All eyes are on the 49th Congressional District.
The 49th — which includes parts of San Diego’s North County and southern Orange County — has long been a Republican stronghold. But Rep. Darrell Issa’s announcement in January that he would not seek re-election, plus anti-Trump sentiment, has motivated a wave of Democrats to join the now-crowded race.
On the podcast, Scott Lewis and Andrew Keatts talk about the political scuttle. In California primaries, only the top two candidates advance to the general, regardless of party. And a new poll suggests a possibility that none of the current pool of Dems will advance to November.
Given the sense of anxiety on the left, a recent move by Doug Applegate has raised eyebrows. Often considered the Democratic front-runner, he changed his primary residency from San Clemente to Oceanside, which opened up the possibility that he could run for the San Diego County Board of Supervisors’ 5th District.
Also on the podcast, it turns out that ReserveCalifornia, the new online system for booking stays at state parks, isn’t as dysfunctional as Lewis first thought.
A Trump Reaction Run in D6
When it became clear that Donald Trump had won the presidential election, a flustered Fayaz Nawabi grabbed his surfboard.
“I started surfing at night time,” he said. “And I’m just laying on my board, and I’m really upset at how could people vote for this person that is openly saying bigoted things?”
In that moment, the recent San Diego State graduate decided he had to quit his teaching job and get into politics. Now Nawabi is running for the District 6 City Council seat, hoping to unseat Chris Cate.
On the second half of the podcast, Lewis and Keatts talk to Nawabi about the issues central to his campaign, including homelessness and affordable housing. Nawabi said his family got Section 8 affordable housing voucher support when he was growing up, so he knows how important housing programs are for San Diegans.
“It was instrumental in protecting, or giving me some stability growing up,” he said. “We just could not afford living in San Diego, and this is a reality many families in San Diego are dealing with right now and I really want to work to remedy this issue.”
Hero of the Week
This week’s hero is a retroactive award. It goes to former San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders, who was leading the city when DecoBike was selected as the private operator of the city’s bike-sharing system. Not many people are using DecoBikes, but luckily the exclusive agreement the city signed with the company was written in a way that has allowed the city to usher a new dock-less bike-share technology that appears to be attracting more riders already.
Goat of the Week
Bonnie Dumanis gets the goat. The former district attorney and county supervisor candidate came under fire recently when the San Diego Union-Tribune revealed that her lawyers were looking into the legality of accepting both a pension and a salary should she win. Dumanis said she never intended on actually collecting both, and she shunned the practice of double dipping. But it turns out Dumanis has in fact collected a salary and a pension in the past.