GOP Hopefuls for Congress Focus on Economy, HMOs

Republican candidates Beth Rogers and Don Regan both think they have a shot at unseating Rep. Lois Capps (D-Santa Barbara) in November, despite the district’s solid Democratic majority.

First, the two GOP rivals must slug it out in Tuesday’s primary.

They have had to cover a lot of ground in a district whose newly drawn boundaries sweep more than 200 miles of narrow coastline, from Oxnard, Port Hueneme and parts of Ventura to Santa Barbara and even farther north to Cambria in San Luis Obispo County.

Rogers, 57, is an anthropologist with an MBA who lives in Carpinteria and owns a Camarillo-based sod farming business. She leads the money-raising race with $156,000, about half of which she loaned herself.

Rogers has a higher statewide profile than her challenger. A delegate to the 2000 Republican National Convention, she also has made contacts as president of the Seneca Network, which assists Republican women seeking office in California. She has served on the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board and with various business groups and charitable organizations.

If elected, Rogers said she would be an advocate for agriculture, from Central Coast wineries and greenhouses to row crops. “High-end agriculture is the only thing keeping us from turning into the San Fernando Valley,” she said.

She also wants to expand federal loan programs for vocational training for young adults. And she advocates changes to the tax code that would make child care and senior care fully deductible and provide extra relief to families in which one spouse stays home.

“I’m not going to arrive as a freshman congresswoman and rewrite the tax code,” she said. “But I can start a dialogue.”

Regan, 55, an audiologist from Grover Beach, has mostly funded his own $35,000 campaign. About $6,500 came from individual contributors. He has mentored Latino students and formerly served on the state Speech Pathology, Language and Audiology Commission.

Regan says improving voter turnout, making HMOs more responsive to patients and increasing Medicare payments are at the top of his priority list.

He also wants more study of alternative energy. “As a government, we’ve been inappropriately committed to petroleum,” he said, adding that every citizen must share responsibility. “If you don’t want oil [drilling] in your backyard, don’t drive gas-guzzling cars.”

Regan admits he has done most of his campaigning in a light truck, but says if he advances to the general election he plans to drive a gas-electric hybrid on the campaign trail.

Regan criticizes Rogers as “a policy wonk.” Rogers criticizes Regan for not being enough of one.

“I understand what people want and I also know technically how to get it,” she said.

Both GOP hopefuls say Capps, who took office in a special election in 1998 to replace her late husband, hasn’t done enough to distinguish herself.

The seat was once a Republican stronghold. Since last year’s redistricting, however, registered Democrats have outnumbered Republicans 45% to 33%. Meanwhile, Capps has more than $500,000 in her campaign account. Coastal voters tend to back Democrats, and Capps’ hometown is the heart of the district.

“Thanks to the redistricting by the leaders of both parties last fall, virtually every congressional seat in California is now safe [for the incumbent],” said Republican strategist Dan Schnur.

Rogers and Regan insist they can defeat the incumbent by portraying Capps as a party-liner with no original ideas. Both say that while environmental protections are crucial on the coast, too many layers of regulatory agencies are strangling farming, private property rights and the region’s economy.

Ideological moderates, both say abortion isn’t the government’s business and that euthanasia and stem cell research are issues that should be guided by doctors rather than politicians.

Both also say they are better connected to Latino voters than Capps. Rogers speaks fluent Spanish and has a 30-year-old foster son from El Salvador. Regan speaks elementary Spanish and is married to a Latina.

Schnur said those arguments may not be enough.

“Rogers or Regan could pull off an upset if the Republican gubernatorial candidate wins by a large enough margin” because other Republicans running for state office could be swept in on his coattails, he said.

“Failing that, any constituent of Lois Capps who is unhappy with her service in Congress has only one option,” Schnur said. “It’s called moving vans.”