San Diego's Market-Oriented Reforms in Hands of Hostile Mayor

Well, it was nice while it lasted

San Diegans had an extremely unusual choice for mayor Tuesday, picking between a gay libertarian who'd already turned the city into a hotbed of government experimentation and a 20-year congressman who is a '60s-ethos liberal with serious anger-management issues. The contrast between City Councilman Carl DeMaio and Rep. Bob Filner was so unusual that it even got prominent play in The New York Times.

Fueled by hundreds of thousands of dollars in union-paid attack ads and a hypocritical strategy that sought to remind voters DeMaio was gay, Filner pulled off a 51.5 percent to 48.5 percent win.

With less than four weeks until he takes office, the question for Filner is whether he will try to fight implementation of aggressive reforms approved by San Diego's voters or whether he will betray voters by working with unions and the union-controlled state Public Employment Relations Board in trying to sandbag those reforms.