San Diego County Supervisor Vargas Quits, Citing Threats and Harassment

It's not just crazies.

After winning reelection by twenty four points in the general election, Nora Vargas, Chair of the Board of San Diego’s County Supervisors, announced she would not be taking the oath of office for a second term.

In her resignation statement, the District One representative cited “personal safety and security reasons.” She was the target of personal attacks and online vitriol following her leadership role involving a recent county policy aiming to limit cooperation with federal immigration officials in advance of incoming President-elect Donald Trump’s promised crackdown on undocumented immigrants.

Via Voice of San Diego:

• She has spoken often of her dismay at mounting public disruptions in Board of Supervisors meetings and said she has faced death threats and other extreme forms of harassment.

• “I have stalkers, I have people who harass me on phones, there’s all sorts of things,” she said during a recent Board of Supervisors discussion about changing meeting rules to prevent disruptions.

I think she’s on to something worthy of further examination. Is it a coincidence that the same Supervisor(s) targeted at public events by disruptive individuals also get the most (and most personal) threats?

I don’t think so. I’m not necessarily thinking about the specific individuals who argue passionately for their causes, and doubt that involving the judicial system will solve a problem generally perceived as “crazies” acting out.

Public outcry and leadership involvement in denunciations about this sort of behavior along with discussing it as a threat to democracy is a salve that could minimize extra-legal activism in this realm.

As a nation, the United States has risen through the ranks of the top 20 countries where people use social media to organize offline violence in just the last four years. At number eight, the country claiming to be the oldest continuous democracy now ranks sightly ahead of (Assad’s regime) Syria, and just behind Afghanistan.

I’d love to see a discussion about that particular statistic involving all the members of the San Diego County Board of Supervisors.

Back to the specifics of this resignation…

Elected to the Board of Supervisors in 2020, Nora Vargas replaced former Supervisor Greg Cox, and was the first Hispanic woman to serve on the board. She succeeded then-Supervisor Nathan Fletcher as board chair after his resignation amid scandal.

Side note: A civil case against Fletcher may come to a conclusion this week as his attorneys have asked the court to dismiss the case in full in light of accuser Grecia Figueroa voluntarily dismissing claims of sexual assault, battery and gender violence from her lawsuit. A tangential revelation coming from discovery in that case concerns a gun the former Supervisor carried in his boot– because of threats he’d received and an arson attempt at his City Heights residence.

Former Supervisor Vargas had a bumpy first term, including a public dispute with organized labor groups and complaints by residents near the Tijuana River about inaction in responding to the region’s ongoing sewage crisis. There remain multiple legal claims accusing her and her staff of making racist comments about prospective employees, along with sub rosa maneuvers to prevent Michael Vu, a longtime county administrator, from being hired as the county’s chief administrative officer.

Here’s the deal, though. Regardless of Vargas' stances or the complaints about her performance, liberal members of the Board of Supervisors have endured an ongoing campaign of harassment and personal attacks by a group of right wing activists. As has been typical of right wing crusades against elected officials nationwide, anonymous death threats and racial animus have coincided with these campaigns.

A local TV news outlet acquired records last August showing that the County spent $41,000 in the prior month for a security detail for Vargas. Earlier, 10News reported the county spent nearly $2 million on a protective detail for former Board Chair Nathan Fletcher over a year and a half.

According to Politico:

• “There are no known or active threats towards Chairwoman Nora Vargas or any of the County Supervisors,” said Kimberly King, a spokesperson for the San Diego County Sheriff’s Office.

An underreported story about San Diego County Sheriffs has been their history of hostility toward political figures not considered to have positions in line with the rank and file officers' political action efforts.

These range from a 2009 raid, based on a neighbor’s noise complaint on then-candidate Francine Busby’s fundraiser in which multiple people were pepper-sprayed and a hostess was arrested, to a quid pro quo in a 2023 deal with the SD Police Officers Association funding opposition to now-Supervisor Monica Montgomery’s campaign.

County Sheriff Kelly Martinez weighed in on the Supervisors’ migrant resolution by saying she would not be following the policy limiting her cooperation with immigration authorities unless they have a warrant signed by a state or federal judge.

It’s my opinion that the Sheriff’s Office really isn’t all that concerned about threats made against politicians they don’t agree with.

Vargas’ District 1 encompasses 631,000 people in much of San Diego's South County. It includes Chula Vista, San Ysidro, Otay Mesa, Imperial Beach and five unincorporated communities like Bonita and Barrio Logan.

Her departure leaves the board with a 2-2 ideological split, and it’s unlikely the sides will agree on an interim appointed candidate, so a special election is in order.

Three Democrats. including Chula Vista Councilmember Carolina Chavez, San Diego City Councilmember Vivian Moreno, and Imperial Beach Mayor Paloma Aguirre have declared an intention to replace Vargas. Chula Vista Mayor John McCann, a Republican, has also confirmed he is running.

The hopes and dreams of activists who sought to foster more progressive governance in the entity responsible for funding and directing much of the regions’ health and human services are once again on hold.

Facing the Sisyphean challenge of snap election turnout, with three Democratic candidates and one Republican, it’s possible the body will revert to its previous form, dominated by men dutifully saving monies for a future rainy day that is already here. Republican McCann has high name recognition in the district and should get more support than members of his party typically receive in the South Bay.

No matter the outcome, informed observers predict a more “moderate” course for the County Supervisors in the near future.

Given the probability of the region being caught between the incoming administration’s anti-migrant agenda and the state’s promises of a safer space, there is little reason for optimism about furthering the reforms made over the past four years.

The county’s funding of social service programs for incoming migrants could lead to punitive measures coming from the Trump administration. Its efforts on housing and health services for homeless humans could be thwarted by politicians who see mandatory incarceration in some form as a solution.

The snail’s pace of providing more oversight to the operations of the Sheriff's Department and County jails will likely come to halt with a board unlikely to challenge the authority of Kelly Martinez, who’s been unwilling to implement even those reforms promised in her election campaign.

The unions representing County employees are already anticipating a less friendly environment, regardless of any outcome.

Some have speculated that former-Supervisor Vargas’ claims about threats is cover for something else, like a legal scandal. I don’t think that’s the case, given the general temperament of the region and the country in general.

The Violence, Inequality and Power Lab (Based at USD) has released another study of violent threats against of local elected officials in San Diego, Riverside, and Imperial Counties.

An article by Ioli Filmeridis, a research and policy manager at the lab, which is part of the University of San Diego’s Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice provides generalized data about the scope of the problem, but doesn’t get to the point of identifying the characteristics of individuals making those threats.

I have no problem with their statements about threats toward elected officials being a bipartisan or nonpartisan issue. This country has a mental health problem to be sure.

From the Western City journal:

• Forty-three percent of survey respondents said that threats and harassment have caused them to consider leaving office. An equal number are less likely to recommend public service, and a quarter indicated they were less likely to publicly address hot-button topics. Six percent say they have changed their votes due to harassment and threats. Survey and interview respondents said that these issues caused them to fear for their own safety and that of their families, affecting their engagement with constituents and their mental health. For women and minoritized groups, aggression could reduce already low levels of representation.

• As one interviewee shared, “I’m just a normal person; it’s so hard to do the job if all you hear is the negative things.” Others noted that protestors are “vomiting up anger” making it, “an impossible time to be an official.” These feelings of precarity can increase stress, lead to disengagement from constituents, and higher turnover of electeds. Disruptions at public meetings close spaces for productive and civil debate. This undermines representatives’ ability to work on behalf of the community, decreasing government functionality, and heightening perceptions of ineffective governance, with the penultimate effect of undermining democracy.

I think more effort, based on studying the language used and content of those threats, could change the dynamics involved in perceptions of the environments public officials must endure.

It’s no secret that hard-core MAGA types are behind threats generated toward anybody or anything deemed unflattering about the incoming president. Are scholars now refusing to identify the nature of threat sources against politicians ‘obeying in advance’ in the face of a looming autocracy?

Failing to describe or study the general nature of the persons motivated to make such utterances in this localized study allows those in aligned political circles to benefit from the actions of hyper-partisan activists.

If it was to be found that threats aimed at a particular politician were consistently racist (for example) than it would be politically wise for overt opposition figures to disassociate themselves from those threats. At a minimum such disclosures would send a message to extremists that their actions are not helpful or consistent with our country’s ideals of free and fair debates.

Four years ago, local progressives had high hopes for the future of San Diego County. As is true with the rest of the country in terms of expectations, they’ll have to wait and see.

For now it seems, we across the political spectrum have a struggle to defend democracy at the local level in progress.

Shadow Cabinet by Timothy Snyder at Thinking About (Eds Note: I love this idea. It just needs American branding.)

• Like so much else in British public life, the institution of the shadow cabinet was unfamiliar to me, but I soon grew to appreciate and admire it. The "cabinet," of course, was the assembly of government ministers, led in Britain by the prime minister. The party in opposition (the Labour Party when I arrived in Britain in 1991) appointed its own leading members to "shadow" each government minister, including the prime minister.

• Shadow meant follow. The shadow ministers "shadowed" the actual ministers, in the sense of following their every move, criticizing policy and offering alternatives. Importantly, the shadow minister was always available to offer commentary to the press on his or her area of expertise. This greatly enriched public life. At any point a journalist, and thus the public, had access to an alternative point of view, one which was both pertinently expert and politically relevant. Shadow ministers did not always become real ministers after the next elections, but often they did.

• Four years ago today, Donald Trump led an attempt to overthrow a democratic election and thereby undo our constitutional system. In two weeks, the same man will be inaugurated president of the United States, this time with a centibillionaire as the unelected de facto head of government and with anti-qualified anti-patriots as his cabinet nominees. What to do? People talk about resistance, and about opposition. What forms should these take? I have written elsewhere about what citizens can do. Leading politicians of the opposition party, the Democratic Party in the United States, have a special responsibility, and also special opportunities. One of these is to form a shadow cabinet. I want to join the voices of those advocating for this. (Here I am speaking for the idea on television a few weeks ago.)

***

How religion, wellness bros and conspiracies made some Americans doubt seed oils by Bob Smietana at Religion News

• Ward said concerns about seed oil or other food, which are exacerbated by mistrust of the government and large corporations, can be used to mislead people. She said food influencers can tap into that distrust in order to build an audience and sell products — offering people simple solutions to what are really complicated problems.

• Ward has simple advice on how to respond when that happens.

• “When people ask me about such things, I ask if the person they are listening to has a merch page,” she said. “If they have a merch page, walk away.”

***

It's Not Looking Great - The slow assassination of the free press. By Hamilton Nolan at How Things Work

• There were many great journalists at Gawker Media, just like there are many great journalists at the LA Times and the Washington Post. But all of those journalists are like sailors on a ship. The strongman system that we are heading into does not have to pick off each individual journalist; it only has to sink the ships. It does not have to go after each crusading journalist. It only has to break the credibility of the journalistic institutions. Once you get the owners of the publications to equivocate, to give up on that economically irrational commitment to pure editorial freedom, you can poison the public’s faith that what they are reading will be, at least most of the time, an honest effort at the truth. Once the readers lose that faith, the journalism loses its power. The politicians’ job is done. They have neutralized the referees.

• Even though I have spent years writing about all the ways that the mainstream press has failed and all the reasons why the New York Times sucks, I retain my sentimentality about the press. Where else, in this scam-ridden country, can you bring down the rich and powerful and corrupt with nothing but words? Journalism, for all the flaws in the way it is practiced, is a great thing. To see high quality publications bought and broken by rich people is like watching a drunk hedge fund dickhead throwing up on a Picasso that he hung in his yacht. It’s just a fucking shame. As you watch this all accelerate over the next four years, just remember that the slow decline of the public’s belief in journalism was not an accident. It was an assassination. I hope we all make it out the other side.