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Politics

California's Democratic Party Faithful Gather In San Diego For Annual Convention

By Alison St John / Reporter
Published February 10, 2012 at 3:00 AM PST
This story was published more than 12 years ago.
California's Democratic Party Faithful Gather In San Diego For Annual Convention
Democrats from around California are assembling in San Diego this weekend for the State Party Convention. One of the hottest topics will be how redistricting and the new Open Primary will affect the Party.

All kinds of big name Democrats will be in town, from Gov. Jerry Brown to House Minority Leader, Nancy Pelosi, and US Senator Al Franken, who’ll entertain the faithful with a keynote speech Saturday night.

San Diego Democratic Party Chair Jess Durfee said redistricting has changed the political map and the open primary is creating some interesting dilemmas for the party, when it comes to endorsing candidates.

“For example,” Durfee said, “there will be some races that are for Democrat versus Democrat that won’t be decided in June -- that has never been the case before. “

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Durfee said he hopes that doesn’t happen much in San Diego, but there is a contentious race between two incumbent Democrats, Howard Berman and Brad Sherman, both running for congress in the same redistricted district in L.A..

In the 52nd congressional race in San Diego, redistricting has left one congressional seat vulnerable to changing party. Two Democrats - Lori Saldana and Scott Peters - are running against incumbent Republican Brian Bilbray.

Durfee said to win the Democratic party’s endorsement at the convention, one of the two Democratic candidates needs to win more than 60 percent of the votes from party delegates living in their district.

Durfee said local party chairs from all over the state were already meeting Thursday to talk about best practices.

“Our county committee is doing a training program of what we called the ‘GO Team,’” he said. “It’s designed to connect Democrats throughout the county. We have built that up to about 1,000 people involved.“

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Durfee said the precinct leader program covers a third of San Diego’s precincts and has raised Democratic voter turnout by about 10 percent over the last three election cycles.

Democratic registered voters currently outnumber Republican registered voters in San Diego County by 4,000. That’s according to the latest report from the San Diego County Registrar of Voters. It is a small margin in a county of 1.4 million registered voters; 517,000 are registered Democrats, 513,000 are Republican and almost 360,000 - a growing number - decline to state their party affiliation.

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Politics California
Alison St John
Alison St John currently serves as a general assignment reporter and occasionally co-hosts KPBS Midday Edition. She fell in love with KPBS Radio when she arrived in San Diego in 1985 and first heard NPR. She has been a voice on KPBS Radio since 1989, and has served as a news reporter for radio, TV and the web, as well as anchoring, hosting, producing and editing. Alison has reported on stories about North County and was based in the KPBS' North County Bureau. Alison covered the metro beat during the critical period of the San Diego City pension crisis, and the education beat while Alan Bersin was the controversial Superintendent of San Diego City School District. She covered health when the industry was converting to managed care and told welfare reform stories in the late 1990s when Clinton was “ending welfare as we know it.” She has covered land use issues extensively, looking at the challenges of meeting a growing population while preserving community character, and developing a better transportation system to meet environmental concerns. She has done many stories on the military in San Diego, and the series she edited on the challenges veterans face returning from active duty to civilian life won “Best of Show” from the San Diego Society of Professional Journalists. She occasionally hosts the KPBS Roundtable and KPBS Midday Edition. Alison has won awards from the San Diego Press Club, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Associated Press TV and Radio Association, and the California Golden Mike Awards. Alison was born in Tanzania, brought up in Scotland, and earned her degree in psychology and sociology from Durham University in England. Her postgraduate diploma is in student counseling. She worked in England, Nigeria, Switzerland, Belgium, India, and Japan before moving to the United States in 1981. She now lives in Oceanside and enjoys how her community is growing and changing.
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