Can we get some more Republicans to place a pro-SANDAG tax resolution on their City Council’s agenda? We really need to do this to get each and every Republican Council member and Mayor on record about this SANDAG tax.
Escondido City Council placed it on the agenda and not one council member voted for the tax. Poway and La Mesa rejected it unanimously as well. It is now fair to say that every Council Member in Escondido, Poway, and La Mesa (as well as two in Vista and one on El Cajon) are NOT tax and spend Republicans –– one could even call them taxpayer champions.
El Cajon and Vista passed it with the support of “tax and spend Republicans” (over the loud objections of Amanda Rigby, John Franklin, and Bob McClellan). Coronado has a vote scheduled in May.
What happens if you are in … say … Santee, though? For argument’s sake, let’s assume that Santee’s SANDAG representative, Jack Dale, intended to vote for the SANDAG tax (I can’t see him doing that but humor me) AND, nobody on the Council put the resolution on the agenda. We would have to assume that those Councilmen either (a) didn’t care about what was being said in their name or (b) were complicit with the SANDAG tax scheme Dale approved.
IF Jack Dale voted for the SANDAG tax (and again, I am just using him as an example, I doubt he would), then every single member of the Santee City Council would be tagged as tax and spend Republicans; we would have no other evidence to prove otherwise.
If you’re Randy Voepel, it doesn’t matter; you are going to be elected to the Assembly so you don’t care about your tax record. If you’re Ronn Hall, you are in a safe seat until 2018 — your challenger will call you a tax and spend Republican but you can probably survive the attack because it’s old.
Gosh, if you’re running for office in November, you might be in a pickle. I’d want to be on record about the SANDAG tax. If my opponent supported Dale’s approval (once again, I can’t see Jack Dale voting for a new tax), I would be printing up the campaign mailers calling him a “tax and spend Republican”. I would be reminding the Republican Party of San Diego County that my opponent ignored the party’s long standing “no new taxes” pledge despite the specific clarification from the Chairman. I would call every taxpayer advocacy group in the County and ask them to point out that I was the candidate who was a taxpayer champion … like the Republicans in Escondido, Poway, and La Mesa are. I would ask them to call my opponent a “tax and spend Republican”.
This is one of those rare times in politics where the moral and the practical actually intersect. Why wouldn’t every Republican in the County want to go on record of being a taxpayer champion?
I used the Santee example because that’s one of the last bastions of fiscal conservatism in the County — it ain’t gonna happen in Santee. Jack Dale won’t vote for this SANDAG tax and, if he considered an approval, Mayor Voepel would remove him before he could vote. If they put a resolution on the agenda, it would be shot down FASTER than they rejected it on the Escondido Council. The members of the Santee Council are taxpayer champions.
…at least, I THINK they are (gulp)
It would be nice to see a resolution on the Santee Council agenda, though — we could use another unanimous rejection of the SANDAG tax scheme.
Comments 15
Brian,
Thanks for writing article. As a candidate for Santee city council this year I STRONGLY OPPOSE this sandag resolution!!!! I have asked my current council to put this agenda as a citizen of Santee. We will fight this in 2016!!!!
Dustin Trotter
I liked SANDAG more back when they were called the County Board of Supervisors.
Well those Albondigas lunches are powerful things. Talked with Councilmen Hall & McNelis. Appreciate McNelis’s lead and Hall’s second. This is going on the council agenda per the two of them. Would
Would.
Wood.
Statement from Councilman Chris Cate on SANDAG Tax Hike
San Diego, CA: “I join Mayor Kevin L. Faulconer in opposition to SANDAG’s $18 billion dollar sales tax measure. This mega-tax will have a negative impact on hard-working families that are already over-taxed and struggling to makes ends meet. I do not support billions of public dollars going to bureaucracies that have fleeced taxpayers in the past, while not addressing the true issue at hand: traffic congestion.”
The vote is tomorrow — having it on an agenda for a Council meeting post 4/29/16 will not be of any help as far as the measure making it to the ballot. If the SANDAG board approves it, the ballot language is what will be decided next, not whether or not it’s on the ballot.
Kudos to Mayor Faulconer and Councilmen Cate and Gloria for openly discussing the measure. Even if on opposite sides –all deserve credit for transparency.
Author
Kristine, follow this strategy; I want to defeat this tax.
The Board of Supes has the final say on the ballot approval– We want more councils to oppose to bring the heat to Dave Roberts.
If the Supes approve, we need a huge list, of Council members like you who have publicly opposed it, for our mailers.
Polls say they MIGHT get 66.67 % IF there is no formal opposition. The opposition won’t just be “formal”– it wil be massive
Brian,
There is a better chance that the Padres win the World Series AND The Chargers win the Superbowl than that this measure gets a 2/3 vote. All it would take to guarantee defeat would be a Republican Party mailer opposing the tax. I assume the Party whose “cornerstone is opposition to any and all attempts at NEW taxation” would do at least that.
Author
I agree HQ but this is the problem– mailers cost money. RPSDC spends a lot of donors’ money to get Republicans who hew to the “no new taxes” plank. When those elected Republicans say one thing and do another, it costs donors MORE money to:
a) defeat the new taxes they were elected to defeat and
b) recruit, train, and elect candidates over the Tax and Spend Republicans.
It’s a never ending cycle of abuse by misrepresentation and indicative of a dysfunctional relationship. I seek to break that cycle of abuse here and now.
Brian,
I am confused (again).
In a previous post, I asked you how many of the 1100 Republicans (your number) who made the “no new taxes” pledge have broken that pledge. You answered:
“Less than ten.”
This doesn’t sound like an epidemic of “misrepresentation.”
Author
You just illustrated why I am an advocate for the signed pledge. Most local officials aren’t offered the opportunity to make that pledge. Once they sign their names to it, they know they will be held accountable.
If I had my way, the taxpayer protection pledge would be signed by an candidate, from dogcatcher in Descanso to POTUS,, who seeks the Republican endorsement.
Our local effort is an implied promise (because it’s in our local plank). If we required those seeking our endorsement to sign the Pledge, we could save a lot of money.
This is the simplest and easiest thing to rally around:
RP: Will you sign this? http://www.atr.org/take-the-pledge
CANDIDATE: Uh…no.
RP: Thanks for playing
Author
Jack Dale not only voted FOR the tax, he promised to go door-to-door, to the 60,000 Santee residents and tell them “you NEED to pay higher taxes.” Cool. See you on the streets of Santee, Jack (I doubt you will really follow through with that promise).
Mayor Randy Voepel registered his dissent through Dale. Now, we need to get the Santee Council to vote against this tax so we can see just out of touch Dale is with Santee.
Measure passes with a 61% weighted vote.
i will be at the gop exec committee meeting mon nite
Brian,
I do believe you will miss out on many good candidates who understandably (regardless of the particular issue) are hesitant to sign a “never under any circumstance will I…” pledge. That being said, I do admire your willingness to do more than simply talk about an issue that is obviously of utmost importance to you.