New to the political scene, Linda
”
Ellie
”
Black of Santa Cruz will face 27th Assemblymember incumbent Bill
Monning (D-Carmel) in November.
The 32-year-old Republican Black is an independent business
owner who lives in Santa Cruz and advocates fiscal responsibility
and more accountability in government.
New to the political scene, Linda “Ellie” Black of Santa Cruz will face 27th Assemblymember incumbent Bill Monning (D-Carmel) in November.
The 32-year-old Republican Black is an independent business owner who lives in Santa Cruz and advocates fiscal responsibility and more accountability in government.
Just before heading to the Santa Cruz County Republican Election party to celebrate her unopposed win for the GOP spot, Black said it’s time to cut back on spending to save California despite its initial sting. To say no is going to be unpopular but necessary, Black said.
“In the economy we’re in, it’s going to take representatives who are going to say no. (Monning) tends to say yes and there comes a time – just like a family, you run out of money and there has to be a prioritization of what comes first,” Black said.
She referred to the high-speed rail project as a “(dot-com) boom-time project” and the state cannot and should not make it a priority.
Which special interest groups politicians are meeting with should be made public too, Black said. Government transparency is paramount, she said.
“I want to make government more accessible. I’m going to campaign at the local colleges and universities and get the information out to students. This is the world they are inheriting and I feel that our current representatives are for the most part ruining any chance or opportunity they will have. I hope to get them involved,” Black said.
The 27th Assembly district runs along the Central Coast, and includes parts of Monterey, Santa Clara and Santa Cruz Counties, including Morgan Hill and San Martin.
The post is a two-year stint with a three-term limit. Monning was elected to the Assembly in 2008. Previously, Assemblymember Monning was a professor at the Monterey College of Law and a professor of International Negotiation and Conflict Resolution at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. He is the former president and co-founder of Global Majority, Inc.
Monning has opposed Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s budget plans to cut CalWORKS altogether to save about $1 billion. CalWORKS is California’s welfare to work program and mostly assists mothers and children, or 1.4 million residents yearly.
“The proposed elimination of CalWORKS is wrong in both human and economic terms,” Monning said.
Monning’s solution was a 13-cent tax increase on each pack of cigarettes with revenue selected to support children welfare services. Democrats also proposed an oil extraction fee on oil produced in the state. Those measures “would have generated revenues to offset our current budget deficit,” he said. But, both proposals did not receive the two-thirds vote needed by the Assembly to move forward.
