Sacramento Report: The Battle Over Who Is More Tough on Guns

The two candidates for San Diego city attorney are sparring on gun control, as they enter a second round of campaigning for the general election.

Days before the primary, Assemblymember Brian Maienschein announced a pair of gun control bills. This week Deputy City Attorney Heather Ferbert’s campaign blasted her opponent for voting against a 2014 state bill authorizing gun violence restraining orders.

Although Maienshein is trailing Ferbert by a few percentage points in early returns, he’ll get a do-over in November when the two compete in the general election. In what appears to be a segue into that race, he has taken steps to burnish his law and order credentials. 

Last Friday, Maienschein and San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria announced a pair of bills that would restrict possession and carry of firearms in some circumstances. 

AB 2519, would prevent people charged with certain violent misdemeanors from possessing firearms while completing court-ordered diversion. The law currently forbids firearm possession for 10 years after these crimes, which include assault, battery, or stalking, criminal threats of death or injury, child endangerment, elder abuse and other violations.

But there’s a catch; if a judge grants diversion, the firearm restriction doesn’t apply. Maienshchein’s bill would change that to forbid firearms until the diversion program is done. 

“Until you complete your diversion and prove you are not a risk, you cannot have a gun,” he said.

His other bill, AB 2739, would authorize law enforcement to confiscate and destroy firearms that are illegally carried in public. Maienschein and Gloria also discussed a grant to the city attorney’s office to conduct gun violence restraining order training. 

Current City Attorney Mara Elliott has made gun violence restraining orders a signature issue, and her office touts its success removing more than 900 firearms, including 50 assault weapons, from owners who threatened violence or suicide. Ferbert has promoted those efforts as part of her campaign to succeed her boss.

She points out that Maienshchein, who served in the Assembly as a Republican before switching parties in 2019, voted against a state law that allowed courts to keep guns out of the hands of people who threatened violence against themselves or others. AB 1014 passed after the Isla Vista shooting, when a UC Santa Barbara student went on a shooting spree, killing six people.

“After the Isla Vista shooting, Brian Maienschein voted against gun violence restraining orders that prevent mass shootings. After the Parkland Elementary shooting, he campaigned for reelection with the NRA. And now he wants us to trust him to lead California’s most impactful gun violence prevention program?” Ferbert’s campaign strategist Dan Rottenstreich asked in a press release.

Maienshein did not answer my questions about campaign issues, but in a 2019 op-ed in the San Diego Union Tribune, he cited concerns about automatic weapons as one of his reasons for switching parties.

Primary Election Highlights

The first batches of election results have dropped since Tuesday, and here are some of the takeaways for San Diego County.

Proposition 1, the statewide measure to fund mental health and addiction treatments, is squeaking to possible victory, with a margin of about half a percentage point. If that narrow lead holds up, the state will issue nearly $6.4 billion in bonds to build treatment facilities and housing, and reshuffle some mental health funding from the “millionaire tax.”

Carl DeMaio’s campaign to push his opponent Andrew Hayes out of the running for the 75th Assembly District appeared to pay off. In a funhouse mirror version of campaign politics, DeMaio paid for advertisements supporting Democrat Kevin Juza, hoping for a run-off against a Democrat in the red district, which covers most of San Diego County’s backcountry. It seems to have worked. As of Friday, DeMaio had captured nearly 43 percent of the crowded field, with Juza following in second and Hayes close behind him in third place.

In the 49th Congressional District, Democrat incumbent Mike Levin was way ahead of his opponents with more than half the vote in a field of five candidates. His next closest competitor, Republican Matt Gunderson, earned just over a quarter of votes for the seat. Levin was quick to tout his lead on social media, but he’ll face Gunderson again in November for the key swing district.

Democrat Akilah Weber is leading the 39th Senate District with a nearly 20 point lead over Republican Bob Divine, and clearing the field like she did in her previous Assembly races. The Senate seat is open now that Senate Pro Tem Toni Atkins is about to term out, and is running for governor. It looks like Democrats Colin Parent and Racquel Vasquez will vie for Weber’s place in the 79th Assembly District.

Why is this taking so long? You may be wondering why we’re still waiting for election results. Didn’t we used to get election night returns that called the winners that same evening? Yes, but now it’s more like election month, since the final results won’t be certified until April 4. That’s because a vast majority of Californians – about 80 percent in San Diego County – vote by mail. Those ballots can be postmarked on election day, and trickle in for weeks afterward. Then election workers have to process all those ballots, verify signatures, return incomplete ballots to voters for correction, and sometimes perform hand recounts, before announcing final results.

The Perils of Rejecting ‘Housing First’ Homelessness Policy

We’ve been following local and state plans to take tougher measures on homelessness.

Those include a bill by Senate Minority Leader Brian Jones to create a statewide camping ban similar to the one imposed by the city of San Diego last summer, and Escondido’s new “public safety first” ordinance to tackle crime associated with homelessness and enforce sobriety at city shelters.

But Escondido’s approach may come at a price.

Our Tigist Layne reports that the city’s policy could jeopardize state and federal funding that requires a “housing first” plan. That approach follows the premise that people facing homelessness and addiction must be placed in stable housing before they can tackle substance abuse issues, improve their health or seek jobs.

Escondido council members who approved the new plan insist housing first is a failure, and say they’re willing to take the financial hit. But Councilmember Consuelo Martinez, the lone holdout, says the city can’t afford it, given its looming structural deficit.

Bruce Higgins, an activist who distributes food to the homeless, wrote to me with criticism of the San Diego camping ban. He says that although few homeless people have been arrested, it has disrupted their lives and chased people out of their locations.

He told me that while enforcement has been light, “the effects on the homeless have been heavy handed.” 

The Sacramento Report runs every Friday and is part of a partnership with CalMatters. Do you have tips, ideas or questions? Send them to me at deborah@voiceofsandiego.org.