San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
ANDERSON TO FOCUS ON HOMELESS, TRANSPARENCY
First new face to represent District 2 in nearly three decades
Joel Anderson first ran for elected office in 1998. He didn’t have much experience with politics, but he ran for State Assembly at the encouragement of some friends.
He didn’t even make it out of the primary, falling to fellow Republican — and future two-term Assemblywoman — Charlene Zettler by more than 10 percentage points.
But Anderson, 60, says losing that race turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to him.
It taught him several lessons about effective campaigning and the power a candidate has to help residents, as well as helped him better understand and appreciate voters, he said.
“Voters are smart; voters are going to make the right choices for them, and if you don’t earn their vote, it is because you failed to communicate or are selling something they don’t want to buy,” Anderson said in an interview Wednesday. “If you blame voters for your loss, then you should never run again.”
Those lessons served Anderson as he navigates a political career that has had its ups and downs and recently landed him a
Joel Anderson first ran for elected office in 1998. He didn’t have much experience with politics, but he ran for state Assembly at the encouragement of some friends.
He didn’t even make it out of the primary, falling to fellow Republican — and future two-term Assemblywoman — Charlene Zettler by more than 10 percentage points.
But Anderson, 60, says losing that race turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to him.
It taught him several lessons about effective campaigning and the power a candidate has to help residents, as well as helped him better understand and appreciate voters, he said.
“Voters are smart; voters are going to make the right choices for them, and if you don’t earn their vote, it is because you failed to communicate or are selling something they don’t want to buy,” Anderson said in an interview Wednesday. “If you blame voters for your loss, then you should never run again.”
Those lessons served Anderson as he navigates a political career that has had its ups and downs and recently landed him a seat on the San Diego County Board of Supervisors.
In the election, Anderson edged out Poway Mayor Steve Vaus, a fellow Republican, by 282 votes.
Anderson, a longtime Alpine resident alongside his wife Kate, will be the first new District 2 supervisor in nearly three decades, succeeding East County icon Dianne Jacob, who was first elected to the post in 1992. Jacob had backed Vaus in the race.
A native of Detroit and an avid Red Wings hockey fan, Anderson moved to San Diego County with his family when he was a junior in high school. Part of a “big Catholic family,” he was the youngest of eight.
He said his parents put a priority on public service. His mother “drilled into us that you need to make a difference in this life .... (You) can’t sit idly by and let others suffer,” he said.
Anderson attended Grossmont Community College and Calpoly Pomona, where he studied finance and worked through college as a real estate appraiser.
Four years after his illfated first Assembly bid, Anderson ran for a seat on the Padre Dam Municipal Water District board, not because he wanted to get into politics but because he was angry the district was going to raise his water rates.
He campaigned on a simple motto — “Clean, reliable water, at the lowest rate” — and criticized the board’s spending practices.
That proved a winning formula and Anderson served on the board for four years, playing an influential role in opposing some controversial building projects. He also increased his community activism, and in 2006 he ran successfully for the state Assembly 77th District seat, which represented mostly East County.
Although he was in the minority party and harbored one of the most conservative voting records in the Assembly and later in the state Senate, Anderson proved adept at collaborating with several Democratic colleagues, including Mark Leno, a San
Francisco-based lawmaker.
One of their best-known collaborations was a cellphone privacy bill that made sure police had to get a warrant before searching emails, text messages, smartphones and other digital information.
Anderson said he and Leno and some other Democrats were good at working together because they knew they represented the most ardent conservatives and progressives, respectively, so if they reached a compromise, other Assembly members in between would have little room to hide.
He added that his previously failed Assembly bid also helped him gain the temperament to work across the aisle as a legislator.
“I was way more mature as an individual, and instead of throwing bombs I was much more focused on engaging and moving the ball,” Anderson said. “When you’re younger you’re full of vigor, but sometimes moving a little slower and being more thoughtful can get you there faster.”
Anderson’s political career began to take a few hits around 2016. That year, with the backing of the local Republican Party, Anderson was gearing up to challenge Jacob for the District 2 supervisor seat. Jacob ended up raising hundreds of thousands of dollars in a few short months, and Anderson dropped out of the race before the primary.
Then in 2018 Anderson was reprimanded by the Senate for an incident at a capital steakhouse, where he threatened to “bitch slap” a lobbyist. That same year he lost a race for a seat on the Board of Equalization to a man who had no backing from the Democratic Party and was once described as a “slumlord” by the Los Angeles Times.
Those incidents raised some doubts about Anderson’s political future, but he said he was undeterred.
In his recent successful campaign for county supervisor, Anderson emphasized quality-of-life issues. He focused on expanding housing attainability, reducing homelessness, increasing career opportunities and bolstering mental health services.
Anderson also said he wants to increase transparency at the county and believes that is partly why some people are not following COVID public health guidelines.
For example, he pointed to the county’s reluctance to disclose in detail the location or origin of COVID-19 outbreaks. Anderson said he supports the public records lawsuit filed by San Diego media outlets against the county, seeking information relating to COVID-19 outbreaks.
A Republican, Anderson will be stepping onto a Board of Supervisors that will have a Democratic majority for the first time in decades.
Anderson said he is optimistic the board will be able to work well together in the best interest of all San Diegans. He said he has been encouraged by his conversations with Supervisor Nathan Fletcher and fellow newly elected supervisors, Nora Vargas and Terra Lawson-remer, the board’s Democrats.
“We’re not always going to agree, but one thing that is very clear is we all care about the community,” Anderson said. “You can focus on the things that isolate you, or you can focus on the community.”