by MARK GABRISH
CONLAN
Copyright © 2011 by Mark Gabrish Conlan for Zenger’s
Newsmagazine • All rights reserved
Bob Filner
Hud Collins
Marty Block
Dr. Shirley Weber
Sid Voorakkara
The
predominantly Queer San Diego Democrats for Equality — holding their first
meeting since changing their name from the San Diego Democratic Club —
overwhelmingly endorsed Occupy San Diego and the Occupy movement generally on
October 27. They passed a strongly worded resolution, which the San Diego
County Democratic Central Committee had also approved, not only defending
Occupy San Diego’s right to protest in the Civic Center Plaza but also
approving the group’s goals. The club also endorsed the recently introduced
SAFE California initiative, sponsored by California Taxpayers for Justice, that
would abolish the state’s death penalty and replace it with life imprisonment
without the possibility of parole. And they endorsed the one major Democratic
candidate for Mayor of San Diego in 2012, Congressmember Bob Filner.
“The
overwhelming influence of corporate interests over public policy and
institutions — exacerbated by greed, mismanagement, and corruption — has caused
catastrophic levels of economic inequality, financial distress, environmental
harm, climate crisis denial and other injustices felt by the majority of
Americans,” read the pro-Occupy resolution passed by both the county party and
San Diego Democrats for Equality. “Under the current conditions of
corporate-owned media and corporate financing of political campaigns, political
leaders and the media have failed to address and remedy these systemic
problems. … The Occupy movement on Wall Street, in San Diego, and around the
world is peaceably and authentically giving a voice to millions in the 99% of
the population who have not been heard.”
The resolution
states that the county party and the club both stand “in solidarity with the
‘Occupy’ protesters and their call for economic and social justice; … encourage
the movement’s evolution toward increased political engagement and policy
reforms; support the protesters’ constitutional rights to free speech and
peaceful assembly; and call on the City of San Diego and other public agencies
to protect their rights fully and grant them the opportunity to occupy public
spaces without intimidation or duress.” Ironically, the club passed the
resolution just a few hours before the San Diego Police Department raided
Occupy San Diego’s encampments at the Civic Center Plaza and Children’s Park
downtown in a failed effort to end the occupation.
While the county
Democratic party’s endorsement of Occupy was unanimous, the club’s vote had one
dissenter, Bob Leyh. “I can’t support this,” he said. “I know we’re a liberal
club, but are we really so far out there that we would endorse this movement? I
just can’t figure out what they’re all about, and I don’t even know what to
endorse.” Leyh challenged the resolution’s description of Occupy as
“peaceable,” saying there had been riots at Occupy events in Oakland and Rome.
“They don’t speak for me,” he said. “If they want to be politically engaged,
[they should] come and join clubs, get involved that way.” He also accused the
Occupy demonstrators of forcing the food carts in Civic Center Plaza to close —
a news report other members said was not true — and disrupting the City Council
meeting on October 25, two days before the club’s meeting.
“Bob, I didn’t
know you were in the top 1 percent,” joked longtime club activist Cindy Green.
“They speak for me. I am in the lowest of the 99 percent. I’m a retired nurse.
I live on Social Security and the little bitty pension that I get. I was one of
them in the 1960’s. I’m proud of them, and I want this resolution to pass.”
“I’m actually
offended that there’s even a question as to whether we’re going to endorse
this,” said Tres Watson, executive director of Canvass for a Cause, the
marriage equality organization that has provided volunteers and logistical
support to Occupy San Diego. (Many people at the occupation site can be seen wearing
Canvass for a Cause’s trademark “Legalize Gay” T-shirts.) “I’d respectfully
suggest you actually speak to one of the protesters before you take the drivel
that comes through the filter of the media,” Watson told Leyh. “It’s been so
misrepresented, you can’t even believe the reports. We’re very active in giving
the Occupy movement some political muscle, and training them to go door-to-door
to talk to voters about the very issues we represent.”
Candidates Clash — Or
Not
The San Diego
Democrats for Equality also heard from five candidates for office at the
October 27 meeting. One, Assemblymember Marty Block, sailed to an easy and
unanimous endorsement for the State Senate seat Christine Kehoe, longtime club
favorite and the first openly Queer elected official in San Diego County, is
being forced out of due to term limits. The other speakers included two
candidates for Mayor of San Diego, Congressmember Bob Filner and attorney Hud
Collins; and two candidates for the 79th Assembly District, San
Diego State University professor and former San Diego Unified School District
board member Dr. Shirley Weber, and Sid Voorakkara, on leave as San Diego
program officer for the California Endowment non-profit health foundation.
The club’s rules
say they can only endorse a candidate if he or she fills out a questionnaire on
various issues, mostly but not exclusively centered around Queer rights.
Filner, Block, Weber and Voorakkara all scored 100 percent. Collins scored 83
percent, due to his opposition to marriage equality for same-sex couples, his
rejection of living-wage ordinances to workers on government contracts
(“minimum wage yes, free market,” he wrote), his statement that he had once
supported affirmative action programs but “no longer,” his refusal to support age-appropriate
education in public schools about the contributions of Queer people and
awareness of sexual orientation or gender identity, his opposition to allowing
women in the military to serve in combat, his refusal to support universal
health care and his saying he’d allow equal treatment for Queer people in
adoption, parenting and child custody only “in some instances; best interests
of the child.” A third Democratic candidate for Mayor, Steven Greenwald, filled
out a questionnaire but didn’t show up at the meeting.
“We need a
politician who is not a politician,” said Collins, who got to give the first
opening statement. “We do not need a politician to be the Mayor. I have been
down at the City Council every meeting for five years and I have not seen Filner or [Republican candidates] Bonnie
Dumanis or Nathan Fletcher there. Unfortunately, I see Carl DeMaio every week.
Not one of the ‘top four’ has an idea on how to get the city out of its
financial mess. Not one of them has an idea on how to solve the pension crisis.
Filner doesn’t have a plan on the pension issue, and the other three all favor
[DeMaio’s initiative for] the 401(k) for new hires. As soon as it gets on the
ballot, I will be in court to knock it off.”
“I’ve been a
member of this club since it was founded,” said Filner. “I attended the first
Freedom Banquet as a member of the board of the San Diego Unified School
District. I was the only elected
official to attend.” Filner recalled that at that event he had to run a gantlet
of anti-Queer protesters — and now two of the four top-tier candidates for
Mayor of San Diego, DeMaio and Dumanis, are Queer Republicans (though the
predominantly Queer Log Cabin Republican Club rejected both of them and
endorsed straight Republican Fletcher instead).
Filner, who’s
been criticized for allegedly not having a plan to deal with the city’s $2.1
billion in unfunded pension liabilities, said his plan is “to restructure the
debt at a low rate of interest,” giving the city longer to pay it and thus
creating less need for immediate cuts in city services. But he was stronger on
attacking DeMaio’s pension solution that advancing his own. “We have to solve
the pension crisis in a way that does not
throw city workers under the bus,” he said, calling DeMaio’s initiative to end
pensions for newly hired city workers and substitute 401(k) accounts “part of
his effort to be the Scott Walker [Wisconsin’s anti-labor, anti-Queer governor]
of the West.” According to Filner, the top priority of the next Mayor should be
to generate new jobs for San Diegans, not bash city workers over their
pensions.
“One of you
[Filner] is too far to the Left to get elected in San Diego,” said Bob Leyh.
“People want to hear real facts. Talk about what you’re going to do to fix the
pensions.”
Filner challenged
the idea that he’s too far Left to get elected, pointing out that he’s won 14
elections in San Diego County — two for the school board, two for City Council
and 10 for Congress. He said his pension plan including putting a cap on the
pensions for managerial positions in city government “because they’re the ones the horror stories are about,” and saying
that renegotiating the city’s pension obligations at today’s low interest rates
would be the equivalent of refinancing your home. “I want to free up hundreds
of millions of dollars, with no new taxes,” Filner said. “I want to show that
if you can solve the pension problem, maybe this will show people that
government can work.”
“You have no
pension idea,” Collins fired back. “You haven’t a clue.” Then Collins argued
for a pension plan even more radical than the DeMaio initiative: “close the
defined-benefit plan and go to a 401(k) for all employees, with hiring bonuses if you need them for police officers
and firefighters.”
Asked why he
thought women shouldn’t be allowed to serve in combat roles, Collins said, “I
have been in two and one-half wars, and every time I’ve served with women in
OCS and support units. I’m all for it. I’m old-fashioned and I do not want to
see a woman in combat who might be captured and raped. I’d feel like I’d have
to watch and protect her.”
“I don’t see any
reason women should not be in combat,” Filner replied. “There’s only one
reason: can they do the job? We went through this in 1948 with
African-Americans” (when President Harry Truman integrated the military by
executive order).
Former club
president Gloria Johnson asked Filner about his vote for the Defense of
Marriage Act (DoMA), which defines marriage for federal benefit purposes as the
union of one man and one woman and is being used by the military to deny
spouses of Queer servicemembers access to on-base housing, health care,
visitation and notification in case their partners are killed or wounded in
battle. “I made a mistake,” Filner said. “I’ve never voted that way again. As
much as I’d been involved with this club, I did not understand the depth of
feeling [about marriage equality] until this vote came up.”
“I’ve been a
civil rights attorney for a long time,” said Collins. “Thanks to a case I
worked on, every person in this state who’s handicapped gets equal access. I
believe in full equality, and I don’t care whether you’re Black, white, pink or
blue. I’m old-fashioned, and it would be very hard for me to understand what it
would be like to be in a same-sex marriage. If that were the rule of law, I
would defend it.”
Filner had no
trouble getting the endorsement, with 50 votes to one for no endorsement. At
the end of the meeting, Bob Leyh assured the members that he had not been the one vote against endorsing Filner. “I’m
still a liberal on some things,” he said.
Assembly Race: Club
Can’t Decide
The club members
present couldn’t decide between Sid Voorakkara and Dr. Shirley Weber for the 79th
Assembly District seat, perhaps because they both scored 100 percent on the issues
questionnaire and their answers to the questions from club members were also
virtually identical. Their only difference was about a bill the legislature
passed, but Governor Jerry Brown vetoed, which would have banned sponsors of
ballot initiatives from paying people to circulate them on a per-signature
basis.
“I probably
wouldn’t [support that bill] because this is how people get jobs,” Dr. Weber
said. “I do have a problem with people
giving out wrong information. There should be a law holding initiative sponsors
accountable and having them train the individuals.”
“I think a lot
of the paid signature gatherers are flown in from out of state, and rich people
can bring them in,” said Voorakkara. “We should end the process of having
endless ballot initiatives and have a convention on what to do with the state.”
Aside from that,
there were very few issue differences between the two candidates. The debate on
the endorsement was largely over style rather than substance. Voorakkara won
support for being a member of the board of the San Diego Lesbian, Gay,
Bisexual, Transgender Community Center, but Dr. Weber was admired for standing
firm for Queer rights despite the opposition of ministers and other leaders in
the African-American community.
The club voted
three times on the race. On the first ballot, Voorakkara got 23 votes to 10 for
Dr. Weber and 20 for no endorsement. On the second — conducted by public hand
votes rather than by paper ballots, and leaving out a substantial number of
members who had come early, cast ballots and then left for another progressive
event the same night — Voorakkara got 21 votes to 21 for no endorsement. A
motion to rate both candidates acceptable — an option in the club rules when
there is more than one candidate strongly supportive of Queer issues — got 24
votes in favor to 17 votes against but fell one vote short of the 60 percent
supermajority the club requires for candidate endorsements and ratings.
