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One of the most memorable things about Batman was the variety of colorful villains who never stopped coming after him, and after the beloved Gotham City which he protected so valiantly from them – the Joker, the Penguin, Catwoman, the Riddler.
Similarly, Progressive Congresswoman Katie Porter, who famously dressed as Batgirl on the floor of Congress last Halloween as the impeachment of Trump was being launched, has four Republican opponents this year, each of whom is hoping to wrest back her South County seat from her for their party.
These four Republicans – Laguna Hills Mayor Don Sedgwick, Mission Viejo Mayor Greg Raths, OC Board of Education Trustee Lisa Sparks, Yorba Linda Councilwoman Peggy Huang – will have to face each other and Katie in March’s “jungle primary.” And last week they all participated in a candidate forum in Mission Viejo. The Orange Juice Blog couldn’t get down there, but the good news is we didn’t need to, given the fine reporting from the OC Political Blog’s Chris Nguyen. (I wish we could get that blog’s RSS feed to work here.)
Chris pretty much wrote down everything – more than you probably feel like reading. What I’ll do here is sort through it all, find things that all four of these Republicans have in common, and a few things that make them stand out from one another. Remember, this is them talking to fellow “conservative” Republicans – a “Trump hat” was raffled off at the end! – so if the eventual GOP candidate ends up “moderating” their message in the summer and fall, it’ll be good to go back to this, to see what they promised the Trumpy faithful back in November 2019.
They all agreed…
Unsurprisingly, all four of these worthies insist that Congresswoman Porter “does not represent the values of this district.” This is up for debate of course – the UCI professor did win election last year by over 12,000 votes (52.1% to 47.1%) against rightwinger Mimi Walters, and without misrepresenting herself in any way I’m aware of. Mayor Raths doubled down, claiming that the 45th district is Republican with this proof: because the city councils there have Republicans in the majorities. Not a sound argument, Mayor, and this district like the whole county chose Hillary over Trump.
They all see the upcoming election as some kind of choice between “socialism” and “free enterprise,” as though Porter were a scary socialist, and as though our nation’s economy is NOT a hybrid of capitalism and democratic socialism (like in nearly every nation.) Huang, born in Taiwan, plays the socialism = communism = dictatorship card, having apparently learned this equation from her anti-PRC parents.
Another thing they all promise is to completely defund Planned Parenthood, relied on by millions of Americans for reproductive healthcare and sexual health information. Dr Sparks calls this “an easy question!” And Mayor Raths, in one of the very few comments the slightest bit critical of President Trump, says he’s disappointed that this wasn’t already done when Trump had a Republican congress in 2017-18.
They all oppose gun control, Sedgwick pointing out with startling originality that “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people!”
HR 5, the “Equality Act,” which is co-sponsored by Porter, would “add sexual orientation and gender identity to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, enshrining such nondiscrimination protections under federal law.” (Below, Porter explains why it’s necessary.) All four of these Republicans oppose it strongly, based on some notion of “religious freedom” – that is, freedom of people to engage in discrimination with the excuse their religion tells them to. Here’s Katie:
So, to wrap up so far, all four of these Republicans are against THAT, against any new gun control laws, and want to completely defund Planned Parenthood.
Peggy Huang, known mainly to this blog as one of the TCA directors most determined to force the 261 toll road into the heart of San Clemente, does seem to be the most knowledgable of the four. When the other three babbled and generalized aimlessly, she made a point of reminding them what the actual question was about. For example, Peggy was the only one who seemed to know what Net Neutrality is (although as a typical rightwing corporatist, she opposes it.) In contrast Raths grumbled about keeping the government out of people’s homes, and both Sparks and Sedgwick emphsaized that they love free speech but hate hate speech. (And according to Sedgwick the internet is important so we can read President Trump’s tweets! I’m serious, he said that.)
Dr. Sparks who claims to have been a Republican “since age 2” (unless that’s a Chris Nguyen typo) says that she’s interested in the Blue Dog Caucus if she makes it into Congress – a curious choice as that is a group for conservative DEMOCRATS. As for now though, Sparks is part of the disastrous three-member OCBOE majority that’s currently holding the district’s budget hostage while greenlighting every new profiteering charter school that gets rejected by local OC Boards.
I have to admit that, on immigration, all of them except Sedgwick sound more enlightened than their Dear Leader, credibly supporting comprehensive reform: Sparks and Huang both have firsthand experience with how slow and dysfunctional our system is now; Sparks spoke of her DACA students at Chapman and Raths served with brave DACA Marines. And Rath added that the US needs immigrant labor – we have more jobs here than we can fill.
Sedgwick is proud of having been on FOX News SIX TIMES in the last four months, warning America to look at California as a lesson in how badly things can go if people vote Democrat. One thing that really disturbed him recently about Congresswoman Porter was her reacting to a school shooting by offering “thoughts and minds,” totally leaving out PRAYER! Beyond that, “the freedoms of our country are at stake in this country, and our economy is headed toward socialism, and I will do something to reverse that.” And of course, keep the internet free so we can read President Trump’s tweets.
The only Trump-related question referred to the President’s tariffs on China, and you could see how hard it was for any of these Republicans to utter a cross word about the Orange Monster. All four of them said they are against tariffs, but all of them except Huang went on to basically it’s okay if Trump does it, to China.
So we’ll see which of these four make it through the jungle primary March 3, and we’ll remind everyone of what they said to their fellow Republicans last week. And my money will be on Katie.
(PS. Chris didn’t say who won the coveted “Trump hat.”)
Vern,
Great read.
It is a tragedy or a travesty how far down the National GOP members (which these four want to join), how far down they have slid in the values metric.
Do they think Pres. Trump, with his 10 documented cases of Obstruction of Justice in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Volume II demonstrates, do they think he represents the Rule of Law?
Do they think that with his over 10K lies, he represents a man of integrity?
Col. Raths should know better. As tragic as it is, US military personnel who commits War Crimes must be held accountable. Otherwise, the Mission Accomplishment is at risk, our US troops are put in greater danger as adversaries and enemies will think they can also commit War Crimes against our troops or our Allies. and this causes us to lose support because we lose our Moral Authority.
It seems the four are more interested Power Politics and Winning for themselves, rather winning for their potential constituents.
Paco B.
My opinion, and not that of any group.
Semper Fi!
I mention the War Crimes because it doesn’t seem any of the four expressed any criticism of Pres. Trump on this important topic.
I keep thinking that Trump is going to lose the military vote over what he’s doing — but maybe he’ll lose only the portion of the military vote that cherishes actual military values. What proportion do you think that is?
*Just one qualify-er….”Which one was on Bill Mahrer?:
OK….good enough for us!
Katie Porter is smart,honorable,responsible and quite capable of defending her positions to these lightweights. I enjoyed seeing her school Bill Maher.
Hey, this is cool – Katie’s people used this post in a fundraising e-mail! (Thanks to Reggie Mundekis for letting me know – I’m not on Katie’s mailing list.)
This has a very important implication:
If you want to donate to future Vice-President Katie Porter — and you should! — please do so with this link! (If Reggie will be kind enough to forward for Vern to post here and make it live, of course!)
This reminds me that I wanted to challenge one precept of this post.
Greg Raths is not a villain. He may be Katie’s nemisis, but he’s not villainous. He’s just wrong about various things — and I’d be interested to know how he feels about Trump’s clearing the way for figure war criminals to get pardons, because the President thinks that it makes him look tough. I’d bet that Col. Raths knows and would admit that American troops will die because of Trump’s (to use a sports metaphor) giving them bulletin board material for their locker room.