A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. --2^nd Amendment to the United States Constitution

By Dennis Moore (a survivor of gun violence)

June 15, 2016 (San Diego)--The framers of the Constitution did not have in mind that the right to bear arms would result in the countless deaths of ordinary citizens by other ordinary citizens throughout our great country by “Glocks” and other semi-automatic weapons at malls and schools. Nor could they have envisioned the shooting deaths of  nine members of a church in South Carolina at a worship service by a deranged young man, as well as the mass killings by gunfire at a theater in Colorado.

By Chisato Iversen

Miriam Raftery contributed to this report

Photos, left: Loretta Sanchez and Kamala Harris

June 9, 2016 (San Diego)--Three dozen candidates vied in the primary race to replace California’s U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer, a long-serving Democratic who is stepping down.  The November run-off will be between two Democratic women, both minorities: the state’s Attorney General Kamala Harris, and and  10-term Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez.

By Miriam Raftery

June 9, 2016 (San Diego)—Seven Assembly seats and one state Senate race in San Diego County were among those on the ballot Tuesday.   Under the rules for state legislative elections, the top two vote-getters in each race will advance to a run-off in November. 

In a startling turn of events, the run-off in the 71^st Assembly seat vacated by Brian Jones due to term limits will be between Santee Mayor Randy Voepel and jeweler Leo Hamel in November—despite Hamel announcing he was dropping out of the race shortly after the ballots were printed. 

"In a “top-two” primary, the two candidates with the most votes advance to the General Election. The only way a candidate can be removed from the ballot is by dying or via court order. This must occur no later than 68 days before the election (Per Elections Code 8810)," Sam Mahood, press secretary for Secretary of State Alex Padilla told East County Magazine.  San Diego Registrar Michael Vu confirmed that state election code provides that Hamel will be on the November ballot, once the results are officially certified.

The district spans two counties. In San Diego, Voepel got 61%, Hamel 27%, and businessman Tony Teora 12%.  In Riverside County, the placement order is the same, though Teora had 14% there.

By Miriam Raftery

June 8,2016 (San Diego’s East County)—Timothy Caruthers won 59% of the vote in the Grossmont-Cuyamaca Community College District 4 race. He will run off in November against Elena Adams, who received 33% of the vote. Incumbent Mary Kay Rosinski, who withdrew from the race but whose name still appeared on the ballot, got 9%. 

Although the race is nonpartisan, Rosinski was a Democrat and Adams has the backing of the Democratic Party after Rosinski’s withdrawal.  Caruthers is endorsed by the Republican Party, giving the GOP a chance to pick up a seat on the community college board in November.

Photos:  Kathleen Harmon, lifetime San Diego County Democratic Central Committee member, Miriam Plotkin, Democratic Central Committee member from La  Mesa, Asssemblywoman Shirley Weber,  former Secretary of State and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton

"It is an amazing experience to believe we will have the first opportunity to elect a woman president—to see what people used to say was the impossible happen.” – Assemblywoman Shirley Weber

By Miriam Raftery

June 8,2016 (San Diego)—For the first time in U.S. history, a woman is poised to be the nominee of a major political party on the presidential race in November. Hillary Clinton has taken nearly 56 percent of the vote in California over Senator Bernie Sanders at 43 percent, with 99% of precincts reporting, capturing enough pledged delegates to  have a majority nationwide.

Clinton, who also leads soundly in superdelegates,  is now the presumptive Democratic Party nominee, though Sanders has said he will remain in the race until the July convention.

June 7, 2016 (San Diego's East County) -- A lot has changed in the 71st Assembly district race.  Leo Hamel dropped out, though his name still appears on the ballot.  East County Magazine invited both remaining challengers vying for the open seat vacated by Brian Jones due to term limits onto our radio show.

Santee Mayor Randy  Voepel failed to respond to multiple requests. Businessman Tony Teora did sit down for an interview with East County Magazine on KNSJ to discuss the hottest issues facing our region.  You can hear his interview by clicking the orange arrow above.

By Miriam Raftery

June 4, 2016 (San Diego) –  Democratic presidential candidate and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders will be back in San Diego on Sunday, June 5th at Qualcomm Stadium’s parking lot for a “Future to Believe in and Get Out the Vote Concert and Rally.”  Doors open at 3 p.m. 

The concert and rally will feature Nahko and Medicine for the People, Michael Mowgli & The Altruists, Joel Rafael, and special guests George Lopez, Shailene Woodley, Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, Kendrick Sampson and Dr. Cornel West.

This event is free and open to the public, but RSVPs are strongly encouraged. Admission is first come, first served.  To RSVP or get details visit https://go.berniesanders.com/page/event/detail/rally/gplf2x

Update June 3, 2016:  Trump has fired back, stating, "“My temperament is so much tougher, and so much better, than her temperament. And, by the way, we need a tough temperament,” The Hill reports. He further blasted Clinton over the federal investigation into her emails, claiming "Hillary Clinton has to go to jail."

By Donald H. Harrison; photo by Chris Stone

Originally published in Times of San Diego, a San Diego Online News Association member

June 2, 2016 (San Diego)--Democratic presidential hopeful and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton took aim in San Diego at Donald Trump’s views on foreign policy, saying they are “dangerously incoherent” and “not even really ideas, just a series of bizarre rants, personal feuds and outright lies.”

“He is not just unprepared, he is temperamentally unfit to hold an office that requires knowledge, stability and immense responsibility,” she said in a major foreign policy speech.

Peppering her speech with one-liners casting doubt upon Trump’s readiness for office, Clinton spoke in the Prado Auditorium of Balboa Park’s House of Hospitality before 300 invited attendees and nearly as many members of the media, whose working areas described a giant “L” on two sides of the room.  Her speech was interrupted by some 40 instances of applause, cheers, and occasional “boos”– the latter deriding Trump’s positions.

By Miriam Raftery; Chisato Iverson, ECM intern, also contributed to this report

Photo: Screenshot on CNN today

June 2, 2016 (San Diego) – In a speech on foreign policy today in San Diego,  former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton slammed her rival in the presidential campaign, Donald Trump for suggesting  that America should encourage Japan “to get nuclear weapons, and said this about a war between Japan and North Korea—and I quote, `If they do, they do. Good luck, enjoy yourself, folks.’  I wonder if he even realizes he’s talking about nuclear war.” 

East County News Service

June 1, 2016 (San Diego) – Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the Democratic frontrunner in the presidential campaign, is slated to make a”major national security address” this Thursday, June 2^nd in San Diego’s Balboa Park.  Clinton is set to appear at 11:30 a.m. at The Prado, her campaign announced today.

“Clinton will rebuke the fear, bigotry, and misplaced defeatism that Trump has been selling to the American people. She will make the affirmative case for the exceptional role America has played and must continue to play in order to keep our country safe and our economy growing,” he campaign said in a statement.

By Miriam Raftery

Photos: Left:  Trump in San Diego by Shor Masori, courtesy of San Diego Jewish World, a member of the San Diego Online News Association. Right: Police in riot gear, courtesy of Nadin Abbott,Reporting San Diego.  Cover:  Protesters, by Nadin Abbott.

May 28, 2016 (San Diego) –Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump spoke to a crowd of several thousand people at the San Diego Convention Center yesterday, while a crowd estimated  by police at at least 1,000 people  protested outside. The protesters included representatives from labor, the Democratic Party, Mexican Americans, Muslims, women’s rights advocates and an array of progressive groups who urged that voters oppose Trump's divisive politics.

Trump sounded his familiar themes denouncing illegal immigration and calling for a wall, slammed trade deficits with Mexico, China and other nations, said he would eliminate Common Core in education, inexplicably claimed California has no drought, called media “bloodsuckers” and bashed Judge Gonzalo Curiel, an Obama appointee set to hear a civil fraud trail in San Diego after the election over the now defunct Trump University.  

 “I love you San Diego—get out and vote,” he concluded. (View video of Trump speech on CSPAN.)  

East County News Service

Photo: (from left to right) Grossmont Healthcare District board member Rancy Lenac and City of El Cajon Mayor Bill Wells

May 30, 2016 (La Mesa) - The San Diego East County Chamber of Commerce will host its upcoming First Friday Breakfast starting at 7:15 a.m., Friday, June 3, at Cottonwood Golf Club, 3121 Willow Glen Dr., El Cajon. It’s the Chamber’s annual breakfast featuring elected officials providing updates on East County cities. Confirmed speakers at press time include the mayors of El Cajon, Lemon Grove and Santee.

Story and photo by Miriam Raftery

Photo: Assembly Chamber, State Capitol

May 30, 2016 (Sacramento) – California law prohibits the use of video from state Assembly hearings for political campaigns or commercial purposes, although these same videos can be used by news outlets. A candidate who runs Assembly video footage in an ad can be criminally charged—even if the video is of himself speaking on the Assembly floor.

Now a lawsuit has been filed against the state claiming that this law violates First Amendment free speech, Courthouse News reports.

Plutocrats United: Campaign Money, the Supreme Court, and the Distortion of American Elections, by Richard L. Hasen (Yale University Press, New Haven, Connecticut, 2016, 241 pages).

Book Review by Dennis Moore

May 28, 2016 (San Diego’s East County) - Plutocrats United: Campaign Money, the Supreme Court, and the Distortion of American Elections, this scholarly and insightful book by Richard L. Hasen, a leading expert on election law, gives a compelling answer to the dilemmas of money in politics, and comes at a time when presidential candidates such as Bernie Sanders has as his mantra campaign finance and reform. Hasen, Chancellor’s Professor of Law and Political Science at the University of California, Irvine, has written this book in the midst of one of the most unusual presidential campaigns in memory, where the character and personas of Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders seem to shape our political history and agendas.

By Miriam Raftery

May 27, 2016 (San Diego) – The San Diego County Republican Party’s list of endorsed candidates has a glaring omission at the top:  there is no endorsement for President.  Donald Trump, who visits San Diego today and this week won enough delegates to mathematically qualify to win the national Republican Party nomination, has been snubbed by the San Diego GOP.