This post initially appeared in the April 11 Morning Report. Get the Morning Report delivered to your inbox.
Joel Anderson, the former Republican state senator from Alpine, is officially running for the San Diego County Board of Supervisors after teasing reporters for weeks about an upcoming announcement. Last month, he dismissed rumors that he was preparing to challenge Rep. Duncan Hunter for Congress.
Name a seat in East County and there’s a good chance Anderson has considered running for it.
He lost his bid in the fall for the Board of Equalization to a Democrat and perennial campaigner plagued over the years by various scandals. Mike Schaefer rode a wave of anti-Trump resentment without any support from his own party. It didn’t help that Anderson, only a few months before the election, threatened to “bitch slap” a lobbyist in a Sacramento bar, drawing a reprimand from his colleagues in the Senate.
In the state Senate, Anderson championed digital privacy issues, and made some surprising allies on certain efforts, like when he joined with Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez to support a plan to make diapers more affordable.
This isn’t even the first time Anderson has announced a run for the Board of Supervisors. In 2015, he briefly campaigned against Dianne Jacob. Before aborting that effort, the local GOP gave him $200,000 — one day before the county’s $25,000 limit on campaign contributions was set to kick in.
Campaign finance rules allow candidates to transfer money between accounts bearing their name, meaning Anderson could tap into that money as he seeks the seat in 2020.
Poway Mayor Steve Vaus, also a Republican, is running for the District 2 supervisor seat as well.