Election 2016: 4 local incumbents face challengers in state and federal races
Amid the more publicized elections for local city councils and school boards, four races for state and federal seats have been relatively quiet.
At the federal level, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Costa Mesa) is seeking reelection Tuesday in the 48th Congressional District. He’s been in Congress since 1989. Challenging him for a second time is Suzanne Savary, a Newport Beach Democrat who is a retired professor and management consultant.
Savary, whose campaign has occasionally tied Rohrabacher to GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump’s controversial remarks about women, faces an uphill battle. Her incumbent opponent garnered nearly twice as many votes as her in the June primary.
Rohrabacher, however, has not shied from his support for Trump. In October, Rohrabacher was critical of House Speaker Paul Ryan after Ryan and other Republicans backed away from supporting Trump.
The biggest surprise in June was that Democrat Karina Onofre, who has never held elected office, captured 3,760 more votes than incumbent Matthew Harper (R-Huntington Beach) in the 74th Assembly District primary.
The two face off again in next week’s general election.
Also up for election are the 37th District seat in the state Senate — with incumbent John Moorlach (R-Costa Mesa) facing Democratic challenger Ari Grayson — and the 72nd District seat in the state Assembly, with incumbent Travis Allen (R-Huntington Beach) facing Democratic challenger Lenore Albert-Sheridan.
Albert-Sheridan, a Huntington Beach-based lawyer, is facing possible professional discipline after the State Bar Court of California recommended a 30-day suspension for her. A judge last month found her culpable on three counts of misconduct for failing to cooperate with a disciplinary investigation and failing to obey a court order to pay $7,258 in sanctions. A three-day trial was held in July.
The state Supreme Court will determine whether to uphold the recommendation.
“I was not found to have done anything criminal or that I had been dishonest or had bad character,” Albert-Sheridan told the Daily Pilot this week. “I think there were a lot of due-process violations in the proceedings, and I am not going to back down.”
Here are the races, with the candidates listed in alphabetical order:
48TH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT
Dana Rohrabacher
Age: 69
Occupation: U.S. representative
Education: Bachelor’s degree in history, master’s degree in American studies
Time lived in district: I have lived in our district my entire time serving in Congress and before that growing up here in the 1960s.
Previous public service: Speechwriter and special assistant to President Ronald Reagan
Immediate family: Married, three children
What are three things you hope to achieve if elected?
1. Refocus America’s space program on near-space projects that directly benefit humankind and increase our ability to protect our country.
2. Rally bipartisan support behind increasing employee ownership through restructuring of our tax system. My bill, Expanding Employee Ownership Act of 2016 (H.R. 4577), accomplishes this goal.
3. Use all of my experience and foreign contacts to defeat radical Islamic terrorism. My bill H.R. 4017 gives Christians who are targets of genocide priority for immigration and refugee status.
Suzanne Savary
Age: 69
Occupation: Retired associate professor of management communication at USC; former chief executive of a management consulting firm
Time lived in district: 18 years
Previous public service: Founder and president of the Newport Beach Women’s Democratic Club; member of Newport Beach Charter Commission; service on several nonprofit boards and organizations
Immediate family: Widowed, two children
What are three things you hope to achieve if elected?
1. Our 48th Congressional District deserves a leader who will work with others to solve problems and generate solutions, rather than choosing win-lose obstructionism.
2. Work tirelessly and bring the five “E’s” to fruition: economic revitalization of the middle class and small business; empowering women and families to achieve their best lives; educational access to maintain our economic competitiveness; environmental responsibility for clean air, water and soil; and embracing the future and change by bringing responsible leadership back to D.C. and the O.C.
3. Reverse the anti-family, anti-women, anti-Social Security and -Medicare, anti-minority, anti-small business, anti-middle class, anti-student, anti-progress, anti-infrastructure and stunningly anti-environmental policies of my predecessor.
37TH STATE SENATE DISTRICT
Ari Grayson
Age: 56
Occupation: Architectural engineer, research scientist
Education: Doctor of philosophy in architecture; master of science in architecture; master of science in building design; graduate studies in architecture; bachelor’s degree, architectural engineering
Time lived in district: Five years
Previous public service: None
Immediate family: Married
What are three things you hope to achieve if elected?
1. Economic stimulus by building infrastructure for transportation and water recapture, as well as economic analyses to indicate building the infrastructure we need.
2. Job growth by encouraging the development and use of high-tech and innovative technologies, particularly renewable and green technologies that help California’s environment and help the state become a global leader in this burgeoning market.
3. Ensure higher education is affordable and accessible to all individuals with the ability to succeed. Students should not be burdened with overwhelming debt in order to receive a college or university education.
John Moorlach
Age: 60
Occupation: State senator
Education: Bachelor’s degree, with an option in accounting; certified public accountant (inactive); certified financial planner (inactive)
Time lived in district: In Costa Mesa for 32 years, in Orange County since 1960
Previous public service: Orange County supervisor, 2nd District (2006-15); Orange County treasurer-tax collector (1995 to 2006); several related committees and industry organizations
Immediate family: Married, three children
What are three things you hope to achieve if elected?
1. Focus on state budget to improve California’s balance sheet. California has the largest unrestricted net deficit of any state in the nation.
2. Focus on California’s unfunded liabilities. Work to address pension and retiree medical unfunded actuarial accrued liabilities, the largest of any state in the nation.
3. Focus on making California more business-friendly. California has been rated the worst state in which to do business by CEOs for the past 12 years in a row.
74TH ASSEMBLY DISTRICT
Matthew Harper
Age: 42
Occupation: State assemblyman; real estate broker
Education: Bachelor’s degree in public policy and management
Time lived in district: 28 years
Previous public service: Huntington Beach mayor (2013-14), Huntington Beach City Council member (2010-14), Huntington Beach Union High School District trustee (1998 to 2010)
Immediate family: Married
What are three things you hope to achieve if elected?
1. Continue to support education. For me, education is the top priority for the state of California, and we need to work together so our education systems are competitive, innovative, accountable and funded.
2. Continue to oppose tax increases and attacks on Proposition 13. The state government is downward pressure on our economy, and in addition to opposing tax increases, I will support regulatory relief, California Environmental Quality Act reform, litigation reform and labor law reform.
3. Instead of state-run high-speed rail, we need to focus on improving and expanding our transportation, energy and water infrastructure. Public and private infrastructure is aging, outdated and inadequate.
Karina Onofre
Age: 33
Occupation: Small-business owner
Education: Bachelor’s degrees in economics and political science
Time lived in district: Four years
Previous public service: Never been a politician
Immediate family: In a relationship
What are three things you hope to achieve if elected?
1. Investing in strengthening our public education system by making sure all California kids are the leaders of this globalized world in every field, including engineering, robotics, artificial intelligence, inventing, medicine and technology across the board. I also want to make sure our high school students are learning about how to balance a checkbook, how to have good credit, how to have a good social media image/reputation, best practices of social media health and safety, how to buy a car and how to become homeowners before they step out into the real world.
2. Making sure our public safety sector has all the resources at its disposal to best protect us, as we also bring more diversity into the system so that our mosaic of cultures are well-represented and we can build bridges to empower communities. To help promote more diversity in the law enforcement system, I would ... promote the idea of doing away with written exams only for college graduates, since the written exams have been proven to weed out a lot of people who may otherwise have other qualities, experience and assets that our police and fire departments could greatly benefit from.
3. As a small-business owner in the real estate and mortgages industry, I will fight to help other entrepreneurs succeed and thrive, because small businesses are the backbone of all great economies. I plan to emphasize tax cuts for small-business owners ... as I believe these tax cuts can pay for themselves by increasing government revenue generated from the new jobs, new companies and new prosperity for California.
72ND ASSEMBLY DISTRICT
Lenore Albert-Sheridan
Age: 50
Occupation: Consumer rights attorney
Education: Bachelor’s degree in economics; juris doctor
Time lived in district: More than 15 years
Previous public service: Not stated
Immediate family: Not stated
What are three things you hope to achieve if elected?
1. Bring back a strong and thriving middle class.
2. Defend our environment — clean air, water and food.
3. Get money out of politics.
Travis Allen
Age: 43
Occupation: State assemblyman; small-business owner
Education: Bachelor’s degree in economics
Time lived in district: 20 years
Previous public service: Assemblyman since 2012
What are three things you hope to achieve if elected?
1. Roll back burdensome, expensive and unnecessary regulations that are forcing businesses out of the state, taking jobs for hard-working Californians with them. Every year, California is ranked one of the worst states to do business and create jobs.
2. Protect Proposition 13 and fight to lower taxes to make it affordable to live in California again. California has the nation’s highest sales tax, gas tax and top income tax bracket.
3. Ensure that our taxpayer money stays in our schools and that parents and students are empowered to participate in the education process. California used to lead the country in educational outcomes for our students, yet is currently one of the lowest-ranked states.
Twitter: @BradleyZint
