By Macy Meinhardt, V&V Staff Writer, CA Local News Fellow
As new federal policies threaten to unravel Medicaid, affordable housing, and public health protections, San Diego County Acting Chair Terra Lawson-Remer used this year’s 2025 State of the County address to issue a defiant message:
“When federal leadership fails, local government must lead,” said Lawson-Remer during the April 16 address.
The State of the County address intends to deliver a progress report and policy roadmap for the county in the upcoming year. This year’s speech acknowledged that this moment in legislative history is more difficult than previous terms. But the challenges faced are not unprecedented either.
In response, Lawon-Remer— acting chair of the county’s currently partisan-split Board of Supervisors — presented a regional “game plan” shaped to protect vulnerable residents by proposing new taxes, Medicaid safeguards, and housing reforms to help ensure an equitable future for San Diego.
“Now it is our turn to advance America’s promise. Our responsibility is to carry the torch in America’s ongoing struggle between humanity’s worst instincts and our highest ideals,” said Lawson-Remer.
‘So San Diego County, here’s our game plan’
The first leg of Lawon-Remer’s address tackled the pending crisis in public healthcare programs across the county.
Currently, several considerations are underway in Congress to significantly reduce medicaid spending by $880 billion to help pay for tax cuts. With over a million San Diegans enrolled in Medicaid programming—61 percent of whom are African Americans statewide– the reductions would be severely detrimental to the region.
Medicaid funding is also the backbone of the county’s homeless and behavioral health system. As San Diego continues to battle housing affordability and homelessness, state Medi-Cal expansions have allowed the county to access funding to build a more responsive care system, equipped with: treatment beds for addiction, crisis stabilization centers, a curated 911 system response for mental health emergencies, and doubling the behavioral health workforce.
“If our Medicaid money disappears to pay for tax cuts for billionaires, the behavioral health system we have spent four years building crumbles,” said Lawson-Remer.
To mitigate this loss, the Democratic board leader proposed an opportunity to draw in local funding through a local revenue measure that could leverage $1 billion a year to support healthcare and other needs.
In addition, due to the current dismantlement of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Lawson-Remer spoke on how this has caused the county to lose $40 million in funding towards its Public Health budget. This funding was for local disease tracking, COVID-19 disparities, Hepatitis A vaccines, and emergency response.
The funding also supported more than 90 public health workers.
Navigating sharp partisanship
Lawson-Remer suggested tapping into the county’s reserves, which currently exceed their target by $100 million, as a potential way to sustain these operations, arguing that, “Our county’s fiscal policy is too conservative to meet the moment.”
Held in Balboa Park’s Natural History Museum, numerous elected officials, including San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria, Rep. Juan Vargas (D-San Diego), Baja California officials, and County Supervisor Monica Montgomery Steppe, attended the speech.
In a speech largely framed as a challenge to the current Republican administration, notably absent from the event were Republican supervisors Joel Anderson and Jim Desmond, underscoring the stark ideological split amongst county leadership right now.
With two Democrats and two Republicans sitting on the 4 member board, in the last few months, anything semi-related to partisan lines has been met with a deadlock or a failure to pass a vote.
One of these included adding more funding to expand the county’s Immigration Legal Defense program, which Lawson-Remer referred to in her speech.
The defense program, created in 2021, has helped more than 2,500 immigrants crossing San Diego borders to get a fair day in court.
“The right to an attorney for everyone, even non-citizens, is enshrined in the constitution, and here in San Diego, we are honoring this right,” said Lawson-Remer, condemning the recent administration’s unjust deportations, such as that of Kilmar Abrego Garcia.
Meanwhile, Lawson-Remer highlighted the county’s progress on housing, such as tripling homebuilding and boosting affordable housing production by 500% over four years.
To continue these efforts at pace, she proposed a small transfer fee for wealthy property owners, ensuring “those with homes in the top 1% can pay forward a small share of that fortunate windfall.” The funds would directly support affordable housing and homelessness prevention.
In closing, Lawson-Remer reminded San Diegans that the challenges ahead transcend partisan divides.
“The moment we face is not about left or right. It is about right or wrong,” she declared.
