Seven candidates for Ventura County’s biggest congressional seat met on stage in Oxnard on May 8 to discuss the federal deficit, healthcare, climate change, war and a few of the world’s other troubles.
California’s 26th District includes all of Ventura County except for Ventura, most of the Ojai area and Simi Valley, as well as some parts of Los Angeles County. It’s an open seat in this year’s election, with the incumbent, Democrat Julia Brownley, retiring after being in office since 2013.
There are nine candidates running in the June 2 primary – five Democrats and four Republicans – and the top two will advance to the November general election. All nine were invited to the May 8 debate at Pacifica High School, hosted by the League of Women Voters and the Ventura County alumnae chapter of Delta Sigma Theta. Democrat Sasan Samadzadeh and Republican William Scott did not attend.
The other candidates took 90 minutes of rapid-fire questions from moderator David Maron of the League of Women Voters. Topics covered included immigration, climate change, the budget, healthcare and ongoing war.
Immigration
Most of the candidates, both Republican and Democrat, advocated some sort of reform in our immigration laws and how we enforce them. Liam Hernandez and Chris Espinosa, both Democrats, said the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency needs to be abolished.
Democrats Jacqui Irwin and Sonia Kacker both said they support “strong borders,” but both criticized ICE as well.
“ICE under Trump has a bloated budget,” Irwin said. “It’s a lawless agency that’s racially profiling people in our communities and across the country. I would work to claw back excessive funding and get rid of untrained agents.”
Republican Sam Gallucci, a pastor who said his church has helped thousands of undocumented immigrants, called for immigration reform that will allow law-abiding people to remain in the United States.
“All these workers need to stay, and the criminals need to go,” he said. “It’s that simple.”
Republican Michael Koslow, a former criminal investigator with the U.S. Department of Defense, said he supports legal work visas for currently undocumented immigrants, though not a path to citizenship.
Only Daniel Miller, a Republican from the Lancaster area, did not advocate immigration reform or abolishing ICE. Instead, he said that California’s government is “spending a terrible amount of money on illegal immigrants.”
Climate change
Six of the seven candidates agreed that climate change is a serious issue, while Miller said he thinks it “might be sort of real, but a lot of it is a hoax.”
Irwin, who represents the eastern half of Ventura County in the State Assembly, touted her role in reauthorizing the state’s cap and trade program, a market-based policy that allows companies to trade emission credits to reduce overall greenhouse emissions.
Espinosa, a former congressional aide and a legislative director for an environmental nonprofit, said he does not think cap and trade has been successful because it “concentrates pollution in communities of color.”
Koslow also criticized the cap and trade program. And Gallucci said he thinks California’s reduction in subsidies for rooftop solar panels has been an “absolutely, abject failure” for the climate.
Kacker, a physician in Thousand Oaks, said she’s opposed to President Donald Trump’s cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency and other “science-based organizations.”
“The assault on science truth and education at the federal level is something I’m going to fight,” she said.
Budget
Every candidate agreed that the federal deficit is out of control.
“If I ran my business the way they run the budget, I would be bankrupt tomorrow,” Hernandez said. He said the U.S. should stop giving aid to Israel and stop paying for war in Iran and use the money for social programs.
Irwin and Epsinosa both said rich people and corporation should pay more in taxes.
Koslow, Kacker and Gallucci all mentioned cutting “fraud, waste and abuse” from the budget, and Koslow said Congress shouldn’t get paid when it can’t pass a budget.
“The key word is accountability,” Koslow said.
Healthcare
Healthcare, Kacker said, is “becoming more and more expensive and less and less accessible” because too much money is going to insurance companies and other middlemen.
Gallucci also said “too much money goes to insurance” and that health care can be provided more efficiently.
Hernandez and Espinosa both said they support “Medicare for all,” which usually refers to a single-payer, national insurance program similar to the one that currently covers Americans 65 and older.
And Irwin said Congress should “fight to reverse the Trump cuts” to federal health care programs and insurance subsidies.
War in Iran
“The world is a mess right now,” Koslow said when asked a broad question about foreign policy.
Irwin, Koslow, Gallucci and Miller all said it’s important to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, but they differed on the wisdom of the Trump administration’s military actions there.
Gallucci gave an unqualified defense of the war in Iran, while Koslow called it “a very, very complex issue.”
Irwin, Espinosa, Hernandez and Kacker were all strongly critical of the war, which has not been authorized by Congress.
Espinosa called it “the most ridiculous, unstrategic war that has ever been undertaken,” and said President Barack Obama’s agreement with Iran, cancelled by Trump in his first term, would have kept Iran from developing nuclear weapons.
“Here we are fighting a needless war, spending $2 billion a day to accomplish what we had already accomplished,” he said.
Kacker said the war was “another abuse of power by the current administration” and is likely to throw us into a recession.
“The promise of ‘America First’ was broken,” she said.
Tony Biasotti is an investigative and watchdog reporter for the Ventura County Star. Reach him at tbiasotti@vcstar.com. This story was made possible by a grant from the Ventura County Community Foundation’s Fund to Support Local Journalism.
This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: Candidates for Congress debate climate, war, immigration in Oxnard
Reporting by Tony Biasotti, Ventura County Star / Ventura County Star
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