At this time next year, no one on the San Diego County Board of Supervisors will have been there before 2016, officially ending a period during which the board was dominated by four of the same figures since the mid-1990s.
Supervisor Dianne Jacob, for instance, was first elected to her District 2 seat when President Bill Clinton won his first term. But recently enacted term limits are taking effect, and she’ll leave office this year. That’s created an opening in the most conservative district in the county, where Republicans outnumber Democrats 134,00 to 121,00.
Running to replace Jacob her are former state Sen. Joel Anderson, Poway Mayor Steve Vaus and marriage and family therapist Kenya Taylor. Anderson and Vaus are Republicans, and Taylor is a Democrat. Taylor, unsurprisingly, has assembled near unanimous support of Democratic leaders and left-leaning organizations. Anderson and Vaus have split support from conservatives, with Anderson touting endorsements from former Rep. Duncan Hunter Sr. and former Gov. Pete Wilson, and Vaus counting among his supporters Jacob, and the other Republicans currently on the Board of Supervisors.
Vaus did not respond to invitations to sit for a podcast interview. Anderson and Taylor joined us to talk about their careers and their visions for the future of county governance.