Brian Maienschein served for eight years on the San Diego City Council. A Republican heavily supported by the labor unions, he cast many of the votes that put the city in such dire straights. He then ran for San Diego City Attorney – and was slaughtered. He now works for a help the homeless nonprofit. But he can’t shake the political bug. He’s considering either running for his old council seat or the state assembly. Just what City Hall or Sacramento needs.
Comments 9
Say it aint so. We shouldn’t look for solutions from the same people who caused so many of our problems in the first place. He didn’t do anything positive on the council to merit another elected position.
Well, it’s true that — when it comes to city finances — Brian was an appalling failure as a city councilman. And as an attorney, he found his city council job of reading and signing off on grossly misleading (if not fraudulent) city bond prospectii was simply beyond the scope of his law degree training. Apparently curiosity and skepticism are in short supply in the Maienschein household..
But let’s be fair. Brian was deemed by many to be very helpful after the fires — providing solace and city/taxpayer help. Many in Scripps Ranch still think well of him.
Solution? We need to find Brian a job in a charitable nonprofit, helping others. Hopefully the job involves no financial acumen. Indeed, perhaps that’s the position he now holds.
Don’t quit your day job, Brian.
Like North Pole, I’ve also heard the story repeated that
Brian Maienschein was heavily backed by labor unions.
But when I looked through some old U-T news clips
on the subject, the full story was more complex.
In 2000, city labor unions did indeed support him vs.
runoff opponent Tom Cleary. In 2004, Maienschein
was unopposed for re-election to a 2nd term, and
thus support from labor was a non-factor.
In 2008, when Maienschein ran for city attorney, the SD
Labor Council spent some $64,000 in support of a rival
candidate – Councilman SCOTT PETERS (Union-Tribune,
May 28, 2008) in that primary contest.
So it appears the last time Maienschein benefited from
labor union support at election time was a Decade ago.
If he does run again, Mr. Maienschein ought to address
those facts from 2000… but he may also have something
to say about why Labor did not assist him in 2008.
Uhhh, Jim, the reason that labor didn’t spend money or credibility (well, was a “nonfactor”) on Maienshein’s 2004 reelection is that they didn’t HAVE to. Indeed, the likelihood of such labor support (plus the huge advantages of incumbency — something I believe I’ve mentioned previously) probably chased off any credible challenger.
Ahhh, those were the days — when a labor union endorsement and financing were considered GOOD things. My, how times have changed.
In 2008, Maienshein was outbid in the city attorney union auction war by Democrat Scott Peters — who was an even better choice for labor. Put Maienschein up against just about any Republican (w/o a Dem in the race), and doubtless labor will again pour big bucks into his effort.
If Brian runs for city council against other Republicans and without a Dem or DTS opponent, I GUARANTEE he get’s labor union backing. Anyone want to make a friendly (or other) wager on that?
BTW, you might check and see if labor STILL spent money and/or endorsed Maienshein in 2004 — always good for labor to do, come labor negotiation time. I wouldn’t be surprised if they did.
And BTW, I’ve heard that Brian ran for City Attorney in 2008 because otherwise he’d lose what he had in his city council reelection war chest. Conjecture was that it was a way to do some free “image” advertising for a future race.
Few considered Maienschein a serious City Attorney candidate. While such war chest money did not come from the labor unions (they have to run IE campaigns, of course), it still seems a bit untoward to spend such money from a previous position just for some positive publicity.
A poll done by the Nationally-recognized “Survey USA” firm
for Channel 10 on May 21, 2008, showed these results
for the San Diego City Attorney primary election:
Aguirre…………………..29%
Peters……………………21%
Maienschein………….16%
Goldsmith……………..14%
Lepine…………………..06%
Undecided…………….14%
With timely assistance from the Republican Party of SD,
Jan Goldsmith then came from 4th place to 1st in the
closing two weeks.
But two weeks out, it was anybody’s ballgame as to
who would make the runoff with Mr. Aguirre: Peters,
Goldsmith and Maienschein were all right there.
Full poll results cited above are available here:
http://www.surveyusa.com/client/PollReport.aspx?g=f8bf1e8b-e700-4575-89c9-ae759f9cfc2c&c=37
Correction on the link to the Survey USA poll of May 21, 2008.
Here is the right one:
http://www.surveyusa.com/client/PollReport.aspx?g=d099ce66-6d8f-4759-9825-872419cff473&c=37
Maienschein was quite popular in his district — in no small part for his efforts after the fire. But he had no citywide support.
I suspect that an analysis of the vote would show that over 50% of his vote total for City Attorney came from his city council district. Probably 70%.
Maien – schein, everyone, M-a-i-e-n, not like the State of Maine. We have corrected where needed. Proof:
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/brian-maienschein/13/bb/2b3
Of course, you could always just use “Brian.”
Clearly, Brian M. needs to change his last name. Or spell it right.