Morning Report: The Pitch To Reshape County Governance

By Voice of San Diego

April 20, 2026

Tomorrow, County Board Chair Terra Lawson-Remer will ask fellow board members to advance a ballot measure to shift county governance to hand supervisors more power.

Bureaucrats have long wielded more power in county government than they do at City Hall – and Lawson-Remer’s proposal seeks to shift the balance of power.

Among the proposed changes: board votes on high-level county hires, a third term for supervisors and new auditing and budget review officials that report to supervisors.

Our Lisa Halverstadt delivered a rundown of Lawson-Remer’s proposals – and both arguments for and against them, including a couple beefs from a prominent supporter the supervisor wants to lead efforts to implement the changes.

You can read the full story here.

More Politics: Our editors explained just how big of a deal the reforms could be for county operations. They also got the results of a poll that asked voters if they would support the reforms. Read more in the Politics Report here.

The charter measure isn’t the only big item on the Board of Supervisors’ Tuesday agenda.

The board will also consider Supervisor Joel Anderson’s proposals to set guardrails for county-funded polling and increase transparency surrounding board subcommittees that have largely been meeting in secret. Halverstadt previewed Anderson’s polling and subcommittee proposals.

Also on the agenda:

President Donald Trump’s historic unpopularity has fueled excitement of a midterm blue wave among Democratic politicos nationwide. But to local voters, the shambolic race to replace Governor Gavin Newsom is a stone-cold bummer.

The contest was shaping up to be a potential nightmare scenario for California liberals. A nearly endless list of Democratic candidates fractured voters, giving rise to the possibility of the unthinkable: two Republicans clinching the top two primary spots and advancing to the general, potentially shutting out Democrats from the race.

The rapid resignation and dropping out of frontrunner U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell after allegations surfaced that he’d sexually assaulted multiple women reshaped the race. His withdrawal may give one of the other two frontrunners – billionaire Tom Steyer and former Congressmember Katie Porter – enough juice to squeak by Republicans. That should be good news for liberal voters, right? Not exactly.

Sacramento reporter Nadia Lathan spoke to multiple voters whose mood can best be described as “disheartened.” The sense that Dems have dropped the ball on governing America’s largest state looms heavy on their minds and is fueling a frustration with politics in general.

“I’m tired of being deceived. I’m not happy with any political party right now. I think people really need to make them accountable,” Becky Fredrickson, an independent who usually votes blue, told Lathan.

Speaking of the Governor’s race…on this week’s podcast, our hosts dug into the messy politics surrounding the contest and bravely asked the question – “Is something wrong with people who have the audacity and self-assuredness to think they should be California’s top dog?” Probably.

They also reviewed a couple of stories decades in the making. The first is about the city’s promise to build a fire station in southeastern San Diego. Eleven years later, firefighters are still working in a temporary tent. The other is about San Diego Unified’s promise to replace the plumbing at a southeastern San Diego middle school, which they’d included as a selling point in three successive bond measures. Fourteen years later, and that school is still springing leaks.

Pretty disheartening. Hey, I’m sensing a theme here.

Voice of San Diego is a nonprofit news organization supported by our members. We reveal why things are the way they are and expose facts that people in power might not want out there and explain complex local public policy issues so you can be engaged and make good decisions. Sign up for our newsletters at voiceofsandiego.org/newsletters/.