This blog has reported several times on the ongoing struggle for control of the City of San Diego between reformers and laborites. Momentum has clearly been on the side of reform over the last year. Victories for the reform movement include (1) the resignation of Mayor Dick Murphy and the election of reform Mayor Jerry Sanders, which gave reformers the powers of the new ‘strong mayor’ form of government; (2) the election of reformer Kevin Faulconer (disclosure, client) in the liberal leaning 2nd Council District which gave reformers at least 4 solid votes of 8 on the council, with a couple swings and a couple laborites; (3) and the recent vote by the council – under heavy pressure by reform leaders that included businessman Steve Francis and the Performance Institute’s Carl DeMaio – to place two reform measures (outsourcing and pension reform) on the November ballot.
A couple days ago, as reported by the San Diego Union Tribune, 2nd District City Councilman Kevin Faulconer’s opponent in the June primary, former Democrat Party Chairman Kevin Kaeder, formally dropped out of the race, citing health reasons. Since the 2nd is a rather left leaning seat, and Faulconer will undoubtedly still need to run a race because Kaeder is still on the ballot and independent expenditures could chose to ‘run him’ anyway, this is another major victory for the reform team.