Dave Cortese’s announcement this week that he is running for mayor of San Jose, more or less, sets the field for next year’s race. Campaign fundraising can’t officially start until December, but endorsements are right around the corner. In fact, the South Bay Labor Council has taken an unusually quick approach to finishing its endorsement process for mayor. Today, questionnaires for the SBLC’s Committee on Political Education (COPE) were due today. San Jose Inside has attained a copy of that questionnaire.

TV sportscaster and former San Jose City Council candidate Robert Braunstein penned a heartwarming editorial in his newsletter about the reconciliation of two political rivals: the San Jose Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce and Democratic Central Committee. The business backers and the labor supporters, Braunstein wrote, have let bygones be bygones. Except they haven’t.

Robert Reich’s powerful new film, “Inequality for All,” breaks down the disparity of wealth that is so pronounced in this country. It solves the riddle of why San Jose is really two cities, and it explains the great political divide we face locally and as a nation.

The Daily Fetch takes no prisoners—at least that’s what political consultant and lobbyist Dustin DeRollo told Fly when denying he has any role in producing the anonymous links blog. In the past six months, the Fetch—under new ownership—has taken a decidedly aggressive tone in going after everyone from Mayor Chuck Reed, his City Council allies and defeated county supervisorial candidate Teresa Alvarado to Metro and its staff. But one group that has received far less criticism from the blog is the organized labor machine and its elected allies, such as Cindy Chavez. So, when DeRollo’s name turned up as the quasi-editor of a PDF the site posted for a story last week, speculation in Silicon Valley political circles percolated that he and his business partner, Tom Saggau, have been orchestrating the site. Both men say that couldn’t be further from the truth, claiming DeRollo was improperly ratted out as a source for a story he expected not to lead back to him.

A gut-and-amend state Senate bill that would restrict nonprofits from spending taxpayer cash for political purposes has elicited opposition from K-12 and community college associations, various local governments—including San Jose—and the nonprofits that get money from them. That and more at Wednesday’s Rules and Open Government Committee meeting.

All the votes were counted weeks ago in the District 2 county supervisor race, but the total campaign finance numbers have only recently become available. One thing is clear above all: A staggeringly high amount of money was spent in an election in which a staggeringly low number of people actually voted. But why would the county’s Democratic Party spend so much money on one candidate when there were two viable Democrats on the ballot, especially with so many important races coming up next year?

District Attorney Jeff Rosen has been touting his swollen campaign piggy bank to the press as a warning to potential challengers in 2014, and a re-election fundraiser hosted by beer distributor and philanthropist Mike Fox Sr. earlier this month, which included former San Jose Police Chief Chris Moore among guests, only added to the $131,000-plus Rosen raised in the first six months of this year. But word is the DA’s already strong chances of staying in office will get the kind of Series-A funding startups love. A group of Sand Hill tech investors are in the process of forming an independent expenditure (IE) committee to support Rosen, and they’ve approached Democratic operative Jude Barry to manage it.

UPDATE: SEIU approved a strike authorization with 96 percent of voting members in favor.

Santa Clara County workers marched down Hedding Street to the tune of Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Going to Take It” Monday evening, as SEIU 521 union members voted for the right to authorize a strike.The voting continues Tuesday as county officials and labor union negotiators have yet to form an agreement.

The South Bay Labor Council spent almost a quarter-million dollars supporting Cindy Chavez’ successful run for a county supervisor seat, according to forms filed last month with the Registrar of Voters. The details of the labor organization’s staggering campaign fundraising and spending have not been made public until now. Taking into respect money spent by the Chavez campaign and other groups supporting her, it appears more than $750,000 was spent getting her into office. While few candidates can pull together a coalition of support like Chavez, the coordination between her campaign and outside groups raises some serious questions for the Fair Political Practices Commission.

The South Bay Labor Council-aligned think tank Working Partnerships USA named interim organization head Derecka Mehrens its new executive director this week. Mehrens fills the role once held by the just-elected Santa Clara County District 2 Supervisor Cindy Chavez, who took unpaid leave from the position in April to campaign.

Almost two weeks before she won the election for Santa Clara County Supervisor’s District 2 seat, ex-labor leader Cindy Chavez said she would not cross a picket line. That promise may get tested early since SEIU 521, the 8,000-employee county union whose contract is up for renewal, strategically postponed negotiations until Aug. 11, after the special election, in hopes of gaining a more favorable outcome. About 6,400 of those union members work at the Santa Clara Valley Medical Center. The day after Chavez was voted in, some technicians in the hospital’s radiology department staged a “sick out,” which is not quite a strike but a coordinated effort to call in sick to work to make a statement. Enough participated that it left the hospital scrambling to schedule replacements.

In what may turn out to be one of the most expensive races ever for a local county office, Cindy Chavez has captured the District 2 Supervisor seat held by her disgraced former ally, George Shirakawa, Jr. The victory places the largest county government in the global home of leading edge technology—from Teslas to Google Glass—firmly in the hands of an old-fashioned political machine; a classic one that delivers votes, wins elections, rewards its followers and dispenses benefits. Over the next two years, the board will vote on billions of dollars in employee compensation contracts—the county spends $3 billion a year on salaries, benefits and pensions—for the members of the unions who returned the former San Jose city official to public office.

Election nights have morphed into a game of cat and mouse between Fly and Stacey Hendler Ross, PR flack for the South Bay Labor Council. In the county supervisor primary and then the runoff, which took place Tuesday, Hendler Ross has taken to her new role as bouncer. No more than a minute into this week’s election night party for new county Supervisor Cindy Chavez, Hendler Ross grabbed a San Jose Inside reporter by the arm and tried to escort him out before realizing she should use her words. Noting that it was a private party and only “legitimate media” could enter, Hendler Ross also gave an SJI intern the boot, once again stifling the free press. Or so she thought.

Voters in Santa Clara County’s District 2 will choose a new county supervisor Tuesday, when Teresa Alvarado and Cindy Chavez face off in a special election. The two Democrats are vying to replace the seat vacated by George Shirakawa, Jr., who resigned amid scandal in March.

With less than three weeks remaining in the county supervisor runoff between Teresa Alvarado and Cindy Chavez, supporters on both sides have now volleyed accusations of illegal assistance from outside groups. A little digging shows lots of money being spent by groups coordinating with the Chavez campaign, and very little attention being paid to update their contact information.

The latest turn in the race to replace disgraced former county Supervisor George Shirakawa, Jr., the Santa Clara County Democratic Party has filed a complaint against candidate Teresa Alvarado, alleging that she illegally coordinated with a political action committee. Alvarado and fellow candidate Cindy Chavez, who has also been accused of illegal campaign coordination and is supported by the county Democratic Party, will face off in a July 30 special election. With only three weeks left in the race, an important debate is being waged on what constitutes unfair campaign assistance.