San Diego City Councilman Todd Gloria will ask the City Council and state lawmakers to look into making it harder to put referendums on the ballot after legislation he supported, including raising the minimum wage, were derailed.

Since December 2013, business groups have gathered enough signatures to block three City Council decisions: an update to Barrio Logan’s community plan, an affordable housing linkage fee and an increase to the city’s minimum wage.

Voters overturned the Barrio Logan community plan update, and the City Council rescinded its decision on raising the linkage fee, a construction fee that goes toward paying for affordable housing. The minimum wage increase will go before voters in 2016.

Gloria said there was “documented deceit” by the paid signature gatherers who worked to qualify some of the referendums, and he wants to make the process more transparent.

“I think that every San Diegan has real questions about whether the referendary tool is really a tool of the people any longer, or is it really just a high-priced tool that’s reserved for folks who can afford lobbyists, consultants and others to really affect a political outcome that they could not get through the normal public process,” he said.

That’s from a KPBS account from last month.

Direct democracy abuses: Ours are OK, not theirs

Gloria identifies a real problem. But this is a classic example of how hardball politics only offend a politician when his side is on the losing end. The most notable national example is the Senate filibuster rule requiring a supermajority of 60 votes to advance broad categories of legislation. When one party has 51 to 59 seats, it views the other party’s use of the filibuster as un-American and undemocratic. But when the same party is in the Senate minority, the filibuster is depicted as a wise way to slow down hasty and impulsive lawmakers and to encourage bipartisanship.

The San Diego Democrats who worry about the sanctity of direct democracy because of the deceptiveness of paid signature-gatherers have had little or nothing to say about the increasingly common practice of unions encouraging fake signatures to make it more likely that initiative petitions are invalidated when election officials’ samples of petitions show irregularities.

Here’s part of an overview of this phenomenon that I wrote for Cal Watchdog in November 2012:

For decades, signature-gathering to win placement of measures on the local or state ballot in California has followed a basic script. Once proponents gathered some 30 percent more signatures than the minimum threshold necessary, they shut down operations, confident that their measure would easily make the ballot.

But in the past three years, this script has been rewritten, at least when it comes to measures that threaten the interests of public employee unions or that target their supporters. …

In November 2009, an attempt to recall Assemblyman Anthony Adams, R-Claremont, never made the ballot even though proponents turned in 58,384 signatures –- 63 percent more than the 35,825 necessary to force a vote on whether Adams should be ousted. A random sample of 1,839 ballots had shown only 42 percent were valid.

Adams was a darling of unions for providing a decisive vote in the Legislature in February 2009 for $12.8 billion in higher income, sales and vehicle taxes, breaking past promises to his constituents. …

In July 2010, a proposed initiative to force the outsourcing of more government services by the San Diego city government faced a similarly mysterious demise. [Advocates] turned in 134,441 signatures -– 39 percent more than the 96,834 needed. But a random sample of 3 percent of signatures showed so many duplicate signatures and ineligible signers that officials estimated only 74,732 were valid.

In July 2011, a proposed initiative that would have changed the makeup of the San Diego Unified school board and likely weakened the local teachers union’s control of the board also failed. San Diegans 4 Great Schools turned in 129,283 signatures –- 39 percent more than the 93,085 needed. But a full hand count found that just 90,027 were valid –- with a stunning 11.4 percent of the signatures being duplicates.

A leader of San Diegans 4 Great Schools expressed bafflement at this “aberration.” But in San Diego political circles, it was accepted as a given that local union members had monkey-wrenched both the 2010 and 2011 initiatives.

This remains true. In San Diego, backers of ballot measures with any anti-union overtones have changed how they gather signatures, spending much more money and time to prevent this form of election fraud. Deceptive signature-gatherers are not the only problem with direct democracy in California’s second-largest city

But in 2012, when 20-year paleoliberal congressman Bob Filner was elected mayor along with a Democratic council majority, things changed drastically in America’s eighth-largest city.

Normally, that sentence would be followed with a reference to an all-but-unprecedented law extending rights/government protections/transfer payments to a downtrodden group.

In Filner’s case, it was Huey Long time.

A populist progressive takes the helm

He told powerful companies seeking routine city permit and planning approvals that “you don’t get free things,” demanding costly favors for his administration. Starting with championing marijuana clinics and micromanaging planning decisions, Filner appeared ready to roll out a long checklist of liberal initiatives that would win the attention of the national media and the admiration of the Daily Kos left.

Instead, Filner’s obnoxious-from-the-start behavior bothered everyone at City Hall and limited how much he could force through. Then his criminal sexual behavior led to his forced resignation in September 2013.

In February 2014, polished veteran GOP Councilman Kevin Faulconer beat little-known Democratic Councilman David Alvarez 53%-47% in a very low turnout election deciding who served the remaining 34 months of Filner’s term. Despite his inexperience and shaky hold on the Democratic base, Alvarez would have won easily in an election with the usual demographics.

That led me to write the following for CalWatchdog:

San Diego’s politics are undergoing what might be called a “Los Angelization.”

The city’s school board was taken over by the local affiliate of the California Teachers Association in 2008, when union muscle elected a new board majority that instituted policies that drove away an acclaimed reformer superintendent and yielded an operating budget in which an astonishing 92 percent of funds goes to employee compensation. The CTA control of the school board only increased with the 2010 and 2012 elections.

Now the same thing is happening with the City Council. Union-favored Democratic candidates — such as Alvarez — are increasingly likely to beat Democrats with independent streaks. As recently as 2011, there were Democrats on the council who occasionally would take on unions — politicians with backgrounds in engineering and small business, as well as party members who appeared eager to hear out business interests’ concerns.

But now the union muscle-flexing not only has Alvarez near an improbable mayoral victory, it has prompted hard-left decisions by the City Council in the months since Filner quit — decisions supported by formerly semi-independent Democrats who see the writing on the wall.

Last fall, on a party-line 5-4 vote, City Council Democrats approved increasing fees on commercial development by at least 377 percent to provide more funds for affordable-housing programs — even though the programs have a horrible record of actually getting people in homes.

And on another party-line 5-4 vote, council Democrats approved a restrictive new master plan for a job-rich shipyard industrial area adjacent to the Barrio Logan neighborhood in Alvarez’s district. They did so despite dire warnings from many CEOs and business owners that it would give leverage to environmentalists and community activists to shut them down.

California and America, meet Sherri Lightner

But instead of San Diego continuing its inexorable metamophisis into Santa Monica south, something unexpected happened.

A Democratic councilwoman who’s an unpredictable, inscrutable engineer — how’s that for a unique category? — threw city politics for a loop. On Wednesday, Sherri Lightner of La Jolla ousted San Diego City Council President Todd Gloria — widely considered a rising star — with the help of the City Council’s four Republicans.

So a California city that is basically about 8 in a 1-10 scale of conservatism vs. liberalism has a Republican mayor, a Republican city attorney and a Republican-anointed City Council president.

Normally, the assumption would be that the Democrat who defected wanted to be a triangulator like 1996 Bill Clinton. But no one knows what Lightner thinks — and the Republican pols who got her elected aren’t talking either.

Lightner is expected to make public remarks today explaining her actions and her agenda.

“DOWNTOWN SAN DIEGO — The city of San Diego’s minimum wage would increase to $13.09 an hour during the next three years under a proposal unveiled Wednesday by City Council President Todd Gloria.

“The proposed hikes, which would make San Diego’s minimum wage among the highest in the nation, would be part of a measure that Gloria and other supporters plan to place on the November ballot. …

“Gloria described Wednesday’s proposal, which was the first time he’s attached specific numbers to his campaign for a higher minimum wage, as a starting point for debate about the details of the possible ballot measure. …

“The proposal would put San Diego’s minimum wage significantly above what the state requires, which is $8 an hour but will rise to $9 on July 1 and $10 in 2016.”

Relocation costs worry businesses — but not payroll?!

I went to the news conference at San Diego City Hall where Gloria announced and took questions on his plan.

The council leader is much better-liked by Republicans, conservatives and libertarians than most San Diego Democrats. A big reason for this is that he abandoned the Dem-union push to nullify through obstruction a voter-endorsed 2006 initiative that calls for some city services to be subject to bidding that pits private companies and groups of government workers.

But the candor and pragmatism Gloria displayed in standing up to unions on that issue just wasn’t in evidence Wednesday. Here’s some of the editorial I wrote for U-T San Diego about his defense of his proposal:

“… the council leader was asked if much higher minimum wages were so good for the economy — as he contended — why didn’t businesses clamor for them? He responded by noting that many companies already pay more than $13.09 an hour. But that’s a decision they made — not one forced on them by local government.

“Gloria also said having much higher minimum wages was widely supported by the business community. That’s just not so. If his proposal is adopted, it ‘puts San Diego at a competitive and economic disadvantage,’ said Chamber of Commerce President Jerry Sanders.

“Gloria was asked if he worried about companies relocating to cities with lower minimum wages. But he said they wouldn’t because of relocation costs.

“So according to Gloria, businesses aren’t troubled by the prospect their payrolls may permanently get much bigger — but they are daunted by relocation costs. Really?”

How to help the CA middle-class: Revive redevelopment?!

Then Gloria really drove me around the bend with his economic rX for the Golden State:

“After saying there were economic policies he couldn’t influence because they were ‘above my pay grade,’ Gloria was asked what he thought Sacramento policymakers should do to create middle-class jobs.

“His response was strikingly government-centric: The council president didn’t say the state should try to change a business climate that U.S. CEOs have long called the most hostile in the nation. Instead, he said the state should revive redevelopment, in which public funds are used to attempt to revive blighted areas.”

With a handful of exceptions, some of them arguable, redevelopment was an ongoing fiasco in California for decades before Jerry Brown killed it. Doing so was the best decision Brown has made in his second turn as governor. Redevelopment sounds peachy keen, but in practice — both in California and around the U.S. — it has a lengthy history of allowing politically connected developers to use government eminent-domain powers to grab the land of existing, successful businesses without clout or fund-raising prowess.

So fear for the future, Californians. If this sort of policy prescription is the best we can hope for from one of the more reasonable members of the state’s dominant political party, we’re doomed.

Founded in 1985 by strategist Al From, the DLC thought the bad image of liberalism in the 1980s was well-earned. From’s goal was results-based government activism that understood incentives drove behavior.

Rule No. 1 was that throwing money at problems didn’t have a great history after a quarter-century of Great Society domestic liberalism. If this wasn’t working to solve a problem, try another approach.

Rule No. 2 was to accept the idea that government-centric efforts to address societal issues were not always best — that even Americans who weren’t Reaganites had a skepticism about what government could accomplish, and for good reason.

The DLC approach — touted by such folks as Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, Baltimore Mayor Kurt Schmoke, Massachusetts Sen. Paul Tsongas, Georgia Sen. Sam Nunn and the then-very-powerful New Republic magazine — eventually got a tryout when Clinton was elected president in 1992 after an amazing Democratic primary without a single serious liberal candidate.

Clinton had his hard-left moments. But after 1994, he “triangulated” against liberal lawmakers over and over again, including going along with sweeping GOP welfare reform in 1996. And Clinton never gets nearly enough credit from non-wonks for how he successfully tinkered with the Earned Income Tax Credit in a way that helped the working poor without disincentivizing work.

The DLC way never made it to California

But in California, the pragmatic DLC approach has no such substantive record. Its principles won lip service from Gov. Gray Davis briefly after his 1998 election when he fought for education reforms. But then Davis lost his spine and sold his soul with a series of concessions to public employee unions, and since then the DLC theories that results matter most and that throwing money at problems isn’t always smart have been abandoned by nearly all elected California Democrats.

If we have parsimonious budgets, it’s because state legislators don’t have money to spare; it’s not because they don’t still want to throw money at problems and ignore history.

This dynamic has played out in education, where Clintonian programs to force teachers to meet standards have gone nowhere.

It’s also evident on welfare reform. As Chuck Devore has chronicled, California never got around to implementing the sort of tough, mandatory welfare changes that in most of America proved to be the greatest anti-poverty program in U.S. history.

And as we’re seeing now in San Diego, the DLC approach on affordable housing — which would value results first and foremost — is considered bizarre and exotic.

Failed policy? Let’s pump it full of new funds

I dealt with the insanity of what the San Diego City Council’s Democratic majority is doing in an editorial Sunday on the six months that Council President Todd Gloria served as interim mayor:

“During his time as mayor, he provided the fifth vote on the City Council for a gigantic public policy mistake.

“That mistake was to sharply increase the ‘linkage’ fees on commercial and industrial development projects in the name of promoting affordable housing. If the program that council Democrats were funding had a history of working well, that’s one thing. But it doesn’t. It has a 24-year history of minimal results at high cost.

“Doubling-down on an approach that isn’t working is in keeping with the Golden State’s obtuse history on affordable housing. As the Public Policy Institute of California noted in 2003, local governments have a history of focusing on process — adopting programs that show their good intentions — instead of results.”

This is insane. In this “Moneyball” era — in which statistical analysis is able to readily quantify what works and what doesn’t work — the second-largest city in California and the eighth-largest city in America has embraced a failed policy in a way that will hurt the city’s economy in direct and obvious ways.

Is Ron Burgundy running City Hall? Stay stupid, San Diego.

Which brings us to the affordable-housing policies of the majority faction of the San Diego City Council.

I have lived in San Diego for more than eight years and believe that during that time, it has been a relatively well-run city in that it’s dealt with a fiscal crisis in a responsible manner; done a good job in keeping crime low; and avoided the ingrained hostility to business seen in so many coastal Califoria cities.

The most constructive politicians haven’t just been Republicans such as firebrand reformer Carl DeMaio and mainstream, businesslike former Mayor Jerry Sanders. They’ve also been City Council Democrats like former council leader Tony Young and Todd Gloria, presently the interim mayor.

That’s why I’m so stunned at the absolutely nutty approach Gloria and council Democrats are taking on the affordable housing front. The great majority of people who study economics with an empirical bent — including practical liberals like Slate economics writer Matt Yglesias — have concluded that the government command-and-control model of trying to dictate housing outcomes through regulations, impact fees and project conditions is an abject failure. Here is a sample of Yglesias’ thinking from last year after he had digested a report from the National Low Income Housing Coalition:

Here’s the book Yglesias wrote on the topic.

Sacramento housing policies failing ‘by any measure’

That’s how the Golden State’s housing policies look from the outside. Here’s how they look to Sacramento lawyer and community activist Craig Powell:

“A discussion of what the city should do to increase the availability of affordable housing all too often turns into an argument between builders and low-income housing advocates. It’s the kind of discussion that opens up a gulf of ideologies and yields little common ground. But there is common ground on one point: The city’s existing low-income housing policies are, by any measure, failing.

“Look to North Natomas. It is one of several designated ‘growth areas’ where the city requires builders to set aside 15 percent of all new houses and apartments for low-income residents under the city’s inclusionary housing ordinance (also known as the mixed-income housing ordinance). The ordinance’s goals were idealistic: 15 percent of all new houses and 15 percent of all new apartments in North Natomas would be built for the subsidized poor who would live happily side by side with their unsubsidized neighbors, who would pay the full market rate for their houses and apartments.

“The reality turned out to be dramatically different. It turns out that it’s exceedingly difficult to make subsidized low-income single-family homes work in the real world. It’s hard for such folks to get financing, even at subsidized home prices. It’s very expensive for builders who must incur the same cost to build a subsidized house as one they sell at market prices. Once a subsidized home is bought by an eligible buyer, it turns out they can’t sell it in the future for a profit: They have to turn any profit over to the government and the home must be sold to another qualifying low-income buyer. Such a limitation on resale lasts for 45 or 50 years. How would you like to buy a home, take on all the risks of a mortgage, but never be able to benefit from the appreciation of your property?

“So North Natomas builders of large subdivisions, being rational actors, decide to meet their 15 percent low-income housing mandates by building less expensive low-income units in apartment houses with 200 units or more, where 80 percent to 100 percent of the residents would end up being low-income tenants—exactly the sort of environment that created no end of social pathologies in large-scale public-housing projects in cities built throughout the country over the past 60-plus years. … the city’s inclusionary housing ordinance has, in practice, led to precisely the sort of housing that everyone acknowledges is a major mistake.”

$31 million project yields 96 beds!

None of this history has sunk in with Todd Gloria and San Diego City Council Democrats Marti Emerald, David Alvarez (the Dem mayoral candidate in Tuesday’s special election), Sherri Lightner and Myrtle Cole. They want to sock commercial developers with a huge fee increase to provide more funding for traditional government command-and-control housing-creation polices. They say that the fee now up for a raise was cut in half in 1996, and that’s a prime reason housing is so expensive.

Oh, come on! Even if the fee is increased by the massive amount council Democrats want, it will only provide about 100 homes a year — in a city with tens of thousands of families on a waiting list for affordable housing.

Then there’s this: the insane way the city of San Diego has used the money it did have for affordable housing, most notably $31 million on 96 beds. I repeat, $31 million for 96 beds.

“The new permanent homeless shelter downtown, former World Trade Center, is costing more than $450,000 per room, according to news reports. 

“Demanding brand-new affordable housing in redevelopment areas costing more than $337,000 per unit is akin to demanding Mercedes-Benz to sell 20 percent of its new cars to people who can’t afford them.”

That’s from an essay written by former San Diego Councilman Fred Schnaubelt, an expert on land-use issues who once was invited to testify before a presidential housing commission. Schnaubelt makes more sense on this issue than anyone in San Diego — and he’s not just a critic. He offers what for California is out-of-the-box thinking:

“In 2010, 18,228 ‘used’ or previously occupied apartments sold countywide at a median price of $110,664. Just one of many reasons so many Americans think the government is on the wrong track. What’s wrong with a used car or used house for people with limited education, limited work experience and limited income? It is a question needing an answer.

“In 30 years, not a single person has been able to explain why poor people, many without a high school diploma and who self-report to the census they can’t speak English, are entitled to enjoy the most expensive consumer product in society — a brand-new home or apartment. Or why housing for the poor should cost more than triple the housing occupied by most self-supporting renters.

“According to a University of Michigan study, ‘New Homes and Poor People,’ the construction of 1,000 new dwelling units, both homes and apartments, makes it possible for 3,545 households to move to better accommodations. Of the 3,545 moves surveyed, 1,290 were by low- and moderate-income families. This is the essence of upward mobility. Anyone who didn’t move to a brand-new house when they left their parents’ home or graduated from college knows how the housing market works. Used housing is ‘affordable housing.’”

Unfortunately, Schnaubelt hasn’t been on the San Diego City Council since 1981, and his smarts have no influence on San Diego’s present loony policy, namely (my words) the following:

“Let’s throw millions of dollars at a problem with an approach that has a history of meager results. And let’s raise the money to throw at the problem by socking it to commercial developers with a huge fee increase at a time when competition for their projects is intense.”

No wonder business interests are trying to get the fee hike overturned at the ballot box.

The boilerplate paragraph that’s never found

But what’s also unfortunate is how rare it is to see basic context in any story about government command-and-control housing policies.

I have whined for 25 years that any stories on Cuba that are more than 500 words should have a paragraph like this:

“Although Cuba is a socialist state associated with progressive values, in a key way it resembles pre-1995 South Africa. Black and part-black Cubans make up more than 60 percent of the population but are rarely found in key positions, which are held almost entirely by Cubans of Spanish descent.”

The Economist agrees with me about Cuba’s ruling “white gerontacracy.”

I have whined for nearly as long that stories on affordable housing in California that are more than 500 words should have content like this:

“Affordable-housing programs in California that use fees from developers and project conditions have a weak track record of actually decreasing rents and home prices.”

 Sure, that content could be made even more thorough:

“Affordable-housing programs in California that use fees from developers and project conditions have a weak track record of actually decreasing rents and home prices. But advocates for the poor say alternatives have not been offered by Republicans and contend many conservatives simply don’t care about making housing affordable for the less affluent and the underprivileged.”

If that second part were included, that would be fine by me — because at the very least, we’d have every story of more than 500 words making the point that existing policies aren’t working. Then maybe it would dawn on politicians in San Diego and elsewhere that failed public policies shouldn’t be continued ad infinitum.

Dumb de dumb dumb.

By Chris Reed

San Diego Mayor Bob Filner’s attempt to fight off the push to force him to quit because of alleged sexual harassment went well Thursday, when former allies trashed him at a press conference without offering specific accusations. This led Filner to release a video statement Thursday afternoon admitting he “needs help” and was in therapy meant to get him to treat women better.

That seemed to stall the Filner-must-go crowd briefly. But as Friday wore on, it gained steam. San Diego County’s most powerful Democrat, Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, demanded that Filner quit. So did City Council President Todd Gloria, a fellow Democrat who did so even though he could be accused of being self-serving, since he would inherit most of the mayor’s powers if Filner resigned.

And then Filner’s chief of staff quit.

What I’m hearing is that the allegations that Filner’s critics won’t spell out publicly are just awful. Anyone who backs Filner with the argument that he’s just a 70-year-old from a different generation who didn’t understand that sexual banter was OK will look like an ass when we hear what actually allegedly happened.

This may be what led Politico on Friday afternoon to say Filner was accused not of sexual harassment but “sexual assault.” That is not a minor distinction. Politico later issued a correction, but was it out of caution over people not going on the record or because it genuinely believed it was getting bad information?

We shall see.

Never has a pol deserved such a demise more than Bob Filner.

By Chris Reed

SAN DIEGO — To the surprise of no one who has dealt with him, first-year Mayor Bob Filner’s days in office could be numbered because of his personal recklessness. After two decades as a near-anonymous back-bencher in the U.S. House of Representatives, Filner’s bullying, obnoxious ways have backfired repeatedly in a job in which he has both vast executive power and a level of scrutiny that he never had in Washington, D.C.

Today, former San Diego Councilwoman Donna Frye — arguably city Democrats’ single favorite politician — and muckraking environmental attorney Marco Gonzalez — brother of Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, the most powerful force in San Diego labor — will hold a 10 a.m. press conference to discuss as-yet-undetailed allegations of sexual harassment against Filner that are so troubling that Frye has declared he must immediately resign. (Here’s her letter.) Another prominent attorney, Cory Briggs, will also join Frye and Gonzalez in calling for Filner to quit.

The former longtime congressman was already facing an FBI investigation because of what Filner all-but-acknowledged was a pay-for-play arrangement in which a city permit was only granted after the developer gave him $100,000 for two of his pet causes — in direct contradiction of Supreme Court rulings, including one just released last month.

But Filner can spin that away as his standing up to rich developers — especially the “downtown interests” whom Democrats routinely depict as the city’s shadow rulers. His decision to launch an ugly feud with City Attorney Jan Goldsmith, a Republican, also is easy to frame with the narrative of him standing up to “downtown.”

Bully Republicans — but not rank-and-file union workers

However, Filner’s habit of browbeating and berating anyone who somehow displeases him isn’t limited to political rivals, reporters and developers. Stories about his obnoxious behavior at City Hall began the week he took office, usually involving him mercilessly dissecting an aide in front of others — but also strange stories, such as the mayor walking through offices and screaming at people whose facial expressions he found unacceptable.

Ten staffers who had regular contact with Filner have already quit. He’s gone weeks without a press secretary, apparently unable to find someone willing to take the job.

That Filner’s behavior extends to alleged demeaning interactions with women is no surprise. His much-younger fiancee announced their relationship was over on Monday because of its “devolvement” after weeks of rumors about the mayor and other women. Many women in the political world swap stories of Filner’s offensive habits, such as his refusal to end a handshake because he is using his forced proximity to deliver a dressing-down.

It appears that when this abusive treatment extended to union members — or at least to enough union members —  some Democrats felt they could no longer take it.

“What we would not accept for our enemies, we cannot condone of our friends,” is how Gonzalez put it.

Democrats have great reason to want mayor gone

But is there also a political long game going on here? Maybe.

It has to have occurred to Frye, Gonzalez and Briggs that if Filner quits or is ousted, City Council President Todd Gloria would take over the duties of mayor, and set himself up as the strong favorite among Democrats in the special election that must be held within 90 days of a mayoral vacancy.

Gloria is a political natural — smart, funny and very likable. I met him in 2008 at a candidates’ forum. Afterwards, I accused the former congressional aide of being a ringer, he was so far superior to that year’s other City Council candidates. His polished public persona reminds me of the John Roberts who charmed many in his 2005 Senate confirmation hearing as chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Gloria is gay and of Native American, Filipino, Dutch and Puerto Rican ancestry. He is a progressive on social issues but is increasingly pragmatic about how San Diego functions and has been building ties with business groups. Initially skeptical, Gloria now supports a unique San Diego program in which private firms bid against groups of government employees for the right to provide city services. The “managed competition” process has already saved millions of dollars, and holds great promise to hold tens of millions of dollars more once city trash services go out to bid. That is something Filner has stalled.

It is not just Filner doubters but many Democratic insiders who have long expected him to implode. If these insiders knew there were bombshells to come, they surely thought the sooner the better — because who wants years more of horrible behavior from a Democratic mayor when they could have a fresh 35-year-old wunderkind replace Filner and bring immediate relief with his pleasant demeanor? That Gloria’s politics may as well have been concocted via supercomputer by Nate Silver to maximize his appeal to general election voters here doesn’t hurt either.

Will Rogers never met Bob Filner

So pay attention to San Diego and don’t necessarily buy surface narratives. Will Rogers never met Bob Filner. There are plenty of Democrats here who won’t think he’s worth fighting for — especially if the details to be revealed today are particularly repellent.

And especially if Filner’s Democratic successor would have a way better chance to hold the mayor’s seat in 2016 than the poster boy for anger mismanagement.

By Chris Reed

When CalWatchdog last weighed in on San Diego Mayor Bob Filner, it was to point out the hagiographic qualities of an often-fawning L.A. Times profile of the chronic bully and then to detail a subsequent scandal that showed the former 20-year Democratic congressman simply believed he was above the law — that, to paraphrase Richard Nixon, if a mayor wanted to do something, then it was therefore legal.

But the hair-trigger anger that has gotten Filner into trouble over and over again in his years in the public eye now threatens a core element of his personal/political narrative: his heroism as a Freedom Rider in the early 1960s South.

A civil-rights hero who vilifies black official

It seems the mayor doesn’t care for one of the highest-ranking African-Americans at San Diego City Hall: Andrew Jones, the number two man in the City Attorney’s Office. As detailed by Scott Lewis of the Voice of San Diego, Filner went out of his way to humiliate Jones — again — this week, part of his worst week in his six months as mayor. The U-T San Diego has the specifics:

“San Diego Mayor Bob Filner used his tax-funded bodyguard to remove the No. 2 official in the City Attorney’s Office from a closed meeting this week, a move which the City Council president witnessed and called ‘wrong’ and another council member described as ‘inexcusable behavior.’

“The mayor appeared to zero in on City Attorney Jan Goldsmith’s lieutenant, Andrew Jones, soon after Filner arrived late to the meeting, where several lawsuits the city is involved in were to be discussed.

“’What is Mr. Jones doing up here?’ Filner asked.”

Using police to block an African-American’s rightful civic participation

“Filner repeatedly cut off Jones in the meeting, accusing him of leaking confidential information from previous closed sessions, according to a transcript of the public portions of Tuesday’s closed meeting obtained using the California Public Records Act.

“Ultimately, Filner used his police detail to force Jones’ removal. ‘Mr. Sergeant, please remove this gentleman,’ Filner said.

“Jones said he has never leaked confidential information and was at the meeting to act as City Attorney Jan Goldsmith’s surrogate, assuring the city officials present were following the law. Goldsmith was not at the meeting.

“When Jones attempted to ask a question, according to the transcript, Filner said, ‘I will have you removed if you don’t sit down.’

“Jones replied, ‘You can try.’

“Filner then left the room and returned with police, the transcript indicates.

“’There’s no discussion, Mr. Jones,’ Filner said. ‘Will the sergeants please remove him? He’s disruptive of this meeting.’

“Jones left the meeting after being told to do so by a police officer. …

“’I was shocked. It was baffling to me,’ [Jones said]. ‘For him to remove me, wow, to treat me like that. If you read the transcripts, you can see I was just trying to get a question answered.'”

A mayor who won’t listen to anyone

The problem for my fellow San Diegans is that Filner is not a headstrong young pol who might see the light if he got a talking-to by a senior mentor. He’s a 70-year-old bully who has gotten away with his horrible behavior for years, one who thinks that he’s always right and so his ends justify his means.

So does he ever change? Nope. But we could soon see a series of “have you no shame?” moments where politicians of his own party, starting with San Diego City Council President Todd Gloria, call him out. Filner is that obnoxious.

By Chris Reed

SAN DIEGO — As I wrote for CalWatchdog just after last month’s election, there was a strong chance that successful reforms with a heavy libertarian flavor were going to be blocked going forward here in California’s second-largest city with the election of paleoliberal Bob Filner.

This weekend, Filner made it all but official, expressing skepticism about continuing with managed competition, a hybrid form of outsourcing in which units of existing government workers compete against private providers in bidding for the right to provide city services. This came with the city poised to make its biggest savings yet on bidding for trash collection, notoriously bloated when handled by a government.

The twist is that Filner is opposed by a fellow liberal, newly installed City Council President Todd Gloria, who likes the money that managed comp frees up for the city’s many other needs.

An additional twist is that government worker units, which are given a 10 percent bidding edge, have won all five of the competitions so far.

Here’s a comprehensive U-T San Diego story from Sunday laying out how managed comp works and the Filner-Gloria divide.

Here’s an editorial imploring Filner not to sabotage a government success story.

Here’s the other Filner angle that everyone is watching for. So far, he hasn’t come close to blowing a gasket. But it is what people expect to happen, given his history.