The San Diego City Council has a lot on its plate.

From the debate over Short-Term vacation rentals, to the Hepatitis A outbreak and homeless crisis, several critical civic issues are coming to the surface for the city council to consider.

Council President Pro Tem Mark Kersey joined the IVN San Diego Podcast this week to discuss a few of the pressing matters impacting the City.

Should lawmakers be allowed to draw electoral districts to protect their party from competition? Can the courts rule legislative and congressional maps unconstitutional on the basis of partisan and political discrimination?

Those are among the questions the Supreme Court is considering in the case Gill v. Whitford.

Where do we even begin after Las Vegas? The shooting was so calculatingly evil, so tragic for the victims, and so sad for our nation. And yet we have been here before: after Sandy Hook, after the Orlando night club shooting, after Louisiana GOP Rep. Steve Scalise was shot in the capital this summer.

Our reaction is always shock and sorrow – followed almost immediately by the same predictable partisan debate on guns. I fervently believe that electing more centrist independents can help break through this paralyzing tribalism.

The voters of Santa Fe, New Mexico, passed a ballot measure in 2008 saying the city should use ranked choice voting in city elections. The city still hasn’t implemented it.

The supporters of ranked choice voting sued the city in the State Supreme Court last month, but that court refused to hear the case.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8qMfoYsZcc

On Monday, Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) took to Twitter to tell his 1.5 million followers that he's not happy with the tax reform plan published last week by the Trump Administration in partnership with congressional GOP leaders.

It is tragic that it has taken a mass murder of historic proportion to remind us that the vast, vast majority of people are fundamentally good.

In the aftermath of the Las Vegas shooting, we have witnessed and learned of countless acts of heroism, courage, kindness and generosity. Strangers helping strangers, even at the risk of their own lives. Thousands standing in line for hours to give blood. Funds for the victims and their families being established and receiving millions in donations virtually overnight.