Before the California recall election, let’s reality-check GOP candidate Kevin Faulconer
Kevin Faulconer has the most political experience of the leading Republican candidates running to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom, should he be recalled.
Faulconer is the former mayor of San Diego, a Republican who governed in a city that has picked a Democratic presidential candidate in the last seven elections. Before becoming mayor, he was on the San Diego City Council. Altogether, he held elected office in the southern metropolis for 14 years.
By contrast, neither Larry Elder nor John Cox have held an elected seat.
In an hour-long interview with McClatchy California opinion editors, Faulconer said he succeeded as a Republican in a blue city with a Democratic-majority city council, and that he could do so as governor of deeply blue California.
His answers to key questions, however, showed that he is not much different from most politicians. He dodged, exaggerated and ignored what he did not care to answer.
Here is a reality check on those main topics:
On his proposed middle-class tax cut:
Claim: “Our state’s too expensive. Just flat out, it’s too expensive. And that’s one of the reasons why I put forward what will be the largest middle class tax cut in California history.”
Reality check: The tax cut is a linchpin of Faulconer’s campaign, and he eagerly promotes it. But the reality is that a governor has limited power to raise taxes unilaterally. The idea will go nowhere without support by the Legislature. And it’s dominated by Democrats, who enjoy supermajorities in the Assembly and Senate. The only way they will grant Faulconer such support is if it makes sense for them politically.
On handling homelessness:
Claim: “As mayor of San Diego we actually were able to reduce homelessness by double digits. I did not allow tent encampments on the sidewalks in San Diego … we helped people, and we cared about people enough not to let them die on the sidewalk.”
Reality check: According to fact checking service Politifact, the number of homeless individuals did drop when Faulconer led San Diego as mayor. But it did not go down as much as he references, and it was homeless people “dying on the sidewalk” that spurred him into action.
In terms of clearing sidewalks of encampments, John Brady, a member of the San Diego Regional Task Force on Homelessness, said removing the camps simply meant pushing the homeless from San Diego to outlying areas.
Brady told Politifact that Faulconer got engaged on the homeless issue when a Hepatitis A outbreak spread through San Diego’s street population from 2017 to 2018. Hundreds got sick and 20 people died.
As for a double digit drop in the number of homeless people, Brady said that occurred among the unsheltered homeless, not the overall population of those without permanent housing.
On building more housing:
Claim: “We need to increase supply in California, period. And we need to provide the incentives to do that and the legislation and policies to do that … We did a citywide environmental impact report, it took over a year to do it because you had to go through that process. But I wanted to streamline it so you can say the zoning is done, you can get a permit, over the counter; we reduce costs, we reduce parking regulations in our transit corridors, we took action. And in fact, this plan will allow for the construction of 100,000 new units in the city of San Diego.”
Reality check: Faulconer did reform how housing projects were handled in San Diego. But the results are still out on how effective they have been.
This is what the Voice of San Diego reports: “San Diego is among the most expensive cities in the country, with more than half of its residents unable to cover their cost of living, according to a study last year by the San Diego Regional Economic Development Corp. Housing costs have grown consistently in the last five years, and the share of renters devoting more than a third of their income to housing has increased 44%. The city’s stock of reasonably affordable housing is in steep decline.
“Faulconer aimed to combat those trends by building more homes. But after years of housing deregulation, San Diego is not building significantly more homes now than when he took office, nor are developers outbuilding counterparts in San Francisco or Los Angeles, according to a Voice of San Diego analysis of U.S. Census Bureau building permit data. San Diego isn’t even approaching the housing production of cities like Denver or Seattle.”
Vote no on the recall
The editorial boards of The Sacramento Bee, Fresno Bee, Modesto Bee, Merced Sun-Star and the San Luis Obispo Tribune encourage voters to reject the recall of Gov. Gavin Newsom and remember to complete the entire ballot. Election Day is Sept. 14.