The San Diego City Council on Tuesday appointed Ed Harris to serve out the remainder of Mayor Kevin Faulconer’s vacated council term in District 2.
Doug Porter at San Diego Free Press wrote a good article outlining some of possible logic behind the selection.
The Council was faced with 20 potential candidates to fill the seat for the remaining eight months of the term, before a newly elected council member is seated in the first week of December. (As a reminder, Lorie Zapf is running for re-election to the Council; as a result of redistricting she is now in District 2.)
Of the 20 applicants, only one was a Republican, Dan Holstein. He had no chance of being selected, as Democrats have a 5-3 advantage on the Council.
This meant the Republican council members had to plug their nose and pick the candidate who could best fill the seat, one they could reasonably work with while not disrupting the day-to-day workings of the council. There was plenty of disruption in the several months prior to Faulconer’s election, and not all of it was over philosophical differences.
Realistically, there were only three to five candidates out of the bunch that had a serious chance for appointment through council consensus.
Council President Todd Gloria was very supportive of Gretchen Newsom, a vocal proponent and a personal friend of Zapf’s Democratic opponent Sarah Boot.
Three of the candidates – Newsom, Howard Wayne and Don Mullen — were being pushed by the Labor Council. But it was announced at the beginning of the meeting that Mullen had bowed out of the process.
From the council members’ perspectives, another important factor may have been that of the viable candidates still in the mix as of Tuesday, few had the background to understand the issues which the city faces and how the city operates.
City Hall insiders say that Harris has a good grasp of the issues and city departments, and would require the least amount of on the job training. Most importantly – the Labor Council fought his appointment. As a lifeguard he is part of a labor organization, but he was not labor’s pick for this seat. It is no secret the lifeguard’s union has been at odds with both the municipal employees and and firefighters associations.
Sometimes you have to pick your poison. No disrespect to Harris, but he was the most tolerable option for the Republicans on the council, representing the best choice of a candidate who actually could garner two of the votes necessary from the five Democrats.
Were there better candidates? Possibly, but there were not five votes to be cobbled together for any of them.
The real question may not be why the Republicans voted for Harris, but why two Democrats decided to support him. Sources say it is because they simply thought he was a better candidate — and they know how to count to five as well.