New Chair Of San Diego County Democrats Talks About Hot Races In 2020

Speaker 1: 00:00 Democrats are gearing up for some of the most hotly contested races in San Diego County. Mayor City Council and county supervisor will book all beyond the 2020 ballot. Kpbs Metro reporter Andrew Bowen talked with newly elected county Democratic Party chairman will Rodriguez Kennedy about his election strategy. Speaker 2: 00:21 Well Roger Gets Kennedy. Thanks so much for joining us. Glad to be here. Thank you. So you are 31, you're the youngest chair of the county Democratic Party ever. You are a veteran, you were discharged under, don't ask, don't tell. And uh, you were also homeless for awhile. You lived out of your car. How is all of that lived experience going to inform how you approach this position? My lived experience has in many ways shaped my political views. They've evolved over the years. There was a point when I was a little bit more cause there are a lot more conservative than I am now, but it's important because my and my activism comes from a social justice standpoint and that has led me to the Democratic Party. And so it allows me to engage on issues that previous chairs may not have engaged on because I have lived experienced with those issues, particularly on homelessness and housing. Speaker 2: 01:09 I know you've got your sights set on a democratic majority on the county board of supervisors. What do you think, uh, a majority democratic a board would be able to do? What policy issues do you think they could move on? We've already seen that the board has operated significantly differently with Nathan Fletcher on the board. So just imagine what we can do with a democratic majority, but I see that we can do more on housing. I see that we can do more on mental health. Um, I, I think those are important areas that we're going to have to look at. Um, because a lot of the problems that we have regionally are better served when we have better county participation in the solution to those problems. So the party is looking at basically what are the institutions which have the resources to address the challenges of our time. Speaker 2: 01:51 And the county board of supervisors is key to that strategy. I know Sandag is also in your sides, the county transportation agency. Now their board of directors is made up of an elected official from every city in the county. What's your strategy to get more Democrats on that board? I'm probably the first party show to talk about a strategy like the Sandeck strategy and really in order to change the seats we have to focus on some of the areas that we've, we simply need to do better in. Um, in order to change the makeup of Sandag, we have to help take back the county board of supervisors. But also we have to focus in areas in north county like Vista San Marcos where we can flip democratic majorities and change up the makeup of Sandag. It also means that we'll have to focus on unseasoned East county that you might not have expected otherwise, like alcohol where they've just moved to district elections. Speaker 2: 02:37 So it's possible for us to pick up seats there. So the Sandag strategy, since you don't elect anyone to Sandag requires us to focus on the basics, which is city councils and local races that the county Democratic Party is going to increase. It's, it's focused on, um, and that means that some races like in Vista and San Marcos and El Cahone and even national city, other, other places across the county are going get more attention from our party and more resources from our party than they might've if we were just focusing on congressional seats or something. Last November, the Democrats picked up a San Diego city council seat and district to, uh, with the election of Jen Campbell. A lot of the messaging in that campaign centered around Trump that, uh, Laurie's Afa Republican, um, was, you know, the same in the same party is Donald Trump. How important really is Donald Trump to a local city council race? Speaker 2: 03:28 And how much is that going to play into your strategy in 2020. The reality is, is that we are in a presidential year, um, we're going to have a very contested democratic primary, which means turn up will be high. And the, the districts that we're targeting are our districts in which Trump is unfavorable. So sometimes in elections where you don't have much information about the elected official that you're, or candidate that you're voting for, it helps to know what their values are. And the reality is is that Trump's, uh, values do not, are not consistent with the values of San Diego. [inaudible] my goal is to make sure that that's not the top thing that we're talking about. It's one of you, one of the things we're talking about, but in, in reality, this Democratic Party is going to be talking about issues, um, which is why we're going to create the first ever county party platform to show what are our values, are, what our issues are, and to lead with those values. Speaker 2: 04:18 We've also seen some races where there are two Democrats running against each other. And last November there was a case, the county Democratic Party actually putting out attack ads against one of the Democrats in erasing city council. District Eight, how are you going to handle a races where the party has endorsed one Democrat over another and they're the two are competing against each other? Well, the that was deeply unpopular within our party. I had supported the candidate who was attacked. She was a member of our central committee and I, I do not support that approach in that specific race. There are situations in which Democrats may have just opposed like the values of the Democratic Party in which there may be times that you have to highlight those differences, but those can be done from a policy perspective and from a more respectful perspective than the sort of the Democrat B is the Trump democrat or whatever. Speaker 2: 05:07 So we're going to start looking at how we can hold our electeds accountable in a more constructive way as opposed to issuing sort of Ad Hominem attack ads. Earlier this month, you spoke at the Umb Democrats, uh, Democratic Club. This is the group that's focused on building more housing. A lot of the policies that they support are fervently opposed by Democrats, by elected Democrats and democratic activists. How do you as the party chair manage that difference of opinion when it comes to housing politics, which is really front and center in the local political debate? Well, we have to communicate better. The reality is is that we have to, we have to change the way we look at housing policy and we have to make sure that we're building more density, more developmental, long transit transportation lines, a sustainable development, and we have to do things in order to make that more available. Speaker 2: 05:57 Otherwise, we're going to have a situation in which this crisis, particularly with housing, with people not being able to afford to live here in San Diego, where we a beautiful place where we all want to live. Um, but also that to increase the problem with homelessness, we have to address those issues. And as a result of that, we're going to have to have some tough conversations with even people among our Democratic Party. And the reality is, if you look at the Democratic Party is a minority but a vocal minority that opposes housing. But if we're serious about solving the issue of homelessness, which is a major problem in our county, and if we're serious about addressing the issue of skyrocketing rents, we have to do something there. Speaker 1: 06:34 Of all of the races in 2020 in San Diego County, what is your highest priority? The county board of supervisors is clearly our highest priority. Speaker 2: 06:42 We have three seats up, two of them are really favorable for Democrats. One of them isn't as favorable but could be surprising. Looking at the turnout, there's some really good data that shows that our turnout models favor democrats in both district three and district one. District three is Christian gas bar district one is, um, is going to be an open seat, formerly Greg Cox to see. And in both of those districts, Democratic presidential candidates to prevailed over Republicans. And we had made significant gains in those districts, particularly in district three where we gain the majority of the Escondido city council by and also the mayoralty there. So there's going to be a lot of focus on district three and district one is a democratic seat. So this is our year to take it back. Speaker 1: 07:22 Well Rodriguez Kennedy, thanks so much for joining us. Thanks for having me. Joining me is KPBS Metro reporter Andrew Bowen. Andrew, welcome. Thanks Maureen. Is it your sense in speaking to the chair that a San Diego County Democratic Platform could differ from the state or National Democratic Platform? Well, I think it's likely to defer in terms of what issues it addresses and how it addresses them. To some extent the state party platform addresses things like national security, agriculture, Internet and free speech in those I don't think are super relevant at the county level. So it's likely to focus mainly on the issues that are relevant here locally. Now housing is a major issue at both the state and the local level. And Democrats are divided on housing at both of those levels. Though those divisions are often only visible when it comes to specific developments or specific laws. And a platform can speak in the abstract, it can support general ideas. Speaker 1: 08:14 So, um, one thing I'm curious to, to see as the county starts developing into a platform is, or the county Democratic Party starts developing its own platform, is how specific about these policies around housing are they going to get? How, you know, how granular and are they going to support specific policies and laws or are they going to speak more in the abstract? Will Rodriguez Kennedy talked about flipping seats in places like Vista and San Marcos because of what he claims our democratic majorities in those areas. How have demographics changed in the North County that would allow for Democrats to win? Well, the trend has certainly been favorable for Democrats in North County. We definitely saw that the 49th Congressional district, Daryl Eissa, the former Republican who represented that district while he's still a Republican, but he used to represent that district. He lived in Vista. And that was where these regular protests from flip the 49th, uh, we're taking place at his district office there. Speaker 1: 09:10 Mike Levin, the Democrat who won last year, one with a very comfortable majority over the Republican in that race. Diane Harkey. So there's clearly democratic energy in North County and what Rodriguez Kennedy says he plans is to channel that energy to the down ballot races. The question in the context of Sandag, which is what we were talking about there is whether any Democrat is better than any Republican. There are some Democrats on the Sandag board now who are our siding more with the Republicans on this question of whether we should be investing our tax dollars in freeway expansions. Best example as Paul Mcnamara, he's the mayor of Escondido. He is a Democrat who unseated a Republican incumbent, so that was a big deal in terms of that election, but the payoff in terms of democratic policy goals at Sandag isn't clear yet. What about the disputes among local labor unions that they traditionally of course support the Democrats in San Diego? Are Those disputes effecting the unity of the party? A lot of those disputes in the Labor community were centered on Mekhi Casper Marian, who was the head of the United Food and commercial workers chapter. He was actually voted out of his position leading that union. So a lot of those disagreements and Intra Party fighting that we saw last year in 2018 I don't think is likely to happen next year. I been speaking with Kpbs Metro reporter Andrew Bowen. Andrew, thank you. Thank you. Speaker 3: 10:35 Okay.