Questions from the American Association of University Women Lompoc-Vandenberg Branch, which organized the event, devoted much of the 90-minute forum to questions on Obamacare, immigration reform, education, the economy and women’s health.
The 24th Congressional District covers much of the coastal sections of Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties.
While many political races are filled with candidates split along ideological lines, with Maldonado and Capps, there appeared to be less a chasm than a fissure. Halfway through the debate, Capps, after hearing Maldonado say he’d support tax credits for green jobs and wouldn’t attempt to rid regulations on air, water and working conditions, wondered aloud whether he wanted to switch parties.
“I don’t belong to a party,” Maldonado interjected. “I belong to the 24th Congressional District!”
Capps immediately tried to draw a sharp contrast between herself and Maldonado, particularly for the women’s group who came to hear them: She said Maldonado’s vote to overturn Roe v. Wade in 2005 illustrated the difference between the two candidates on women and reproductive choice. Maldonado said he voted not to change or weaken the controversial court decision and agreed there was a “clear difference.”
“I’m not going to vote how John Boehner wants me to vote, but my opponent is going to vote 97% with how her party boss wants her to vote,” he said.
At the outset, Maldonado stressed to the 50-plus people in attendance at the Dick DeWees Community & Senior Center that Washington, D.C., needs a reshuffling of the deck and that, unlike his opponent, he was not beholden to any one party and would act as a bipartisan legislator to solve problems.
“For my opponent, this is a job evaluation,” Maldonado said. “You evaluate what’s been going on in the last 14 years in Washington, and the ideas coming out of Washington are bad ideas. They’ve bailed out the big banks and we don’t get loans for our foreclosures. We need to level the playing field with China. All of our jobs are going abroad, and that’s why I support green jobs.”
Capps, who has represented the Santa Barbara area in Congress for 14 years, defended her record, telling the audience that she has voted against privatizing Medicare and Social Security and would continue fighting for these programs in a new term. She said she’s worked together with Republicans on behalf of her constituents, such as Rep. Elton Gallegly to reactivate the Santa Maria Air Tanker Base to full-time alert status in the event of a forest fire, and county supervisor Joni Gray to improve the condition and effectiveness of local evacuation routes countywide.
Both candidates promised to help advance the Paycheck Fairness Act that would establish stronger workplace protections for women, such as requiring employers to show that wage differences are job-related, not gender-based.
“This is certainly in the interest of the future because many women are the sole bread winners of their families, and it’s their children who depend on their paychecks,” Capps stated. “Women still earn just 77 cents for every dollar men make, so we still have a long way to go.”
Although Senate Republicans blocked the act from passage in June, Maldonado blamed both parties for its failure to pass. “They can’t come together on anything. They attack each other, and we lose,” he said. “I’m not running for the Republican Party, the Democratic Party or the Green Party. I’m running for the 24th Congressional District, and when I get to D.C., I think my votes will speak loud and clear.”
The candidates sparred over the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, commonly called Obamacare. Maldonado seemed to spurn some parts of the Republican Party’s platform on Obamacare, particularly the claim that the bill undermines the dignity of women by conflating healthcare with abortion. “First of all, I’m not running for the Republican Party chairman of the U.S., so I don’t care what the party platform says, and I mean that with all my heart,” he said. Maldonado said he supports pieces of the sweeping legislation, such as provisions that gradually close the gap in drug coverage known as the “Donut Hole,” and another that would prevent insurance companies from denying people coverage over pre-existing medical conditions; however, he called Obamacare “a gamble” and said people should not have to pay taxes for medical care.
“I’m not going to gamble on your healthcare,” he said. “I’m not going to gamble on your Medicare,” he said, contending that Obamacare would raid $700 billion from the federal entitlement program.
Capps called Maldonado’s last statement a “falsehood” and said not one penny has been siphoned from beneficiaries. Obamacare, she said, would cut waste, fraud and abuse from Medicare. Capps, a former nurse, said Obamacare will help 10,000 young people in her district stay on their parents’ plans and extend tax credits to small businesses that provide insurance to their employees.
“We worked on it for over a year in Congress, and there were many good ideas, like the mandate that came straight from President Nixon,” Capps said. “It’s a very bipartisan piece of legislation. It’s like the American Way. When we start something, we make it better as it goes along.”
Both candidates said spurring job growth was their primary legislative goal.
“Jobs, jobs, jobs,” Maldonado said. “That is my No. 1 priority, and if there’s a piece of legislation that creates jobs, Maldonado will be voting aye, and if there’s a piece of legislation that hurts the economy, I will be voting no, and we need to stop some of these regulations that are so costly to businesses. They just push them out of there. Forty-one thousand pages. $1.7 trillion worth of regulations coming out of Washington,” Maldonado said.
“We need to get small businesses the kind of support that is needed now in this tough time,” said Capps. “As my opponent said, it’s tough to hire when you’re a small business in this kind of economy, so I voted 18 times to tax cuts for small businesses to make it more affordable for them to get out there and do that hiring. We’ve instituted banking reforms as much as we can because banks are privately held to make it possible for loans to be obtained for our businesses.”
The candidates also had points of difference on immigration reform. Capps said she supports comprehensive immigration reform with a pathway to citizenship, while Maldonado advocates a guest-worker program. Both support the DREAM Act, which would establish a path to citizenship for undocumented students and members of the military.
On education, Maldonado stressed the need to give more decision-making powers to local school officials. He also said that as a member of the California Board of Regents, he voted against increasing college tuition.
“We’re talking about access to the future of higher education for our youth,” he said. “That gives them better jobs – and when they have better jobs, we’ll have better taxpayers in America.”
Capps agreed that responsibility over schools lies with school boards, families and communities, but she said funding from the state and federal government – in the form of financial aid – is a vital component of education reform. “The American Dream is the chance to go to college,” she said. “That’s why we need to make sure the federal government does its fair share.”
Both candidates said they opposed more offshore drilling off the Central Coast, and said that while they were open to an onshore drilling technique called fracking – which extracts trapped oil and gas at a quicker-than-conventional pace – but only after questions about its safety were answered. “We just want to find out what’s in the process of fracking and what’s it doing in our groundwater,” Capps said.
Maldonado scoffed at the idea that trade secrets should bar government from knowing the names of some chemicals included in mixtures used in the procedure. He also said public officials should look beyond oil into “clean energy” for the nation’s energy needs and he criticized Capps for supporting the 2010 Tranquillon Ridge project, which would have given the parent company, Plains Exploration and Production Company, rights to slant drill from an existing platform in federal waters into the Tranquillon Ridge under state waters. Environmentalists were split on the deal, which would have required PXP to shutdown four existing offshore oil platforms, close two onshore facilities and curtail new drilling.
“Drilling off the coast of the 24th Congressional District is not going to happen while I’m a congressman,” Maldonado promised.
Although zingers weren’t lobbed and sparks didn’t fly, recriminations were exchanged after the subject of negative ads was brought up.
“I haven’t run a negative ad,” Maldonado said, eliciting some chuckles. “We have some outside groups that run some negative ads.” He then accused Capps of attacking his family. Capps has accused him of failing to pay his taxes, while he maintains that his family business’s dispute with the IRS is over tax deductions. “If negative attacks work, Lois Capps will win this race,” Maldonado said.
Capps was sharply critical of the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United ruling, which gave way to multimillion-dollar super Political Action Committees. The effects have been felt in the 24th Congressional race, where attack ads against Capps have been funded by American Crossroads Super PAC, run by Karl Rove.
Capps said she would work to pass the DISCLOSE Act, which would require campaign groups to be more transparent about their donors. “When this decision came down, we knew it was going to be a death knell to campaigning,” Capps said, “because it would unleash this whole amount of money into politics and effectively buy elections.”
Maldonado said he opposes Citizens United, but he said much of the rancor in campaigns comes from politicians. “There’s only one way we’re going to change all those attacks in Washington: if we change everyone in Washington.”
The election will take place Tuesday, Nov. 6. jfoster@syvjournal.com