Editorial:
The race for mayor of San Diego is a stark contrast between a Republican candidate, Carl DeMaio, and Democrat, Bob Filner. Usually there are some grey areas where both candidates have something to offer the Hispanic community, but in this case there is nothing that DeMaio offers the Hispanic community that represents hope for our community in the near future.
DeMaio has based his whole campaign on his roadmap to pension reform which relies on destroying the collective bargaining power of the unions, reducing benefits, and shifting the retirement benefits to a 401k plan. This in effect would have a negative effect on Hispanic families who work hard for the city only to see their dreams of a decent retirement stripped from them.
DeMaio is your extreme right wing Republican, he follows in the footsteps of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker who tried to strip the workers of the collective bargaining power.
The second leg of DeMaio’s pension reform is competitive bidding for city services. Competitive bidding in essence would give corporate America the opportunity to come in make money off of the tax payers. Hispanics and minorities would be effectively left out of the competitive bidding process. Those who make the rules, such as competitive bidding, only do so to control the process.
Lastly, to solidify his right wing/tea party credentials, DeMaio stated that he’d force police officers to enforce federal immigration law and to turn undocumented immigrants over to federal authorities.
Bob Filner has always been there for the Hispanic community as we noted in our Primary endorsement of Filner for mayor. Bob Filner has always been in the community, returned phone calls, and has stood with the community.
Filner is a friend of the labor unions and understands the plight and hardships of the working man. He knows that the pension system needs reform but is willing to reform it with fairness and an understanding of the needs of the workers.
The Pension debacle was not created by the workers but by big business and politicians looking the other way as the Pension system was rigged for corporate business advantages. It must be noted that when John Moores, who took full advantage of the city of San Diego, lead to the Pension debacle and budget crisis, did not give one penny back to the city after the city spent millions building Moores a baseball park infrastructure. Moores sold the Padre baseball team for almost a billion dollars.
Filner has experience, serving on the San Diego Unified School Board, the city council, and of course as a Congressman. He has lived in the city for decades. DeMaio on the other hand only moved to San Diego in ’08 and has only served one term as a city council person.
Filner has a history of fighting for civil rights, of environment protection and fighting for veteran services. Filner is a well rounded candidate and someone that we support for Mayor of San Diego.