Campbell’s M.D. will be a factor in effort to thwart recall

She’s frequently called “Dr. Jen” by supporters, friends and many other people.

If any voters in her coastal district aren’t aware San Diego City Council President Jennifer Campbell is a medical doctor, they will be if the attempt to recall her qualifies for a special election.

Constituents who want to remove Campbell from office list several grievances, but chief among them are that she ushered through a compromise that they contend allows for too many short-term vacation rentals and supported lifting the height limit in the Midway District that surrounds the sports arena.

The challenge for Campbell will be to defend those policies that are popular citywide but not in her district, where many residents want short-term rentals essentially banned and less than a majority voted to scrap the height limit.

While she’s doing that, Campbell, 75, will remind voters that she remains a state-licensed physician, if a retired one, who is using her expertise to assist the city during a major health crisis: the coronavirus pandemic.

That has already begun. Just last week she started volunteering to administer COVID-19 vaccinations. Her Twitter feed includes a photo of her wearing a doctor’s white coat giving a shot to a San Diego firefighter. On Thursday, she planned to give vaccines at a senior center.

On Monday, the council unanimously approved her proposal to create a Special Council Committee on COVID-19 Response and Recovery. Campbell and council member Marni Von Wilpert will serve as cochairs.

Campbell’s medical experience has long been part of who she is and isn’t something ginned up because of the recall. That background was a part of her 2018 campaign when she was elected to the council.

A lot of attention to Campbell’s official response to the recall last week focused on some of her hot rhetoric, such as calling recall advocates “elites” and “extremists.” But David Garrick of The San Diego Union-Tribune noted that

much of her statement was focused on her medical experience.

“As a doctor and as your council president, my top priority will continue to be the well-being of all our families ...,” she wrote.

That was the gist of an argument against the recall by Jesse Connor, president of the San Diego City Fire Fighters IAFF Local 145.

“In this public health crisis, it’s never been more critical to have professionally competent leaders in office like Dr. Campbell,” he wrote in one of a package of pro and con commentaries on the recall recently published by the Union-Tribune.

How much that will mean to voters if the recall election qualifies is an open question. But it’s a positive image — a poll says so.

A recent private survey included at least a couple of questions asking voters to weigh in on “Council President Jen Campbell” —from how she is identified with issues to her background.

The term “Dr. Jen” ranked higher with voters than her position on the environment, short-term rentals and housing, and safety.

Voters were also asked what they thought about a statement that read, in part, “Dr. Jen Campbell is a retired physician and the only member of the council with the health care experience to get us out of the COVID pandemic.” Nearly twice as many people found that statement “convincing” than those who considered it “not convincing.”

The poll is a mysterious sidelight to all of this. I haven’t seen it in its entirety, nor any of the methodology, and couldn’t find out much about it, other than the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce was involved. My efforts to get more information from the chamber were unsuccessful.

It’s also unclear whether Campbell and her two campaign committees — one for the recall and the other for next year’s election — knew about the poll or its substance. Sharing of information or coordination between an independent PAC and candidate-controlled committees likely would run afoul of election laws and city campaign contribution limits.

Regardless, it probably doesn’t take a poll to conclude that highlighting a doctor helping the city combat COVID-19 might be a worthy campaign strategy.

Whether the pro- or anti-recall forces will have the advantage in messaging, money or popular support remains to be seen. The recall campaign does not face contribution limits, nor would any independent effort against the recall. Both committees controlled by Campbell must abide by the city’s limit of $650 per person. Organizations and businesses cannot donate to candidate committees.

Political parties can contribute up to $11,850 to a council candidate.

Much of the city’s power structure, both Democrat and Republican, are lining up behind Campbell. In addition to the District 2-centric recall committee, the effort to oust Campbell has backing from a spectrum of Democratic progressives and social justice advocates.

Critics say Campbell, a Democrat, was reluctant to support some changes in police use of force, is not committed to racial justice, has not been attentive to her constituents and changed her positions on key issues.

Her backers say she has moved the city forward by breaking the six-plus-year stalemate over short-term rental regulations and potentially boosting the city’s housing stock, in large part by helping to get rid of the 30-foot height limit in the Midway District.

A watershed moment in the recall campaign came in December, when Campbell, who is White, narrowly won the council president’s post over Monica Montgomery Steppe, who is Black and is the council’s leading proponent of changing the city’s approach to policing, particularly as it pertains to minority communities. That enraged many social justice advocates and helped turn the recall into a citywide movement.

As with that battle, the recall exposes a fissure among Democrats — an increasingly common dynamic at a City Hall almost completely dominated by Democrats.

The recall is of interest citywide, but the matter ultimately will be decided by voters within Campbell’s district, which includes Mission Beach, Pacific Beach, Ocean Beach, Point Loma, the Midway District and a part of Clairemont. More than 14,000 signatures of registered voters there must be submitted by early June to trigger a recall election.

However this goes for City Council President Campbell, expect “Dr. Jen” to be in the middle of it.