Ron Bischof | Why Smith Is the Wrong Choice

SCV Voices: Guest Commentary
SCV Voices: Guest Commentary
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“The federal and State governments are in fact but different agents and trustees of the people, constituted with different powers, and designed for different purposes. The adversaries of the Constitution seem to have lost sight of the people altogether in their reasonings on this subject; and to have viewed these different establishments, not only as mutual rivals and enemies, but as uncontrolled by any common superior in their efforts to usurp the authorities of each other.” 

— James Madison, Federalist No. 46, New York Packet, Tuesday, Jan. 29, 1788.

Subsequent to my opinion columns in The Signal last year detailing Katie Hill’s hypocrisy and flippant activism that revealed unfitness for office, California’s 25th Congressional District was rocked by her ethics scandal and resignation.

Ms. Hill did the right thing by resigning, saving our district from further national embarrassment.

With the recent focus on meeting the COVID-19 public health challenges, it’s also important to maintain perspective while noting the history and voter choices in the upcoming May 12 special election runoff between Naval aviator veteran and aerospace executive Mike Garcia and Assemblywoman Christy Smith.

With timing that amazes in its coincidence, 38th District Assemblywoman Christy Smith, just elected in November 2018 along with her campaign partner Katie Hill, announced her candidacy for the now vacant 25th Congressional District seat on the same day as Hill’s resignation. Voters were left wondering how she’d do the job they just hired her for while campaigning for another.

We now know Assembly District 38 will revert to a locally focused representative who will challenge rather than abet Sacramento machine politics.

Despite tweeting repeatedly with the hashtag #KeepCA25Blue, will Smith pull the Katie Hill bait-and-switch and run as a “moderate” who will “reach across the aisle” to capture independent voters?

As a member of the California Democrat supermajority with a voting record, it may prove challenging to mislead voters again.

A few examples of Smith’s voting record:

Despite managing to avoid the vote for Assembly Bill 4 (authorizes Medi-Cal benefits for undocumented immigrants), Smith voted “yes” for AB 414 (establishes a statewide individual mandate program for health insurance), reinstating a penalty for Californians that had been removed by the U.S. Congress. This state tax penalty has disparate impact on those least able to afford it and will be used toward funding AB 4.

Our state is facing a critical housing shortage and yet she voted “yes” on AB 1482 (establishes rental increase caps), which will do zero to alleviate the underlying issue of an affordable housing supply.

California has some of the most restrictive firearm laws in the country, but Smith still voted “yes” on AB 1669 (increases firearm purchasing fees). The California Department of Justice DROS (dealers record of sales) fees fund background checks required for firearm purchases and currently runs significant surpluses, leaving one to conclude it’s punitive and/or the excess funds will be diverted to other purposes.

Also, Assemblywoman Smith voted “yes” on the union-backed and -authored AB 5, placing onerous restrictions on freelance writers, musicians, truckers, etc. Despite months of promises to “fix” this misguided legislation, nothing substantive has occurred, and she voted against suspension of enforcement while citizens in our state are facing significant economic challenges.

There’s more, but these are indicative of the same ideology that Katie Hill represented, i.e., high taxes, heavy regulation, central planning, and economic innumeracy.

Another area of concern is national security. Like Katie Hill, Christy Smith has no experience with defense contracting and procurement to support our military commitments. This is vitally important to the aerospace industry that brings high tech, mortgage, and higher-education-tuition-paying business and jobs to the Antelope, Santa Clarita and Simi Valleys.

Too, Congress weighs in on our national geopolitical positioning and relations with allies, requiring expertise and experience not acquired on a school board or holding state office.

Why should our community be dominated by the ideology of Sacramento and its Democrat supermajority, and by someone whose entire career has been in government with no private sector business experience?

When California has been struggling with keeping the power on, fighting wildfires, roads maintained, citizens housed, and fighting COVID-19 challenges, the focus by Sacramento on ideological lawsuits against the federal government is sadly misguided.

Christy Smith, like her predecessor, is at the heart of this and will work to impose the California centrally planned, high-tax, heavy-regulation and activist model her campaign funders demand on the rest of America.

The citizens of the 25th District need to reverse the Sacramento and outside money machine to take back our district. Our citizens deserve representation that serves their interests rather than those of political ideologues.

Ron Bischof is a Saugus resident.

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