A monster emerged from Santa Clarita Republican Rep. Mike Garcia’s town hall this week: California.
On stage at the College of the Canyons Performing Arts Center, Garcia spoke in front of a large screen with red letters projected on it: “My mission is to prevent the United States from adopting the extreme policies of California.”
Garcia blasted California’s gas prices, homelessness crisis and housing costs that are about twice the national average. He blames it all on Sacramento’s Democratic supermajority.
“I want to be very clear, because this has been misunderstood in the past: I love California,” Garcia said. “This is why I’m here. This is where I raised my family. This is where I grew up. I have no intention of leaving California, but, boy, Sacramento makes it hard for me to stay in California.
Then, he added: “My job is to prevent this country from becoming like California.”
The packed auditorium burst into warm applause.
In Garcia’s sprawling district in northern Los Angeles County, denouncing the Golden State’s gas and housing costs is a strong message. Many residents here endure two-hour commutes to work in Los Angeles because they must move to the high desert to find homes they can afford.
Garcia, a three-time Republican seeking reelection in one of the state’s most competitive congressional races, held a town hall for more than three hours Tuesday night. Garcia did not speak directly about the election because he was attending the meeting in his official capacity as a congressman. His spokesman has not responded to multiple requests from The New York Times to discuss the event.
During a lengthy question-and-answer session, the forum’s constituents made clear their concerns: public safety, the cost of living, better health benefits for veterans, and the culture wars in California’s public schools, particularly regarding gender identity.
Garcia, a former Navy pilot, is facing a tough reelection bid to represent the 27th Congressional District, where Democrats hold a significant advantage in voter registration.
The race between him and his Democratic opponent, George Whitesides, the former NASA chief of staff under President Obama, will be critical in determining whether Republicans can maintain their narrow majority in the U.S. House of Representatives. The Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan election handicapper, said the outcome of this year’s race is difficult to predict.
“Some of you want me to be more right. Some of you want me to go further to the left. I am who I am and I believe what I believe,” Republican Rep. Mike Garcia said during a packed town hall in Santa Clarita. .
(Hailey Branson-Potts/Los Angeles Times)
The once staunchly conservative district stretches from Santa Clarita to the Kern County line and includes Lancaster and Palmdale. It has deep ties to the military and aerospace industries due to its proximity to Edwards Air Force Base.
More than 41% of registered voters are Democrats and about 30% are Republicans. More than a fifth are independents
Garcia, 48, first won her seat in a 2020 special election to replace young Democratic Rep. Katie Hill, who resigned amid a sex scandal. This is the first time in more than two decades that Republicans have flipped a California district from blue to red.
Garcia retained the seat in the next two elections. He won a three-way primary last spring with 55 percent of the vote to Whitesides’ 33 percent, setting the stage for the top two candidates to face off in a November runoff.
Whitesides, the former CEO of Mojave-based Virgin Galactic and a first-time candidate, blasted Garcia for voting against certifying the 2020 presidential election results following the Jan. 6 insurrection, as well as for his co-sponsored 2021 The Life at Conception Act, which would amount to a nationwide ban on abortion, with no exceptions for rape, incest or a threat to the mother’s health.
“As far as party affiliation, I’m in the minority — and I understand that,” Garcia said on stage Tuesday.
“Some of you want me to be more right. Some of you want me to go further to the left. I am who I am and I believe what I believe,” he said.
The son of Mexican immigrants, Garcia immigrated to the United States in 1959. In Congress, he voted against creating a path to citizenship for so-called Dreamers who were brought to the United States as children.
Garcia called for higher pay and more vacation time for service members, drawing cheers from the crowd filled with veterans.
“You’ve got to pay them better. You’ve got to lead them better, you’ve got to invest in the military-industrial complex that supports them and give our warfighters…the advantages they deserve, frankly, overseas and at home. ,” Garcia said. Former senior executive at defense contractor Raytheon.
One woman asked Garcia, “As people who are patriotic and love this country, what can we do to restore the spirit of patriotism in our schools?”
Garcia, a father of two, said politics needs to stay out of public schools and blasted a new state law that bars schools from enacting policies that require teachers to notify parents of changes in a student’s gender identity — for example, if they request the use of Called by different names or pronouns.
“For every bill like this in Sacramento, there’s an ugly twin sister in Washington, D.C.,” he said. “My job is to make sure that twins are not allowed to be signed into law and that California doesn’t actually become the norm for the entire country.”
There was indeed a tense exchange that night. Garcia told the crowd that he was a co-sponsor of the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, the landmark 1994 law that provides assistance to victims of domestic violence and sexual assault.
“This is a huge issue. Not a lot of Republicans are on board with this Violence Against Women Act, and I’m proud to be a co-sponsor,” Garcia said. “
But in 2021, Garcia voted against another reauthorization measure as conservatives protested expanding protections for LGBTQ+ people and tightening provisions for gun use by people convicted of abusing or stalking a date.
Instead, Garcia co-sponsored a failed Republican-led alternative that would have extended the act for one year, minus new provisions. He was not a co-sponsor of the compromise bill that passed the following year as part of a broader spending package.
Megan Johnson, an 18-year-old from Santa Clarita who will vote for the first time this fall, noted the disparity.
“You voted against renewing the bill. Is that the same act of co-sponsoring that you were talking about in the slide?” she asked him.
Garcia said he supported a “pure version” of the Violence Against Women Act and that the version he voted against “ended up inadvertently taking away the constitutional rights of others by protecting women who are victims of violence.”
Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spokesman Dan Gottlieb described Garcia’s vote as a “new low.”
“What Mike Garcia is apparently unable to acknowledge is the fact that he voted against reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act in 2021 – a move that could result in funding being diverted from improving criminal justice responses to sexual assault, domestic violence and stalking. exhausted.
Outside the auditorium, Johnson, a registered Democrat, said the congressman didn’t fully answer her question and that she would vote for Whitesides.
She said her biggest concern in this election, besides women’s safety and reproductive rights, is gun reform, an issue close to home in Santa Clarita: A student at Saugus High School in 2019 He opened fire in a crowded courtyard, killing two classmates and injuring three others before taking his own life.
“Growing up in a generation that had to do active shooter drills…it caused a lot of fear, honestly,” she said. “I had nightmares about mass shootings.”
As she left the auditorium, Trish Lester, a spokesperson for Santa Clarita Valley Republican Women, said she respected Garcia explaining his vote to Johnson and liked everything he had to say.
Lester, who wore a shirt that read “My governor is an idiot,” said she agreed with Garcia that California has become too extreme and too expensive.
Lester and her veteran husband “have supported his campaign from day one,” she added. “Obviously, he’s a classic character, a true patriot with military service and business experience.
“I’m very happy with Mike,” she said.
