San Diego County Democratic Party Votes to Endorse County Term Limits

This evening it is reported that the San Diego County Democratic Party voted to support placing term limits on the San Diego County Board of Supervisors. It should send a shock wave about the determination the San Diego County Democratic Party has on challenging the status quo. You remember there are now more Democratic registered voters in the county, then Republicans.

Everyone at the meeting could agree one important thing, the Board of Supervisors are completely out of touch with the people they should be helping and do not represent the majority of the people of San Diego County.

Members talked about the supervisors $10 million a year slush fund (hmm, where did the previous community project fund lists go on the county website?) to reward their contributors, the large campaign war chests, the failed North County mental health outsourcing, need for campaign finance reforms, real redistricting reforms removing the Supervisors from directing the drawing of their personal fiefdoms and most importantly educating the voters about the real responsibility of the County Board of Supervisors - fire, social safety net and the topic missed, but still needed, was the badly needed revision of the outdated general plan for land use.

This evening the endorsement is already making the rounds on Facebook pages and status updates in the era of social networking. Interesting was the question about the Republican Party endorsing the term limits .

QUESTION:Does anyone know a term limit measure the San Diego County Republican Party or even the California Republican Party didn't support and were not asking about measures that would alter existing term limit lengths?

San Diego County Term Limits Qualify for June Ballot

It has been reported the term limit measure for the San Diego County Board of Supervisors has been qualified by the San Diego County Registrar of Voters. The Board of Supervisors will have to place it on the Jan 12th agenda and vote to place it on the June ballot.

Below is the press release I was sent:

Term Limits Qualified

San Diego County Board of Supervisors Term Limits is guaranteed to be on the June 2010 ballot

SAN DIEGO -- (December 15, 2009) – The campaign to reform San Diego County government announced today it has passed the next crucial milestone for appearing on the June 2010 ballot when the San Diego County Registrar of Voters qualified the signatures this week.

Registrar of Voters Deborah Seiler found that the measure qualified for the ballot after her office projected the campaign to have submitted 118 percent of the required 77,837 signatures needed to appear on the June ballot.

The ballot measure would limit the County Board of Supervisors to serving no more then two-terms. Voters from all over San Diego County signed petitions to qualify the measure after County Supervisors have had a lock on winning re-election after re-election. This has been due to a yearly $10 million in unrestricted slush funds that Supervisors have doled out as political favors, campaign accounts in the hundreds of thousands of dollars from previous uncontested races and supervisorial districts that the Supervisors get to draw themselves.

Every member of the current Board of Supervisors has served at least 14 years on the Board. The last time incumbents lost their re-election was in 1984, now more then 25 years ago.

“I find it difficult to fathom, that in a county of over 1.4 million registered voters, a select few would believe only five individuals can run our county government,” said Margarita Johnson, a worker at the Sheriff’s Department. “We are lucky to live in San Diego, and I know we have a wealth of individuals with the background to do this job and will step up, once there is an equal playing field and who have the needs of all the San Diego residences.”

Wingnut Alert!

I have to give up to Jon Fleischman over at the Flash Report for coming up with quite the theory on why the State Senate recently passed a bill placing an "straw vote" regarding Iraq on the February primary ballot. According to Fleischman: "[w]ell, it doesn't take much thought to understand that this measure authored by Democrat Senate President Don Perata is a cynical plot to drive up liberal turnout for the election on which the Perata/Nunez Career Politician Term Limits Weakening Initiative will appear. Perata (and Nunez) are completely fixated on trying to blow a hole in the state's term limits so that they can cling to their prestigious offices."

Wow Jon, and Republicans are as pure as the driven snow! They would never try anything cynical like trying to pass an initiative to change the way the state allocates its electoral votes.