A local political consultant made a racially charged social media post in response to La Prensa San Diego’s endorsement of a candidate running for San Diego City Council.

La Prensa San Diego endorsed candidate Martha Abraham in the June 2nd Primary Election for San Diego City Council District 4, which includes the Southeastern communities of Chollas View, Mountain View, Paradise Hills, and Valencia Park.

Martha Abraham

 

Abraham, a registered nurse, is challenging incumbent Councilman Henry Foster III, who won a Special Election in 2024 to replace Monica Montgomery Steppe when she was elected to the County Board of Supervisors. Foster is now running for election to a full, four-year term.

She has been endorsed by the Sierra Club, the United Nurses Association of California, and Run Women Run, a local group aimed at encouraging women to run for public office.

La Prensa San Diego printed and distributed an Election Special newspaper with Abraham’s endorsement on the front page, alongside its endorsement of Xavier Becerra for Governor.

La Prensa San Diego's Election Special front page

 

The 4th District includes approximately 300,000 residents, and the current demographic breakdown is roughly 40% Latino, 20% Asian, 18% Black, and 18% White.

La Prensa San Diego’s endorsement of Abraham raised several issues in its opposition to Foster, including his support for instituting parking fees at Balboa Park and the Zoo, the City’s $150 million budget deficit, and his lack of opposition to the City’s failed plan to deal with the toxic 101 Ash Street building, which remains vacant even after the city spent over $200 million on it.

In response to La Prensa San Diego’s endorsement, Herman Collins, a consultant to the Urban League of San Diego and San Diego’s Economic Development Corporation, posted on social media:

“La Prensa Endorsement in D4 Council race-I’ll say it: Mexicans need to stay out of Black folks politics.”

Collins has publicly endorsed Foster.

Days after his first post, Collins followed up stating that he was referring to a historical agreement between the Latino and African American communities in the 1960s, where they agreed to support each other in their respective areas when their own candidates ran for office. Collins also added that he is the "child of a Mexican domestic worker and an African-American construction worker."

“If representation were determined solely by demographics, African Americans would struggle to win office,” Collins posted. “That is why earlier generations—including yours and mine—intentionally structured Districts 4 and 8 to ensure that both Black and Latino communities had a voice on the Council. It was a model built on respect and shared power.”

That informal coalition originally led to the appointment of Leon Williams to the City Council in 1969 after Tom Hom—the City’s first non-white Councilman—was elected to the State Assembly. Williams served four terms as the 4th District Councilman before being elected to the San Diego County Board of Supervisors in 1982.

Black representatives have maintained exclusive representation in District 4 since 1969. Williams was replaced on the City Council by his Chief of Staff, William Jones, who was elected to a full four-year term the following year. Jones was subsequently followed by Wes Pratt, George Stevens, Charles Lewis, Tony Young, Myrtle Cole, and Monica Montgomery Steppe, before Foster won his Special Election in April 2024.

Collins’ comments effectively argue that La Prensa San Diego should maintain separation from the decision of which candidate should represent the 4th District because none of the active candidates are Latino. Both Foster and Abraham are Black; third-place candidate Johnny Lee Dang is Asian.

However, Collins did not publicly object to endorsements of Foster made by prominent Latino leaders and organizations, including Congressman Juan Vargas; San Diego Councilwoman Vivian Moreno; Chula Vista Councilmembers Jose Preciado, Cesar Fernandez, and Carolina Chavez; and La Voz Democrata, the region’s only Latino Democratic Club.

Abraham was born in a refugee camp in Sudan, and came to San Diego as an infant. She was raised in the Mt. Hope area of San Diego, attended Valhalla High School in El Cajon, and graduated from San Diego State University. She is a homeowner in the Emerald Hills community of San Diego.

While District 4 has maintained an unbroken string of Black representatives since 1969, District 8, which represents heavily Latino areas, has not been continuously represented by Latinos during that same period.

The first Latino to win a City Council seat was Marto Martinez in 1971. He served one term and was unseated by Jess Haro, another Latino candidate. However, when Haro resigned his seat in 1978, the City Council appointed Lucy Killea, a White woman, to replace him. Killea won a full term in November 1978 and represented the area for one term before her election to the State Assembly in 1982.

Uvaldo Martinez replaced Killea, but he resigned in 1987. Celia Ballesteros was appointed to fill the unexpired term, and she was subsequently replaced by Bob Filner, another White candidate, when he was elected in November 1987. Filner was re-elected in 1991 before being elected to Congress in November 1992.

Juan Vargas won a Special Election to replace Filner, and served until his election to the State Assembly in 2000. Ralph Inzunza, Jr., Ben Hueso, David Alvarez, and Vivian Moreno have since represented the district.

Moreno’s Chief of Staff, Gerardo Ramirez, San Ysidro School District Boardmember Antonio Martinez, Venus Molina, and Rafael Perez were the candidates running in the June Primary Election to replace Moreno as the District 8 Councilmember after she is termed out of office this year. Martinez and Ramirez finished in first and second place, respectively, and will face off in the November 3rd General Election.

La Prensa San Diego has endorsed Gerardo Ramirez in the District 8 race.

Raul Campillo, who currently represents District 7, and Georgette Gomez, who represented District 9 from 2016 to 2020, are the only Latinos to have served in any other of the City's nine Council districts. No Black candidates have won election to any of the other Council districts.

The San Diego's citywide demographics are currently 41% White, 30% Latino, 17.7% Asian, and 5.6% Black.

La Prensa San Diego was founded in December 1976 as the region’s first Spanish-language news outlet. It has won dozens of journalism awards for its coverage, including the Ruben Salazar Award for Excellence in Print Journalism, two First Amendment Awards from the Society of Professional Journalists, and two Media Watchdog Awards from the San Diego County Taxpayers Association.