Three democrats, three republicans battle for 11th Congressional
District seat in June
Gilroy – In what promises to be one of the most closely watched congressional races, six candidates are vying for the 11th District seat held by Richard Pombo, R-Tracy.
Pombo, who’s been targeted by the Democratic Congressional Congress and linked by his opponents to the scandals surrounding convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff and retiring Texas Republican Congressman Tom Delay, is being attacked from the left and the right. And though congressional campaigns are traditionally about local issues, Pombo and his opponents are focusing mostly on national and foreign policy.
“Before September 11 most of what we did was a domestic agenda, Pombo said. “September 11 was akin to a wake-up call that the primary purpose of the federal government was to protect the United States and its citizens.”
On June 6, Pombo faces a primary challenge from former Peninsula Congressman Pete McCloskey and Thomas Benigno, a retired farmer from Tracy. If Pombo survives the primary, he’ll take on the winner of three-man Democratic primary field.
Jerry McNerney lost to Pombo in 2004. He’s up against U.S. Navy veteran and political rookie Steve Filson, and another first-time candidate, electrician Steve Thomas. Below, in alphabetical order, are brief profiles of the six candidates hoping to represent portions of the Central Valley and the East Bay, along with Morgan Hill and San Martin, in Congress.
Democrats
Steve Filson, U.S. Navy Veteran
A Navy veteran with no political experience, Steve Filson is the Democratic establishment’s candidate. His effort to defeat Pombo began last August when he was tabbed to run for the seat by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and party heavyweights are lining up behind him. Filson has the support of U.S. Representatives Sam Farr, Mike Honda and Zoe Lofgren, and retired general and former presidential candidate Wesley Clark.
And Filson has the platform most likely to get him dubbed “Congressman Pothole.”
“Mr. Pombo’s biggest failing is a broad neglect for his district,” the Danville resident said. “Roads are in great disrepair, what he has done to the endangered species act is terrible. … Mr. Pombo has brought some money back for flood control [in Morgan Hill] but that was cosmetic.”
Filson, who spent 20 years as a Navy pilot and now flies a Boeing 777, said his time as a Navy flight manager more than compensates for his lack of political experience.
“It was at the federal level and in a very complex work environment involving a lot of negotiation and a lot of persuasion,” he said. “That’s exactly what you do in Congress.”
While Filson is campaigning on promises to improve commute times between Silicon Valley and the Central Valley and deliver Morgan Hill’s long-awaited Uvas-Llagas flood project, he’s also attacking Republicans on their foreign policy decisions, most notable the Iraq war. Filson doesn’t want to withdraw American troops, but says he will call for additional congressional authority to “find and hold those companies and individuals accountable who have wasted or stolen resources from the American people.”
Jerry McNerney ran against Pombo in ’04
Jerry McNerney lost to Pombo in 2004, capturing 39 percent of the vote. That experience, he said, makes him the candidate most likely to unseat Pombo in 2006.
“I realized at that time that it’s about building relationships and listening to people,” McNerney said. “That’s what we’ve been doing for the last two years and we’ve got a plan and vision for our district.”
Though he was the Democratic standard bearer two years ago, he’s something of an outside candidate this year. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is supporting Filson.
“They thought Mr. Filson was the answer to their dreams because he’s a veteran. He was closer to their profile than I was,” McNerney said. “I have the support of the grassroots.”
McNerney, who has the support of most labor groups, has what may be a true “think global, act local” platform. He’s pushing universal healthcare and wants to exploit the resources of his district – farmland, the Port of Stockton – and turn the Central Valley into an renewable energy production and distribution site.
“We are too dependent on foreign oil and too dependent on credit from foreign countries,” McNerney said. “Our district has a lot of resources that can make us a new center for new energy production in this country. … We can break our dependence on oil.”
McNerney has lived with his family in Pleasanton since 1990. For 20 years, he’s worked in the field of wind power, serving as a consultant for PG&E, FloWind, The Electric Power Research Institute, and other utility companies. He is now the CEO of a start-up company that will manufacture wind turbines.
Steve Thomas, union electrician
Steve Thomas wants to turn back the clock on Democratic politics.
“I’ll just say it,” Thomas said this week. “I have what it takes to lead the party back to Franklin Roosevelt and The New Deal. The New Deal set the stage for American prosperity in the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s. Ever since, Nixon the Republicans have torpedoed those programs.”
Thomas’s platform is one of trade and electoral reform. The union electrician blames the 1993 North America Free Trade Agreement for what he says is the country’s shrinking middle class. He calls the deal a frontal assault on labor unions.
“No country ever got rich sending jobs overseas,” he says. “NAFTA tore up the social contract between manufacturers and labor. It was a premeditated move to destroy labor.”
Thomas wants to roll back America’s trade and tariff laws a half-century to a time when environmental and job concerns factored into our import and export policies. “I don’t know why ‘protectionism’ is such a dirty word,” he says.
Aside from a stint as president of the Northern California BSA Motorcycle Club, Thomas has no political experience. He’s worked as an electrician for 20 years and spent 10 years in the finance industry.
If elected, he said he would fight to take money out of politics and wants to make all public statements made by elected officials to carry the weight of sworn testimony under oath.
“The progressive caucus needs reinforcements,” Thomas said. “Economic issues cut across party lines. … We have to demand that elected official tell the truth as part of their job.”
Republicans
Thomas Benigno, wants to help small business
Thomas Benigno knew Richard Pombo when Pombo was just a kid and the Benignos and the Pombos were neighboring farming families in Tracy. The Benigno farm eventually went out of business while the Pombo family ranch has continued to thrive, and Benigno says that it’s no coincidence that the congressman’s family business has succeeded while so many small businesses have failed in recent years. Pombo, Benigno argues is a connected politician who cares more about corporations than he does the small-buisness man.
“Companies such as Target, Costco, Ford Motor … are giving way to foreign companies,” Benigno wrote in an e-mail recently. “Our ports, our public land eventually will be taken over by large global concerns that control our legacy that we worked to pass down to our families. Why? Because of congressmen like Pombo who … had no vision, only tenure because special interest money moved Pombo to where he is today.”
In addition to farming, Benigno has also owned businesses in the grocery industry and is now retired. He has served on the state’s Republican Central Committee, but has never held political office. He has campaigned for several offices, including the California Assembly, and in 2004, Congress. He says that his political ambitions are to help small businesses and undo some of the country’s trade pacts, such as the North American Free Trade Agreement. Although Benigno has a long history with Pombo, and can be acerbic and vitriolic toward the congressman, he said that his campaign is not part of a personal vendetta.
Still, he recently said of Pombo that “I am the better man. I have lived through his tyranny. I don’t make deals with the devil, and no I’m not always in conflict, just to those who try to destroy me. Because I do not deal with the devil.”
Pete McCloskey, First won seat in 1967
Pete McCloskey first earned the wrath of conservative Republican in the Bay Area in 1967, when he defeated childhood star Shirley Temple Black to win the first of seven terms as a Peninsula congressman. He lists his biggest accomplishments during those 14 years as speaking out against the Vietnam War, working to reduce capital gains taxes and pushing environmental protection legislation.
Now, more than two decades after he left Capitol Hill, McCloskey is again earning the condemnation of conservatives who are angry that he’s taking on Pombo, never mind that he had to move 90 miles to do so. While conservatives call McCloskey a carpetbagger and a Democrat in sheep’s clothing, he says he wants to return to Congress to restore true conservative principles of environmental conservation and fiscal restraint to government. He’s been very vocal about linking Pombo to the disgraced Abramoff and Delay.
“I’m not a Democrat,” McCloskey said. “My values are Republican values – ethics, balanced budgets and limited government. The ethics have never been worse. The budgets has never been in larger deficits. The government has never been larger.”
McCloskey, a former Marine, wants to protect large swaths of California land from development, toughen air and water quality standards, improve healthcare for veterans and block legislative attempts to exercise more authority over the U.S. Supreme Court – all positions that he says differentiate him from Pombo, who recently led an effort to reform the Endangered Species Act to make residential development an easier proposition.
McCloskey is one candidate who isn’t promising to deliver more flood protection for Morgan Hill. His stance is that the project, more than 50 years in the making, is not a federal concern, though he’s been the most visible candidate in this far-flung corner of the 11th district.
“I think our bigger problems are national problems, war and peace, the national budget, healthcare, local problems exacerbated by federal policy,” he said. “My issues with Pombo are essentially the national issues and I think you’d have to put corruption on the top of that list.”
Online Box: For more information about Pete McCloskey, visit http://www.petemccloskey.com/index.html
Richard Pombo
Richard Pombo is staking what promises to be the toughest election battle of his 14-year congressional career on national security issues. At a recent candidate forum, a Pombo aide told a group of conservative Republicans that the congressman “stands firm with President Bush in the war on terror.” He pins his legislative philosophy to September 11, 2001, and he supported HR 4437, a bill that would make helping an illegal immigrant a felony, despite strong opposition from his heavily agricultural constituency.
“That bill dealt with border security,” Pombo said in a recent interview. “I believe to really reform immigration you not only have to do border security you also have to have some type of temporary worker program. That’s been my position since I got here.”
Pombo was first elected in 1992, after one term on the Tracy city council. After the last census, his district was redrawn to include Morgan Hill and portions of San Martin. He’s shown his allegiance to this small corner of his constituency by pressuring the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to complete flood protection work that South County has been waiting for for decades. So far, he has not been successful, though he said relief may come from the legislature later this year. Pombo hinted that project may fall by the wayside again if he’s not returned to Congress. As chairman of the house Resources Committee and vice-chairman of the house Agriculture Committee, Pombo has influence.
“My seniority makes a difference in representing this district,” he said. “Whether people agree with me all the time or not I’m always going to fight for what I believe in. I’m not going to move 100 miles to get my name on a ballot somewhere.”
The last statement was a shot at Pete McCloskey, who moved from Yolo County to Lodi to run against Pombo. McCloskey is attacking Pombo from the right, but the congressman says the former congressman is running a campaign of canards.
“He takes Republican values and skews them based upon what his history is and what his positions are,” Pombo said. “He’s to the left of most Democrats.”
To learn more about Richard Pombo, visit http://www.house.gov/pombo/.
