{"id":187404,"date":"2026-02-21T09:50:19","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T09:50:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/187404\/"},"modified":"2026-02-21T09:50:19","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T09:50:19","slug":"lawson-remer-pushes-looser-supervisor-term-limits-new-elected-office","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/187404\/","title":{"rendered":"Lawson-Remer pushes looser supervisor term limits, new elected office"},"content":{"rendered":"

A San Diego County supervisor is proposing seismic changes to how county government works, who controls it and how many terms they can serve.<\/p>\n

Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer wants to ask voters to overhaul the county\u2019s charter \u2014 effectively its constitution \u2014 in a way that could hand additional power to supervisors and strip it from county staff and bureaucrats who have long played a key role in running its operations day to day.<\/p>\n

A three-page working summary of the proposal calls for creating a county ethics commission, establishing new budget and auditing offices responsive to supervisors and giving supervisors the direct power to confirm and remove top bureaucrats.<\/p>\n

But the summary also proposes an overhaul to who is elected in San Diego County and how long they can serve.<\/p>\n

Listed as \u201cunder discussion\u201d are proposals to convert the appointed job of the top county executive to an elected one, relax existing term limits for supervisors and enact new ones for all other county elected officials, who aren\u2019t currently subject to any.<\/p>\n

In an interview, Lawson-Remer said labor unions and constituents have pushed her to support certain elements of the package, particularly confirmation hearings for top county hires and greater transparency around the budget. Of all the components of her proposal, she said she was hearing the least support for the elected county executive.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything else \u2014 including, by the way, the term limits \u2014 has been a no-brainer,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

County records show Lawson-Remer\u2019s office began exploring the effort as early as last fall.<\/p>\n

In November, her office commissioned a $40,000 taxpayer-funded poll of about 700 residents to gauge support for draft language of the ballot measure, as well as each element of her proposal.<\/p>\n

Now, even though many of the package\u2019s details are not yet finalized, Lawson-Remer is still aiming to fast-track it.<\/p>\n

In the coming weeks, she plans to finalize language for a proposed ballot measure that, if passed, would authorize changes to the county charter. As soon as April, she wants the Board of Supervisors to decide whether to put the package to voters on the November ballot.<\/p>\n

Any proposed ballot measure would need to be approved by a majority of supervisors by Aug. 7, said Antonia Hutzell, a spokesperson for the county Registrar of Voters.<\/p>\n

Draft ballot language posed to poll respondents refers to the ballot item as \u201cSan Diego County government reform, public disclosures, ethics and accountability measure.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the proposed extension of current term limits, it only asks if voters want to \u201climit the County Executive and Board of Supervisors members to three, four-year terms.\u201d It does not say what supervisors\u2019 term limits are currently \u2014 two \u2014 and it does not mention term limits for current countywide elected officials.<\/p>\n

If enacted, any changes to term limits would be a sea change for county government, less than 20 years after an overwhelming 68% of county voters voted to enact the current two-term limit for supervisors.<\/p>\n

How any proposed new term limits might apply to elected officials, including those serving partial terms, hasn\u2019t yet been determined by Lawson-Remer\u2019s office.<\/p>\n

Two supervisors \u2014 Paloma Aguirre and Monica Montgomery Steppe \u2014 are currently serving partial terms due to special elections. Treasurer-Tax Collector Larry Cohen is also serving a partial term after being appointed by supervisors last year.<\/p>\n

\"IvonIvon Bardales of Chula Vista and her two children, Brandon and Vanessa, checked in with election worker John Volland at the polling location in City Hall on Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2025.\u00a0\u00a0 (Nelvin C. Cepeda \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)<\/p>\n

Lawson-Remer also still has yet to figure out how term limits might apply to Sheriff Kelly Martinez and District Attorney Summer Stephan. Both are currently serving six-year terms set to expire in 2028 in order to comply with a state law that requires elections for public safety officials to be on the same cycle as presidential contests.<\/p>\n

Another significant part of the draft package would be the move to an elected county executive. That position would replace the county\u2019s current top executive position of chief administrative officer, which the supervisors appoint.<\/p>\n

Elected county executive positions are common in other parts of the United States, but not in California. No California county has one, with the exception of the mayor in San Francisco\u2019s joint city-county government.<\/p>\n

And Los Angeles County will vote in 2028 for its first elected CEO, under a broad charter rewrite<\/a> voters there passed in 2024. That rewrite \u2014 passed by a narrow majority of voters \u2014 also expands the L.A. County Board of Supervisors from five to nine and created an ethics commission.<\/p>\n

Lawson-Remer\u2019s draft ballot language lacks key details about the powers of a proposed new ethics commission and the elected county executive, noted Sean McMorris, the transparency, ethics and accountability manager for California Common Cause. He said a similar shortcoming was confronted in L.A. County, where he serves on a task force making recommendations about the new charter.<\/p>\n

Without enumerating specifics in the ballot measure, county supervisors, not voters, could end up having the final say on what a new charter means in practice, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrankly, the devil\u2019s in the details, and there aren\u2019t any details,\u201d McMorris said of Lawson-Remer\u2019s draft ballot measure. \u201cBased on the limited details we have of the San Diego County reforms, on their face I think most of them look great. But again, that lack of detail is deceptive.\u201d<\/p>\n

San Diego County\u2019s top bureaucrat, Chief Administrative Officer Ebony Shelton, declined to comment on Lawson-Remer\u2019s proposals.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy focus as chief administrative officer is leading the day-to-day operations of the county to implement the Board of Supervisors\u2019 policies and ensure employees have the support they need to serve our diverse communities,\u201d Shelton said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Few of the countywide elected officials who would be affected by the imposition of term limits \u2014 the sheriff, district attorney, assessor-recorder-clerk and treasurer-tax collector \u2014 wanted to discuss the idea.<\/p>\n

Cohen, who was appointed by supervisors last year after longtime elected treasurer Dan McAllister retired mid-term, said he was confident voters would back the proposed changes.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving served at multiple levels of government, I know how important clear rules, independent oversight and public accountability are to effective governance,\u201d he said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Martinez and Stephan both declined requests for comment.<\/p>\n

Assessor Jordan Marks did not return a request for comment.<\/p>\n

\u2018Too opportunistic\u2019?<\/p>\n

Should voters ultimately approve the term-limits changes she\u2019s proposing, Lawson-Remer and her Republican colleague Joel Anderson are the two supervisors who could benefit the soonest \u2014 both were first elected in 2020 and will be termed out in 2028 barring any extension.<\/p>\n

In an interview, Lawson-Remer vocally defended most of the charter changes she has proposed. When asked to explain her push to extend term limits, she declined to weigh in, saying she\u2019s in \u201clistening mode, basically.\u201d<\/p>\n

Voters first decided to limit supervisors to two terms in 2010 under a citizens initiative known as Measure B that was put on the ballot by labor unions. At the time, the same five Republican supervisors had controlled the county for more than a decade.<\/p>\n

Incumbents were still allowed to run for office under the new term limits, letting many longtime Republican supervisors remain in office until 2018 or 2020. Gradually, as they termed out, new Democratic supervisors were elected.<\/p>\n

Now, current term limits mean that sitting supervisors are more often also running for other elected offices.<\/p>\n

Republican Supervisor Jim Desmond, who is termed out this year, is running for Congress in the coastal North County district now represented by Democratic Rep. Mike Levin.<\/p>\n

Anderson,\u00a0who like Lawson-Remer will be termed out in 2028, is running for county treasurer. If elected to that office\u00a0in November, he would be allowed to run for another two terms and serve until 2038 under the proposed term limits.<\/p>\n

In a statement, Desmond came out against extending term limits, saying the jobs of supervisors were \u201cnever meant to be lifelong careers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGovernment works best when leadership turns over, ideas stay fresh and power doesn\u2019t concentrate,\u201d the supervisor said. \u201cExtending term limits does the opposite.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a statement, Anderson said he\u2019s never supported term limits for elected officials. He doesn\u2019t support making the CAO an elected position, either.<\/p>\n

Neither of the board\u2019s two other Democratic supervisors, Aguirre and Montgomery Steppe, responded to requests for comment.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe supervisors listen to public comment at the San Diego County Administration Center on Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2025. (Alejandro Tamayo \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)<\/p>\n

Carl Luna, a political science professor at Mesa College, called the proposed changes to term limits \u201ca little self-serving.\u201d<\/p>\n

It would be preferable for sitting supervisors to exempt themselves from the new rules, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cDemocrats pushed the term limits in San Diego because the Republicans had a lock on the board \u2014 but as soon as Democrats have a lock on the board, they want to change it,\u201d he added. \u201cIt looks too opportunistic.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Years of work\u2019<\/p>\n

Some early backers of Lawson-Remer\u2019s charter proposals support extending term limits.<\/p>\n

Kyra Greene, executive director of the Center on Policy Initiatives, a San Diego-based left-leaning think tank, said a new limit of three terms\u00a0would give supervisors and other elected officials enough time to learn how to work the levers of county government and fulfill campaign promises.<\/p>\n

\u201c(Supervisors) can make really big promises, but many times, they take multiple years of work to make sure that they\u2019re properly implemented,\u201d Greene said.<\/p>\n

Another supporter of most of the package is Jack McGrory, who served as San Diego\u2019s appointed city manager from 1991 to 1997, before the city moved to its current strong-mayor system.<\/p>\n

But McGrory remains skeptical about having an elected county executive, citing similarities it might bear to a strong-mayor system at the city he called \u201cnothing short of a disaster.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNow you have a situation where the council and mayor just blame each other for stuff,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

To bolster her case for charter reform, Lawson-Remer is pointing to the early polling her office conducted in the fall. Presented with the proposed ballot language, nearly half of respondents said they\u2019d definitely support it while another quarter said they probably would.<\/p>\n

Specific provisions \u2014 including more transformative ones, such as three-term limits for supervisors \u2014 also drew broad support.<\/p>\n

Survey respondents were not informed that supervisors are currently limited to two terms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A San Diego County supervisor is proposing seismic changes to how county government works, who controls it and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":187405,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[310,311,4602,4603,181,23,205,100,13,5286,5287,6837,6838,74,76,75,1696],"class_list":{"0":"post-187404","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-del-mar-times","9":"tag-del-mar-times-news","10":"tag-encinitas-advocate","11":"tag-encinitas-advocate-news","12":"tag-latest-headlines","13":"tag-local-news","14":"tag-local-politics","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-politics","17":"tag-ramona-sentinel","18":"tag-ramona-sentinel-news","19":"tag-rancho-santa-fe-review","20":"tag-rancho-santa-fe-review-news","21":"tag-san-diego","22":"tag-san-diego-headlines","23":"tag-san-diego-news","24":"tag-top-stories-sdut"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=187404"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187404\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/187405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=187404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=187404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=187404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}