Ballot Breakdown: Measure A

S1: Welcome in San Diego. It's Jade Hindman on this episode of KPBS Midday Edition. A breakdown of measure A on your election ballot. This is KPBS Midday Edition. Connecting our communities through conversation. The ballots are out. It's officially election season. And if you're overwhelmed by your ballot , you're not alone. Nearly 80% of voters are frustrated by the length of their ballots , according to the Public Policy Institute of California. So this month on Midday Edition , we're helping you cut through the noise to better understand the top measures and races. Today , we're talking about measure A. It would make a series of changes to San Diego County's charter like expanding term limits for supervisors , also forming an ethics commission and an independent budget analysis. Joining us to break it all down is Kevin Trevathan. He's KPBS Public Matters reporter. Kevin , welcome to Midday Edition and excited to have you on. Yeah.

S2: Yeah. Happy to be here. Thanks , Jade.

S1: So on its surface , measure A might seem a little hard to grasp because there's so many pieces to it. What are the key components we should know? Yeah.

S2: Yeah. So I'd say the kind of big headliner that you mentioned is the term limits part of it? Um , currently supervisors serve two four year terms and this would extend that to three , four year terms. So a sizable difference there. Um , it would also do a couple different charter reforms that are kind of framed as ethics and accountability measures. Um , for example , it would create a new independent ethics commission , and that would apply not only to supervisors , but other county elected officials like the sheriff or the attorney general. Um , it would create a new budget analyst position that's also being kind of pitched as independent and that would , you know , that person would cover kind of the , um , the fiscal impacts of different policies that the board might consider , like the trade offs of , you know , one policy versus another. Um , and then also a program auditor to kind of see how those programs are doing once they're operationalized. Um , other factors that would require more public disclosure of county spending. And then it would also give the supervisors more power to hire and fire , uh , county leadership. Um , you know , think of departments like emergency response or public health. Um , the folks who are in charge of those departments. All right. So the upshot is basically that it would , you know , give the supervisors more power. Okay.

S1: Okay. And I will I want to dig into each of those pieces a bit more to but I want to jump here because a recent poll from the San Diego Union-Tribune looked at how voters feel about measure A. What are the main takeaways with that? Yeah.

S2: Yeah. So the U-T did this poll in late September , and the support for measure A itself was pretty mixed. Um , you know , 40% of respondents said they supported it. 35% said they did not. And then you had a pretty sizable chunk of undecided people. Um , and it was really a mixed bag for the kind of individual components that make up measure A. Um , roughly 70% of respondents liked each of the accountability reforms , like the Ethics Commission , the budget analyst. Uh , but even more voters , a little more than three quarters said they did not want to extend supervisor term limits. They wanted to keep the current two term limit. So only 10% wanted to give supervisors three terms. Hmm.

S1: Hmm. Can you talk about the political strategy here of stacking several components into a single measure like this?

S2: Yeah , I talked to Bryan Adams. He's a political scientist at San Diego State University who studies local government and kind of how voters respond to them. And , you know , he mentioned that supervisors could have broken up all these reforms into , you know , different measures. You could have had the Ethics Commission , the , you know , mixed with the budget analysts , maybe , and then the term limits as their own measure. But , um , you know , he kind of mentioned that , uh , supervisors or politicians and it would be maybe a little bit unreasonable to expect them to do that. You know , they're going to kind of act within their own interest with reason. And yeah , he kind of talked about that in a clip. I think we have.

S3: So what the board has done is package a few things that are generally very popular among the public , with some things that are not as popular. Right. So generally , having an independent ethics commission is a popular thing that voters are going to like. Extending term limits is not so popular among the public. So that's that's the the political strategy here is to sort of , you know , throw them together and , you know , force voters to to take the package as a whole , even if it includes some things they don't like. Okay.

S1: Okay. So so walk me through it here. The argument for even increasing term limits for county supervisors. What do supporters say? Yeah.

S2: Yeah. So this was kind of the brainchild of supervisor Tara Lawson. Rimmer's office. She's the chair of the board and was , you know , considered in supervisor board meetings through the the spring and summer. Basically , what they're saying is that county government has grown really dramatically over the last couple of decades. You know , the they're spending $8.6 billion per year in the annual budget. They're serving 3.3 million residents. And so they're pitching this as a way to modernize county government and really make it more responsive to taxpayers , more responsive to the people who , you know , are paying their salaries more accountable , see how money is being spent , see how programs are working. They also say this would align the supervisors closer to state lawmaker term limits , and they're saying that it would help them see through , you know , kind of long , complicated projects. Supervisor Monica Montgomery Stepp used the example of a temporary homeless shelter in Lemon Grove that's currently under construction. She said , you know , having another term would help her , would help , you know , the board work through projects like those , make sure they're getting community feedback and community buy in doing their due diligence. So that's a big part of the argument there. Okay.

S1: Okay. So what is the argument against expanding term limits then. Yeah.

S2: Yeah. This there's kind of a lot of back and forth between the specifically the Democrats on the board and the Republicans on the board and the Republicans on the board weren't necessarily opposed to the specific , you know , reforms themselves and measure a but they , you know , took a lot of issue with how they were being done. Um , you know , this process originated with the supervisors , not with a voter led , you know , ballot initiative. So they didn't appreciate that. And Supervisor Jim Desmond in particular , who's also running for Congress , you know , framed it really as an attempt as a power grab. He used those words and as kind of a self-serving way for supervisors to give themselves more power because it it grandfathers the current supervisors in to the third term. So a couple of them would be able to serve a third term. And , you know , they didn't think that that should apply to them necessarily or Desmond didn't. And , you know , he was saying that him and Supervisor Joel Anderson , the other Republican on the board , were saying that you could have done this some of the stuff without a charter reform , you know , if you wanted to , if you're so passionate about the ethics measures. Hmm.

S1: Hmm. Well , what is the I mean? Well , let me ask you this. I mean , measure a it. It also includes some more popular proposals , I should say , like creating an independent ethics commission and an independent budget analyst. Um , what could that mean for county politics? Yeah.

S2: Yeah. So they're kind of taking the lead of other government entities around California. Los Angeles County just created an ethics commission. The city of San Diego has its own budget analyst that , you know , helps helps out whenever the council is considering something. But supervisors have also acknowledged there's a lot of uncertainty with measure A and how it would actually be kind of actualized if voters to approve it. Um , you know , it remains to be seen how independent the new positions in Ethics Commission really are , because they would be ultimately , you know , accountable to the board and county legal staff to some degree. And Bryan Adams talked about that , too , how some of these changes could be pretty minimal or a big deal.

S3: Well , you know , the devil's always in the details and it always matters about implementation. Um , you know , if it if these things are implemented well , it could improve county governance , but there's no guarantee of that.

S1: And , you know , the measure also gives more power , more authority to supervisors over hiring and firing county leadership. Why is that significant? Yeah.

S2: Yeah. So there's arguments kind of for and against that. Um , you know , the people , the supervisors who are in charge of measure eight are saying that , you know , elected officials are more responsive to voters. So to give them more power over , to give them more oversight over county leadership is ultimately making that leadership , you know , more responsive to voters. Uh , and Supervisor Tara Lawson Reamer said , you know , consistently , constituents and labor unions have been pushing her on that specific point , kind of making county leadership more accountable. But , you know , then the the folks who aren't in favor of measure A would say you're potentially politicizing county staff. Uh , Supervisor Joel Anderson , one of the Republicans , you know , used the example of filling potholes that it doesn't really matter the political Leanings of someone who fills potholes for the county or who they voted for , that it should kind of be insulated from from the politics of the board. So yeah. There's kind of a disagreement there. Hmm.

S1: Hmm. Can you talk more about the politics surrounding this measure and any extra context that listeners should know?

S2: Yeah , kind of had a little bit of a tortured process on the board. You know , it was considered in a few different meetings and different supervisors presented different proposals at one point. This would have also applied to the term limits , also would have applied to the sheriff and the attorney general , for example. But there's also a kind of wider politics happening on the board , I would say. I mentioned Jim Desmond , one of the Republicans , is running for Congress in the 48th district against San Diego City Council member Marney van Wolpert. So you know , what he does on the board kind of takes outsize importance , maybe , and kind of how his campaign is being framed and messaged. Um , and the board's Democrats have also used their positions to kind of their roles to position themselves as sort of defenders against the Trump administration in San Diego County. Whether it's opposing Ice or calling for more , you know , immigration or oversight of immigrant detention at Otay Mesa. So it seems like a lot of the stuff that's happening on the board and with the supervisors kind of , um , kind of also fits on this wider political stage. Hmm.

S1: Hmm. What kind of outcome are you expecting on election night when it comes to measure A.

S2: It's kind of hard to say. You know , we mentioned the The Union Tribune poll from earlier that shows a lot of people are still kind of uncertain about this. And it had fairly close margins. Bryan Adams , the political scientist from earlier , told me that , you know , this could be an initiative that people could think if they really wanted to , if they wanted to spend a bunch of money on it , just given how it has kind of come together. But , you know , uh , prominent local Republicans who might be opposed to it , like , you know , state lawmaker Carl DeMaio , he's putting a lot of effort into his statewide initiative to tighten voter ID laws. Prop 39. So there might not be that kind of local interest in fighting measure. Aye. And you know , the phrase county charter reforms. Not really like the gravest phrase in the world. And so it's the other thing is that it'll be kind of hard for it to rise above , you know , other political issues that people are thinking about , like affordability or immigration enforcement , you know , the war in Iran. So I think we'll just kind of have to see how it goes.

S1: All right. And we will see. Indeed , if you want to learn more about measure A , we have a great resource for you@kpbs.org. It's our voter hub. All kinds of information there about your ballot. You can find it there. I've been speaking with Kevin Trevelyan. He's public matters reporter for KPBS. And , Kevin , thank you very much.

S2: Yeah , thanks for having me.

S1: That's our show for today. I'm your host , Jade Hindman. Thanks for tuning in to Midday Edition. Be sure to have a great day on purpose , everyone.