Jackson Running Strong in District 35

The 35th Assembly District race seems all too familiar.

Incumbent Hannah-Beth Jackson (D-Santa Barbara) has cash, endorsements, a district that favors her political party and a long list of legislative accomplishments. Her three challengers have little money, few big-name backers and no political experience.

Despite this lopsided slate in a district comprising parts of Santa Barbara County, Ventura and Oxnard, the incumbent says she is “not taking anything for granted” and the underdogs say they just want to “offer an alternative.”

Jackson has raised more than $250,000 to run for her third and final two-year term. Defeating her is “not impossible, but very improbable,” said Republican challenger Christina “C.C.” Martin.

Martin’s pursuit is even more uphill than those of Libertarian candidate Craig Warren Thomas, a music instructor, and Reform candidate Cary Savitch, a physician. Martin’s name is not on the Nov. 5 ballot.

The Republican whose name will appear, educational consultant Bob Pohl, left the race in September after learning he has lymphatic cancer. Pohl had raised enough money to threaten Jackson--about $160,000--but Martin has amassed only $3,000 in her five-week campaign, she said.

Martin is a financial advisor from Oxnard, which was added to the 35th District during the most recent redistricting process. The area is not solidly inclined to either major party. (Jackson’s predecessor was a Republican.)

Of the district’s 215,000 registered voters, 44% are Democrats and about 34% are Republicans. More than 15% have not declared a party and the rest belong to minor parties, such as Libertarian and Reform.

“We sort of run for office in self-defense, to try and stop politicians from taking more of our property,” said Thomas, a registered Libertarian since 1976. If elected, the first-time candidate from Ventura said, “I would try to get government out of the lives of citizens as much as possible and try to reduce taxes.”

Jackson said she is using her campaign to tell voters that she has delivered on promises made in her 1998 and 2000 runs.

“I now have, I think, a pretty proud record,” she said.

A former prosecutor and divorce attorney, Jackson has introduced legislation on education, health care, the environment, public safety and consumer privacy, with much of it signed into law. She is chairwoman of the Assembly’s Natural Resources Committee and has the endorsements of Gov. Gray Davis and numerous elected officials in the two counties she represents.

In the 2002 legislative session, Jackson successfully sponsored bills to regulate pesticide spraying near schools, double fines for traffic violations near campuses, track oil transferred among coastal refineries and require that certain doctors learn how to perform abortions.

Jackson is among the Assembly’s more liberal Democrats. She has a reputation among the party’s more centrist members and Republicans for not being pragmatic about the compromises that politics can require.

Jackson denies that.

“I think they confuse passion with inflexibility,” she said. “If [colleagues] are willing to be reasonable, willing to focus on what’s best for the people and not the special interests, I’ve been, I believe, very cooperative.”

Jackson, who lives in Santa Barbara, dismisses talk that Sacramento’s leaders were punishing her by redrawing in Republicans’ favor the Senate district that could have been her next political step.

In her Assembly race, she faces a particularly virulent challenger in Reform candidate Savitch.

A specialist in infectious diseases, the outspoken Ventura doctor blames Jackson and other lawyers for instilling in physicians, teachers, police officers and other professionals a fear of being sued.

“It is impossible to make medical care affordable when doctors are afraid of patients,” he said.

In public health, Savitch wants to change the way California tracks HIV cases -- recording patients by name, rather than by numerical code. And he wants the state and nation to prepare for the possibility that terrorists might use smallpox as a weapon.

“We would be thrown into the Dark Ages if we had smallpox today,” he said.

Martin is campaigning as “C.C.” instead of Christina to make write-in voting easier, she said. She wants the state to fund more vocational programs for students not inclined to go to college and expand health care for the middle-income elderly and those of all ages with mental disabilities.

To combat urban sprawl, she said, there should be more incentives for renovating older homes and apartment buildings.

Martin said her 11th-hour candidacy is a warmup for 2004, when term limits will force Jackson out of the Assembly.

“You can expect to see me again,” Martin said. “Most definitely.”

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Hannah-Beth Jackson

Party: Democratic

Age: 52

Residence: Santa Barbara

Occupation: Assemblywoman

Education: Bachelor’s degree in sociology, Scripps College; law degree from Boston University

Background: Chairwoman, Assembly Natural Resources Committee and select committee on coastal protection. Member, Assembly committees on Higher Education; Judiciary; Environmental Safety and Toxic Materials; and Arts, Entertainment, Sports, Tourism and Internet Media. Before ’98 election was a family law attorney and a deputy district attorney for Santa Barbara County.

Personal: Married to retired attorney George Eskin and mother of one daughter.

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Christina “C.C.” Martin

Party: Republican

Age: 42

Residence: Oxnard

Occupation: Financial advisor

Education: Bachelor’s degree in business management, University of Phoenix; working toward a master’s in business administration

Background: Born and raised in Carpinteria; member of the Carpinteria Chamber of Commerce’s Government Relations Committee.

Personal: Married to Brian, an electrician.

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Cary Savitch

Party: Reform

Age: 53

Residence: Ventura

Occupation: Physician

Education: Bachelor’s degree in pre-medicine, UCLA; medical degree, UC San Francisco.

Background: Specialist in infectious diseases; author of “The Nutcracker is Already Dancing,” a book on AIDS policy; past board member, Ventura County chapter of the American Cancer Society; president, Beyond AIDS Foundation, a nonprofit group of doctors and nurses.

Personal: Married to Pam, a nurse, and father of three children.

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Craig Warren Thomas

Party: Libertarian

Age: 51

Residence: Ventura

Occupation: Musician and music teacher

Education: Attended Oklahoma City University

Background: Registered Libertarian since 1976.

Personal: Married to Virginia, a health advocate for the state and Ventura County, and father of a son and two stepsons.