The next reporting period for campaign funds raised in the 35th Assembly Race is coming up...
[ From: "
Williams, Jordan assembly battle flares up" By Joshua Molina, DAILY SOUND — Dec. 2, 2009 ]
In what is expected to be the most explosive Democratic primary in decades, the battle between Das Williams and Susan Jordan for the 35th District Assembly seat has taken on a new sense of urgency, with both candidates frantically scrambling to raise money before the end of December.
Whoever rises to the top early next year when the financial contributions are made public will symbolically make a statement about the viability of his or her campaign.
Williams and Jordan are locked in fierce political warfare that has already ripped apart local Democrats. When it comes to fundraising, any significant financial edge is expected to help swing key undecided Democratic donors and endorsers.
The two candidates are looking to win state office at a time when California is getting strangled by budget deficits, massive cuts in education, and a gutting of health care funding, among other major problems.
Williams, who is serving his second term on the Santa Barbara City Council, is looking to succeed Pedro Nava, who must step down from the state office because of term limits. While Williams is comfortable in the role of candidate – he also ran for county supervisor in 2005 – his challenge this time is more formidable than it appears on the surface.
By some measures, the 35-year-old Williams is fighting against the power of Sacramento incumbency.
Jordan is Nava’s wife and she has locked up much of the same Sacramento support that backed Nava. And while Nava is focused on his own campaign for state Attorney General, his Bill Clinton-to-Hillary-like presence in the race is already playing a role in the campaign.
In a passive slap at Williams, just this week Nava sent out a letter blasting the city of Santa Barbara for the rise in medicinal marijuana centers. Williams chairs the committee that is currently addressing the dispensary issue. Mayor Marty Blum accused Nava of meddling in the city’s affairs. Williams outright accused him of political posturing.
Nava has been all but invisible on city matters up until his sudden interest in medical marijuana dispensaries.
The letter is perhaps the first salvo in what is expected to be an explosive primary over the next several months.
Democrats expect the primary to get ugly, negative and expensive.
“The higher the stakes get, more pressure will be put on the candidates, both internally and externally, to run aggressive campaigns,” said political consultant James Kyriaco, who is not representing either Williams or Jordan. “Both candidates are extremely competent, qualified and compassionate individuals who have the ability to be strong representatives.”
The winner of the Democratic primary will face Republican Mike Stoker in November. While Stoker has much name recognition, the district is largely made up of Democrats, giving either Williams or Jordan the advantage. Democrats make up nearly 50 percent of the registered voters in the district, while Republicans total just under 30 percent.
“It’s a win-win,” said Daraka Larimore-Hall, chairman of the Santa Barbara County Democratic Party, a group that does not make endorsements during partisan primaries. “Either Das or Susan will clean Stoker’s clock.”
So with Democrats believing that the race will essentially be decided in June, the urgency on the part of Williams and Jordan is real.
Jordan, a longtime environmental activist, who has never held public office, but did serve on the county planning commission, refutes any accusations that Nava’s recent medicinal marijuana letter was politically motivated.
“I had nothing to do with it,” she said. “I don’t see why anyone would think that it is politically motivated. It is entirely appropriate for him to weigh in.”
Jordan touts her years as a business management consultant, and founder of environmental organizations. A mother of a 21-year-old college student, Jordan also points to her life experience as a parent, and the length of her career.
“I come to this with over 30 years of experience,” Jordan, 57, told the Daily Sound. “I know what it means to manage a payroll. I know what it means to write a check.”
Such experience, she said, will help her in Sacramento.
“I have never seen Sacramento this divided, this polarized, this confused,” she said.
Still, Jordan must overcome the perception that she is riding the coattails of her husband, who hand-picked her to replace him in the state Assembly. It’s a perspective that rubs her the wrong way.
She said that because of her environmental activism she was approached to run for Assembly in the late 1990s – long before she met Nava, whom she married in 2002.
“I am Pedro’s spouse, but I don’t think it defines who I am in this election,” she said.
Williams, who has championed environmental initiatives since he was elected to the council in 2003, and who has become a darling among progressive liberal Democrats, only jumped into the race after Jordan and Nava’s opposition to the PXP coastal drilling deal, which was brokered by the region’s most influential and prominent environmentalists.
Jordan and Nava in January helped sink the Plains Exploration & Production deal, an agreement between local environmental groups and the oil company to decommission several offshore platforms, in exchange for expanded drilling rights at Tranquillon Ridge, offshore from Vandenberg Air Force Base.
The deal, voted down by the State Lands Commission, would have resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenue for Santa Barbara County, and an eventual early shutdown of the oil platforms. Nava and Jordan helped crush the deal, claiming it was largely unenforceable, infuriating many in Santa Barbara’s progressive environmental community.
Nava and Jordan’s display of muscle in Sacramento over the PXP deal is an example of the kind of politics, Williams said, that voters want a change from.
“Right now Sacramento is broken,” Williams said. “We need new leadership and new energy to take on the status quo and fight for a better future. I’m an outsider to the Sacramento establishment, but my experience getting results on the local level and bringing people together is what will make me a more effective legislator.”
He acknowledged that fundraising is an important element of any campaign.
“As unfortunate as it may be, one of the key early indicators of a candidate’s strength is through fundraising. Because my opponent and her husband, Assemblymember Nava, can pull some strings and raise money outside the district, I knew that fundraising would be a priority in the early stages of the campaign.”
Jordan, however, counters that she is the underdog when it comes to fundraising. Already, there are signs the race is getting testy.
“I am up against a well-oiled candidate,” Jordan said. “He comes into the race with an established fund-raising base.”
According to the most recent publicly available filings, but candidates were neck-and-neck in fundraising, coming in just under $125,000.
Since he jumped into the race, Williams has been out front on education issues, and is looking to distinguish himself as more than just an environmental candidate.
“Containing the damage to our public education and health systems done by state budget cuts is an immediate challenge,” Williams said. “We need to look beyond the short-term gimmicks and political expedience of ‘cuts-only’ budgets.”
