him greatly is his affable manner and moderate image. He should be able to build on the 47 percent of the electorate that the hard-charging, occasionally abrasive DeMaio won in November 2012.

Alvarez, meanwhile, won’t benefit from President Obama’s coattails the way Filner did in 2012. Turnout was far higher than normal in many city districts for the presidential election as young and minority voters turned out to back Obama and his fellow Democrats. That won’t happen in February’s special election.

Given that Democrats have an edge of 91,000 over Republicans in voter registration, Alvarez could still win — even though he is 33 and has a very thin resume to be mayor of a big city. But Faulconer dominated among independent voters in Tuesday’s election. If he does well with them again, he should give California Republicans one of their biggest wins in some time.

The conventional wisdom has always been that it would be Republican Councilman Kevin Faulconer versus the versatile Nathan Fletcher, a Republican assemblyman turned independent assemblyman turned Qualcomm executive Democrat, in the runoff made necessary because no candidate in the multicandidate race would earn a majority of the first-round vote.

Democratic Councilman David Alvarez was seen as too inexperienced and too uninspiring to beat Fletcher for second place, even though Fletcher has been a Democrat for all of six months. Why? Fletcher is handsome (undisputed), charismatic (somewhat disputed) and a gigantic political talent (spare me), according to his admirers.

The latest poll suggests the conventional wisdom may be on the ropes — at least if ethnic solidarity comes to the fore in voting:

“San Diego’s Latino voters may play a key role in determining whether David Alvarez or Nathan Fletcher advance to a runoff election against the almost certain winner of Tuesday’s special election, Kevin Faulconer, according to SurveyUSA research conducted for KGTV-TV 10 News and the Union Tribune newspaper. Either Fletcher, who today is at 24%, or Alvarez, who today is at 22%, could be the candidate to face Faulconer, who today is at 40%, short of the 50% needed to avoid a runoff.

“Compared to an identical SurveyUSA poll conducted 2 weeks ago, Fletcher is down, Alvarez is up, and Faulconer is flat. In the battle for 2nd place, Fletcher had led Alvarez by 11 points 2 weeks ago; today Fletcher leads Alvarez by 2.

“Latinos today divide this way: 34%, a plurality, vote for Alvarez. 31% vote for Faulconer. 27% vote for Fletcher. A larger than expected Latino turnout favors Alvarez. A smaller than anticipated Latino turnout favors Fletcher. Whites and Asians both favor Faulconer. Among white voters, Fletcher’s lead over Alvarez has gone from 15 points 2 weeks ago to 3 points today. Among the youngest voters, the contest is effectively a 3-way tie. Among the oldest (and most reliable) voters, Fletcher leads Alvarez by 10, but trails Faulconer by 23.”

The poll’s margin of error is 4.4 percent.

“SurveyUSA interviewed 700 city of San Diego adults 11/11/13 through 11/14/13. Of the adults, 577 are registered to vote. Of the registered, 510 were determined by SurveyUSA to be likely to vote before Tuesday’s 11/19/13 deadline. This research was conducted using blended sample, mixed mode. Respondents reachable on home telephone (86% of likely voters were interviewed on their home telephone in the recorded voice of a professional announcer. Respondents not reachable on a home telephone (14%) of likely voters, were shown a questionnaire on their smartphone, tablet or other electronic.)”

I have never trusted polls of less than 900 people. But stat experts I’ve talked to say I’m a dope. Nevertheless, I still don’t trust polls of less than 900 people. We’ll see what happens Tuesday.

The bad news for Fletcher: He is no longer ahead.

“Councilman Kevin Faulconer has surged past Qualcomm executive Nathan Fletcher in the special election to replace Bob Filner as the city’s next mayor, opening up a double-digit lead, according to a new U-T San Diego/10News poll.

“Faulconer now leads with 41 percent compared to Fletcher’s 28 percent. City Councilman David Alvarez is stuck at 17 percent, while former City Attorney Mike Aguirre is a distant fourth with seven percent.”

The good news for Fletcher: Alvarez, a Democrat with labor support and an appealing story, in theory should be a strong candidate. But he isn’t catching fire. Since there will be a runoff unless one candidate gets 50 percent plus one of the vote on Nov. 19, this is good news for Fletcher. If he makes the runoff in the election to replace disgraced Bob Filner, he’s the favorite, given Democrats’ voter-registration advantage in San Diego.

“Alvarez, who is in his first term on the council, lost a little ground from the last poll, despite having the endorsement of the county Democratic Party and massive spending on his behalf by the San Diego and Imperial Counties Labor Council. He registered 20 percent support last month and 17 percent in a poll in September. …

“Alvarez also is struggling to attract Latinos, according to the poll, which found that 34 percent of those respondents were backing Faulconer compared to 27 percent for both Alvarez and Fletcher. That’s down from 32 percent for Alvarez from the Oct. 13 poll.”

Among the San Diego smart set, the consensus has long been that Fletcher was likely to end up mayor. But maybe, just maybe, voters care more about serial political shape-shifting than political insiders — especially when it is accompanied by bizarre gaffes by the shape-shifter about his own family.

If you’re a candidate whose authenticity is open to question because of extreme, always self-serving shifts in your views, you really, really, really don’t want to be caught in an, er, obvious fib. So one would think that union-bashing Republican turned noble, above-the-fray independent turned tax-and-fee-hiking union Democrat Nathan Fletcher would be careful about factual claims about the past in his quest to be elected mayor of San Diego in the Nov. 19 special election made necessary by Bob Filner’s resignation.

One would be wrong. San Diego political circles were mildly abuzz earlier this week when it was noticed that Fletcher sometimes claimed to be the first member of his family to graduate from college while at other times claimed to be the first member of his family to go to college.

But both claims were, er, obvious fibs. One San Diego Twitterite pointed out that Fletcher’s grandfather, a former Las Vegas city manager, was a  UC Berkeley graduate; others noted his mom appeared to have attended California Baptist College; I also got in on the Twitter fun by noting that his mom’s mom was a trained nurse who almost certainly took college-level classes of some type.

First in family — if you don’t count mom, dad, grandma, grandad

Finally, Fletcher has set the record straight — at least he did if his account to a U-T San Diego reporter can be trusted.

” … Fletcher’s mother briefly attended the same college he did — California Baptist University in Riverside. Also, Fletcher’s father went to the University of Oregon for four years and his grandfather graduated from the University of California Berkeley in 1937.

“Fletcher had used the statement about being the first in the family to go to college to establish his working-class credentials, often when talking about his jobs as a janitor and forklift operator. He’s now an executive at Fortune 500 company Qualcomm. … 

“Fletcher issued a statement Tuesday night, saying, ‘Growing up, I was a good student, and my mom always talked about how proud she would be for me to be the first in our family to go to college. As I’ve now learned, she did in fact attend college for one semester. If you asked my mom, she’d tell you I was the first to go to college.’”

It depends on what the meaning of ‘family’ is

Fletcher said his biological father didn’t count because he didn’t know him. Left unexplained was why his grandfather, the one-time Las Vegas city manager, didn’t count.

All this brings to mind two men who held the job Fletcher thinks he ultimately deserves: U.S. president.

Bill Clinton famously said when asked indirectly if he had perjured himself that it depends on “what the meaning of ‘is’ is.” Fletcher seems to have his own meaning for “family.”

Then there’s Richard Nixon. 2013 is the 40th anniversary of one of the most famous attempts at spinning dishonesty in modern U.S. politics: White House press secretary Ron Ziegler’s infamous declaration about the unfolding Wategate scandal that his most recent statement outlining Nixon’s and the White House’s knowledge of the scandal “is the operative statement. The others are inoperative.”

Nathan Fletcher would normally like to be in same conversation as two U.S. presidents. But maybe not in this circumstance.

In the first debate involving the three leading candidates in the San Diego mayoral special election to replace Hall of Fame perv Bob Filner, Fletcher struck a novel pose on the subject of his political shape-shifting: If you bring it up, you’re a bad person who wants to hurt San Diego’s image. I’m not making this up.

This is from the U-T San Diego story on the debate:

“Former Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher challenged his rivals in the San Diego mayor’s race on Friday to run clean campaigns free of attack ads and focused on civic issues in the first major debate that included all three of the top contenders.

“The challenge came in the middle of a discussion on how to improve the city’s emergency-response times at the ‘Spirit of the Barrio’ debate which focused heavily on neighborhood issues. City Council members David Alvarez and Kevin Faulconer didn’t respond directly to Fletcher’s pledge although Alvarez, who spoke next, quipped that he would use his time to actually answer the debate question.

“Fletcher’s political evolution from Republican to independent to Democrat since March of last year has drawn heavy criticism and skepticism from the left and the right. He’ll likely face an onslaught of negative advertising ahead of the Nov. 19 special election for that along with changing his position on key issues.”

Why no attack ads? Speciousness doesn’t get more extreme

But here’s where things take a hilarious turn. Fletcher contends his proposal isn’t to protect him from attack ads. Instead, it is prompted by his noble motives. I’m not making this up.

“Now a Qualcomm executive, Fletcher said he was making the clean-campaign pledge because of the negativity caused by former Mayor Bob Filner’s sexual harassment scandal and speculation that the race to replace Filner would likely get ugly.”

I got to know Fletcher a bit more than some elected officials in recent years because of the Chelsea King tragedy and his subsequent effort to win a law that reformed some California laws in mostly smart ways. Unlike Jon Fleischman, I’m not a Republican who feels personally betrayed by Fletcher’s “growth” and his lurch across the political spectrum. I still think he’s an able guy who may get a lot done in his lifetime. But the problem is that over the past year and a half, he’s been drinking the Kool-Aid about his personal greatness.

For Fletcher to seriously argue at the first debate that attack ads are bad form — but not because he’s most vulnerable to such ads but because he’s nobler than the rest of us — well, wow. That is a legitimate Oh-My-God-You-Cannot-Be-Saying-That-With-A-Straight-Face moment.

I know it doesn’t embarrass Fletcher. The Kool-Aid has him believing that any decision he makes is correct, because he’s Nathan Fletcher, and he’s just not wrong.

But if I were a Fletcher supporter, and I heard him make an argument that insanely specious and self-serving, I would wince.

Unless, of course, I too had partaken of the Kool-Aid.

In that vote, Republican-endorsed City Councilman Carl DeMaio narrowly edged Democrat-endorsed congressman Filner, while then-independent assemblyman Fletcher finished a fairly close but not that close third. So it was DeMaio vs. Filner in the November runoff, which Filner narrowly won, helped by coattails from President Obama’s spectacularly successful voter-microtargeting campaign.

Here are the June 2012 results:

Faulconer doesn’t have DeMaio’s downsides

In a special election, even more so than in a primary election, voters are usually partisan die-hards. So if Fletcher couldn’t finish in the top two in a primary election with two credible Republicans (DeMaio and DA Bonnie Dumanies) and one credible Democratic opponent (Filner), how likely is the newly minted Democrat to make the runoff in a special election against one credible Republican (City Councilman Kevin Faulconer) and two credible Democrats (Alvarez and former City Attorney Mike Aguirre)?

There will be those who say Fletcher, a polished, handsome war veteran with wealthy backers, is a much stronger candidate than the low-key Faulconer or Alvarez, a 33-year-old who has had an unremarkable stint on the City Council.

But Faulconer has far fewer hard edges than DeMaio. And while this shouldn’t matter, it probably does: Unlike DeMaio, Faulconer isn’t gay. He’s a poster-child hetero family man.

And Alvarez has not just pretty strong union support but this ethnic-pride element going for him: He has a solid chance to be heavily Latino San Diego’s first Latino mayor.

Will that doom Fletcher? Perhaps. Maybe political science and karma will be on the same page, for once.

I wrote about the Fletcher freak show in an editorial for the U-T San Diego that made several key points.

No. 1: This is not a normal U.S. politician party switch

“There are examples of politicians who switched parties and made a credible case that it wasn’t about expedience but about larger circumstances that changed. Many conservative Democrats in Southern states joined the Republican Party in the Reagan years, such as former Texas Sen. Phil Gramm. More recently, socially liberal Republicans in the Northeast have shifted to the Democratic Party, such as Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee.

“Fletcher’s political evolution, however, is one of a kind. He went from being a traditional Republican with a near-reflexive opposition to organized labor and a slight maverick streak, to being a righteous independent who looked down on both parties, to a union Democrat — all in little more than a year.”

No. 2: It's not just party flip; he used to disdain both parties

“In a video posted on YouTube on March 28, 2012, Fletcher said that in a 'decision I’ve been struggling with for sometime,' he’d become a political independent. 'In my heart, it’s what I believe is right … . I’m leaving behind partisan politics (and a) system that is completely dysfunctional.'

“In a March 29, 2012, interview with the U-T San Diego Editorial Board, Fletcher depicted both political parties as deeply flawed. 'I didn’t [become a Democrat] because I think there’s an unwillingness on that side as well to step out and solve problems whether we’re talking about pensions or managed competition or some of these other types of issues,' he said. In shifting from Republican to independent, Fletcher said, 'My positions haven’t changed. My beliefs haven’t changed. My core values haven’t changed.'

“Fourteen months later, Fletcher wrote on Facebook about his realization that his values had changed — in ways that made him comfortable in the Democratic Party. Fourteen months after bragging to Republicans about his hostility to labor unions, he realized his values were those of the party that in California is defined and dominated by unions.”

No. 3: Fletcher still — STILL! — thinks he has moral high ground

” … as strange as this saga is, it gets even stranger: Fletcher and his backers argue that he’s not the cynic — it’s the critics who see a hunt for political advantage in his shape-shifting. Fletcher’s supporters contend it’s 'unfair' to point out that he says things now that are diametrically opposed to things he said 18 months ago.

“But it’s completely fair to note the oddity of what Fletcher calls his 'journey.' To note the gap between his old words and his new words. And to note the slick huckster vanity of his claim to always hold the moral high ground — whether he’s a pro-business Republican, an above-it-all independent or a union Democrat.

“After what San Diegans went through with their last mayor, we hope they are skeptical about all the candidates. But that is especially so about Nathan Fletcher, a politician with the gall to sell spasms of expedience as principled personal growth.”

In the 19th century, academics touted the “Great Man” theory of history, in which one leader of such stature and charisma came along that he lifted a whole nation to a much better place. Given that Fletcher has followers who have stood by him when he was a 90 percent conventional Republican, a pious nonpartisan and a 90 percent conventional Democrat, maybe the “Great Man” theory is having a San Diego revival, just with a guy who hasn't shown greatness.

Or maybe it's just a cult of personality thing. But it's going to be interesting to see if Nathan Fletcher can pull off what he's trying to pull off. And it's going to be depressing if he does.

Then there’s Nathan Fletcher.

The former San Diego assemblyman went from being a GOP true-believer candidate for mayor in early March 2012 to an independent disdainful of both parties in late March 2012 to a Democrat who sang his new party’s praises in May of this year.

He was a devout GOPer when he was trying to win the party’s nomination for mayor. When the nomination went to Carl DeMaio, he became a devout both-parties-stink guy championed by The New York Times’ David Brooks. When that ploy failed and he finished a distant third in the June mayoral primary, Fletcher realized he couldn’t win as an independent and he couldn’t go back to the GOP. That left him pretty much no choice but to become a Democrat. The rapidity with which his political views changed simply make it impossible, a la Gramm or Chaffee, to see his shift as a principled evolution or as a reflection of the reality that national parties change as time goes by.

The politics of convenience may pay off grandly for this chameleon

Instead, Fletcher’s “evolution” seemed the epitome of the politics of convenience. (Or, to use a mid-20th-century reference, Fletcher seems like an affable political version of Sammy Glick.)

But incredibly enough, it seems to be working. As Democrats watch scandal-scarred San Diego Mayor Bob Filner flail away, many are beginning to think about who to back in a special election or a recall election.

There are obvious candidates — City Council President Todd Gloria; former state Sen. Christine Kehoe; former Assemblywoman Lori Saldana — who have long personal ties to Lorena Gonzalez, the local union kingpin who recently became an Assembly member. But by several accounts, Gonzalez is pushing hard for Fletcher.

As powerful as Gonzalez may be, however, it is hard to see Fletcher — a professed Ronald Reagan lover until 16 months ago — getting much institutional Democratic support.

So what would he need to overcome this antipathy? Money.

A Clinton ‘bundler’ — and Fletcher fan — in La Jolla

Which might be no problem for Nathan the Chameleon. This is from the San Diego Reader.

“Christine Forester, listed by Newsweek magazine as the nation’s second biggest “bundler” of contributions to the 2008 campaign of President Barack Obama, having collected more than $500,000 from a variety of friends and associates in that year alone, is spearheading a behind-the-scenes effort to draft newly minted Democrat and ex-GOP Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher for mayor if incumbent Bob Filner falters in his effort to remain in office.”

This is getting interesting. Especially since DeMaio’s emails the past few days sure seem like hints that he is considering another run for mayor instead of his expected  2014 House race against weak first-termer Scott Peters, D-San Diego.

Could we see DeMaio vs. Fletcher again? So soon?

Maybe.

But maybe we’ll also see more expedient party switching. Nathan Fletcher hopped around in a way that made Arlen Specter’s political rebranding seem saintly and tarnish-free — and apparently without consequence!

By Chris Reed

For years, Cal Watchdog founder and now regular CWD contributor Steven Greenhut has depicted media favorite Nathan Fletcher, a one-time Republican assemblyman from San Diego, as a phony and a turncoat waiting to happen.

Boy, was Steve right. Over the weekend, the guy who was Karl Rove’s buddy 14 months ago and a fierce independent 13 months ago suddenly announced that, hey, he’d had an epiphany and figured out he was a strong Democrat. Here’s how Tuesday’s U-T San Diego editorial dealt with this ridiculously expedient posturing:

‘Who is Nathan Fletcher? Who knows?’