"Recall Bob Filner" campaign co-chair Stampp Corbin says he stands by his tough remarks regarding Irene McCormack-Jackson's choice of Gloria Allred as legal counsel in her lawsuit against San Diego Mayor Bob Filner and the city for alleged sexual harassment while she served as the mayor's communications director.
According to Corbin, who is also the publisher of San Diego's LGBT Weekly, the mere act of hiring famed attorney Allred is "by definition" an act of intimidation.
"From a lawyer's perspective, from her perspective, that may be great, but from a justice perspective, I don't think that's so great," Corbin said during a recent interview.
Video by David MacIntosh
Corbin has been a vocal advocate for holding a recall election in which voters would decide whether Filner should be removed from office or be allowed to go on serving as mayor while McCormack-Jackson's sexual-harassment lawsuit (and any other suits that may be filed in coming weeks) proceeds.
Since McCormack-Jackson announced that she was suing for alleged mayoral misconduct, 13 other women have complained that they too have been victims of allegedly inappropriate and lewd comments as well as groping from Filner.
"If Bob Filner did what they said, did what he's accused of, then he needs to go," said Corbin, who served as campaign co-chair for the Obama for America 2008 campaign's LGBT Leadership Council. "But you don't know that, I don't know that, and Gloria Allred doesn't know that."
In a brief follow-up to an earlier, video-recorded interview, Corbin told me that he sees no contradiction between his contention that Filner deserves due process and his efforts to recall the mayor. Corbin explains that a recall is due process, while blanket calls for the mayor to simply resign are not.
"This is not about me," Corbin said. "It's not about Gloria Allred. It's not even about Ms. McCormack-Jackson. This is about the people of San Diego and whether or not they will be given the opportunity to voice their opinion in a recall election. Let's have the people decide the future of San Diego, not Gloria Allred."
Gloria Allred said she has no comment on Corbin's criticism of her as McCormack-Jackson's choice for counsel.
Mayor Bob Filner, a Democrat, assumed office this year after defeating former City Councilman Carl DeMaio in a hard-fought election. Filner defeated DeMaio in part by winning a strong majority of the city's LGBT vote despite the fact that DeMaio, a Republican, is openly gay.
DeMaio is currently running to unseat Democrat Scott Peters in California's 52nd Congressional District.
For his part, the mayor recently finished undergoing behavioral therapy for an unspecified behavioral problem relating to, as the mayor put it recently, his failure to "fully respect women."