Five candidates joined at the Alpine Community Center on Sept. 18 for a meet the candidates event for East County constituents. Candidates on hand were Stephen Houlahan running for congressional District 48, Joseph Rocha, running for California Senate District 40, Barbara Bry, running for County Assessor-Clerk-Recorder, and two candidates for San Diego Superior Court Judge, Superior Court Commissioner Pete Singer and Assistant U.S. Attorney Rebecca Kanter.
Bry, a Democrat, is running against Chief Deputy Assessor Jordan Marks explained the role of County Clerk, which includes birth, marriage, and death records, fictitious business name statements, assesses property for tax collection purposes, and much more. She said it is a countywide position with more than 400 employees and a budget of $78 million per year. Bry, a former city of San Diego council member, a journalist early in her career, and worked in the technology business for 30 years, starting companies, most notably ProFlowers.com. Bry ran for San Diego mayor in 2020 and lost. She said she is running for county clerk to bring innovative technology and modernization to an office which has operated “under the radar.” She said that she thought she would never run for office again, but those who supported her for mayor asked her to run for county clerk.
“I am qualified for this job,” she said. “Because of my business background, and because what I have accomplished on the San Diego City Council.”
Bry said a few things she was proud of was her work with 101 Ash Street, a cityowned property when she became a council member and was the first to demand an independent investigation of “a terrible purchase” by the city of San Diego. She said she ordered an independent audit of the water department when customers were being overbilled, which she said led to significant reforms.
“My legacy is my opposition to the Soccer City ballot measure,” she said. “I read the 1,000 page ballot and realized with my business background that it was a terrible deal for all of us. I was the first elected official to stand up and oppose it.”
Bry said her priorities are technology and modernization of the county clerk’s office. She said it needs a new website, complete an integrated property tax management system as it is outdated, and the County is losing money due to its slow process.
“Right now, these systems do not talk to each other which means things fall through the cracks and are not always as accurate as they should be,” she said.
Bry said her third priority is new construction. She said when with new construction, an appraiser is sent out and it is important to get it right, and to do it quickly, “because if we do not, it is legitimate tax money we are not collecting, while you are paying your fair share.”
“I am the most qualified candidate given by business background, my public service background, my journalism background, to hold this position,” she said, adding that her opponent is saying he is the only qualified candidate, “and that is a lie.”
“If I were not qualified, I would not be allowed to be on the ballot,” she said.
Houlahan, a Democrat, is running for 48th Congressional District, against incumbent Rep. Darrell Issa. Houlahan is a 25-year registered nurse, a former Santee City Council member, and ran for mayor of Santee “with a narrow loss.”
“Darrell Issa is the culmination of a long line of very bad representatives for this district, formally District 50” he said. “For which we had Duncan Hunter, a local in this area who went down on charges of corruption. Before that we had Randy Duke Cunningham. So, we have never really had true representation. Partisan politics have really injured us to be represented in this area. I am going to represent you. I have lived in this area my entire life. Issa does not even live in this area. He lives in Vista. He was going to lose an election to Michael Levin, so he jumped districts.”
Houlahan said the Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade and taking away a woman’s right to choose was a “horrible thing” and that he is the prochoice candidate. “We do not want these sorts of people telling all of the ladies how to manage their reproductive future,” he said. “It is your right as a woman to make that decision regardless of what the circumstances are…A woman and her doctor should make that decision. Not a bureaucrat in Washington D.C. This is 2022, not 1952.”
Houlahan said this area needs federal money for the wildfires, drought, and water. He said firefighters should be paid appropriately and provided all the tools they need to get these jobs done, which Issa voted against. He said climate change is real, and the infrastructure is destroyed. He said he is a big proponent of the advanced water purification program, which is recycled water and drought resistant. He said people are doing their part in water conservation, but federal dollars are needed for initiatives for advanced water purification, clean water, and to expand dams and reservoirs. He said inflation is a problem now. “I’ll give you a news flash,” he said. “Biden did not cause inflation, Trump did not either. Inflation is about our supply line. It is about the laws of supply and demand. With the COVID pandemic, the supply side ramped down. It takes a long time to ramp everything back up. This is a political play with Republicans like Darrell Issa trying to blame it on Biden.”
Houlahan said he can help with all of this and be bipartisan in doing so. “We need to do the right thing together,” he said, adding that when you see the supply ships lined up in Long Beach, that many of them should be coming down to San Diego, placing that infrastructure here. Houlahan said the politics need to be taken out of the international border and it needs to be seen as a commercial corridor where bridges need to be built, not “big walls” like Issa proposes.
“We need to get commerce going back and forth across that border, and we need it to happen quickly,” he said. “I am not here to say we should have open borders. But we need to make sure that commerce can come back and forth across the border,” adding that the problem is politicians making extremely bad decisions.
Houlahan said comprehensive immigration reform is necessary. The U.S. needs people to come in for certain jobs.
“We need to take the racism out of immigration, and we need to do the right thing,” he said. “Bring across the right people to do the right jobs. The modernization of the Farmer’s Act makes sense. We need to have a pathway to citizenship for critical workers. When it comes to DACA, those people have been here their whole lives.”
Rocha, a Democrat, is running for State Senate District 40 against incumbent Sen. Brian Jones. Rocha said he comes from a family of immigrants, and he is a product of their sacrifices and hard work. Rocha joined the Navy at 18, becoming a bomb dog handler tracking down explosives in the Persian Gulf. He was discharged under Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. While fighting for repeal, he graduated from USD and the University of San Francisco School of Law. After his repeal, he joined the U.S. Marines and rose to the rank of captain.
“I am running as a former Navy and Marine veteran, a former law enforcement officer, and a federal prosecutor, which frankly, makes it difficult for the GOP to run against me,” he said. Rocha said he want to take back the “ludicrous” idea that the values of service and patriotism, whether it is something as hallowed at the American flag, “only belongs to a few of us.”
Rocha said he understands that Alpine is not the “highest concentration and deepest darkest blue” population of his district, but that constituents there are as important as any other voters.
“You will see a thread that is constant in our platform and our values and in what I stand for, and that is opportunity,” he said. “I learned very early the value of hard work and I am running to ensure that hard work still stands for something. I am sick and tired of seeing people have to go back off from their retirement into the workforce. We hear a lot about my generation, millennials, still living with their parents, but after knocking on thousands of doors, what I see more often than not, are millennials having to take their parents in.”
“I ran because I saw the fabric of this country falling apart,” he said. “I can see everything that I spent those 17 years fighting for, putting my life in harms way. A lot of people see this as a job. I see it as a calling as I did in my enlistment at 18.”
Rocha said his opponent is not talking about the current issues, and that they are too serious to not talk about. He said he will not allow Jones to lie about his record on common sense government reform, a woman’s right over her own body, and his record for “being for the people.”
“He voted against reducing the price of prescription medications,” he said. “We always think about seniors on this issue but is just as important for a child whose life depends on insulin.”
Rocha said Jones voted against California creating its own insulin.
“Why? Because the three top actors of my opponent are big pharma, big oil, and the insurance corporations,” he said.
Rocha said he has big ideas for veterans, but he wants more done for the active duty military and their families.
“In doing that we will significantly reduce the things we are now seeing in the veteran community,” he said. “I want to expand and cover gaps for healthcare. I want to see our veterans receive a free education, allowing them to push that GI Bill down to their spouse or to their children, creating generational wealth, and build that family so they can put down roots here, or start a small business.”
“This entire campaign is making sure that the state is working for you, fighting for workers,” he said. “I do not know how politicians get away with being funded by simply going up to either capital to protect special interests so that they can continue to grind us into the ground, but I have both the lived experience and the professional experience to ensure that this seat, which represents a million people, that affects 39 million people, is no longer squandered by somebody who does not want to do the job.”
“You do not have to be a good legislator to be a good person, but if you are not a good legislator, go be a good person somewhere else. Nobody else gets to be bad at their job for 21 years and still collect a paycheck. This person [Jones] regularly votes against giving other people a leg up, and than getting a tax funded paycheck for 21 years and has voted against term limits and increasing their pay.”
Singer is running against Attorney/Criminal Prosecutor Pete Murray for superior court judge and is not running against an incumbent.
“Judges are not policy makers, and when we run for judge or take a position as a judge or commissioner, we give up a lot of our First Amendment rights,” he said. “There are many things we cannot discuss. I cannot stand behind certain policies because some of these things might come before the court at some point in the future. We are not allowed to take a public position on anything that may come before the court. It is a nonpartisan position. Political party is not supposed to be part of the equation.”
Singer said as a commissioner is a subordinate judicial officer of the Superior Court. He said commissioners are the “worker bees” of the Superior Court, not elected by the people, but by the judges. Singer applied for this position seven years ago and earned the spot out of 137 applicants. He said commissioners handle the subordinate cases the judges to not want to handle. His present assignment is criminal infractions: traffic, boating violations, fish and game, transit violations, quality of life, like homeless issues. He said commissioners and judges go through the same training, and he teaches New Judge Orientation in Sacramento. He is also on the faculty of the California State Judicial College, a two-year program that all judges and commissioners must complete in their first two years on the bench. He said the third level of education is Primary Assignment Training, of which he is also an instructor.
“I have been recognized as California State Commissioner of the year and am presently wrapping up my two-year term as president of the California Court Commissioners Association,” he said.
Prior to becoming a commissioner, Singer was a private practice attorney for 28 years, his practice mostly civil in nature, he said. He said he represented real estate litigation, represented mentally ill people, and cases involving involuntary medication.
“I have tons of experience in mental health law, and that leads to why I am running for this position,” he said. “San Diego has an increasing homeless population. I deal with a lot of people that are housing insecure, drug addicted and mentally ill.”
Kanter is running against Deputy Attorney General Mike Murphy for superior court judge office 35. But she said in looking at judges for election, check with the Bar Association for the candidates rating, which hers is “very qualified.” She said though she cannot take a stance on public positions, she has experience in civil law which is important because judges have to make decisions over a wide variety of areas, so her experience is in both civil and criminal law.
“I believe that judge’s matter,” she said. “They impact our lives in very real and meaningful ways. And that is why I am running for this seat,” adding that she also is not running against an incumbent.
Kanter has been a federal prosecutor 16 of her 20 year career. As Assistant United States Attorney, she prosecutes internet crimes against children and human trafficking, to international corruption and embezzlement. She also served as the Civil Rights coordinator and ethics advisor for the U.S. Attorney’s office.
“I focused most of my career in this area because I believe those who are in positions of power and have a background in education, opportunity, and wealth, should not be able to abuse those privileges and power to enhance their own standing,” she said.
Kanter said though they are not allowed to speak about policy, they can share their background and experience, and associations. Kanter is a volunteer judge pro temp, starting in small claims court. Kanter volunteers, being on the board of the Lawyers Club of San Diego, a women’s bar association, dedicated to advancing women in law and society.
Kanter started her volunteer work over a decade ago with the Lawyers Club coaching reproductive rights with its Advocacy Committee, and her most recent responsibility with the Lawyers’ Club was coaching the Funds for Justice, a nonprofit arm of the Lawyers Club, which gives out grants to organizations in the county to support women and girls.
“I cannot tell you about my position on Dobbs,” she said. “But I can tell you I spent three years volunteering as the lead of a committee that was committed to reproductive choice. People will either like that about my background, or not like it about my background. But I believe it is more important to show what you have done than say what you will do.”
