Commentary: I am the pro-business, smaller-government choice

In 2010, I entered the state Assembly with two clear purposes: Advance policies to create a prosperous economy with many good jobs for California’s families, and reduce the size and scope of the state’s overbearing and wasteful government.

The preceding decade was a frustrating time to be a conservative. From Washington to Sacramento to Orange County, Republican political rhetoric sounded far more conservative than the Republican politicians who actually voted.

While I hadn’t spent a lifetime in politics before going to Sacramento, I had been a small-business owner for 25 years. I understood that government created unnecessary constraints that business owners and job creators faced in running their businesses day to day and in hiring new employees.

Unfortunately, the Legislature was run by politicians oblivious to the struggles of families and small businesses and to the negative affect their policies had on good people throughout California trying to provide for themselves, their loved ones and their communities.

And so I went to Sacramento in order to help those people. I successfully carried legislation needed in the communities I represented to streamline government, to help victims of crime and to grow the economy. In addition, I fought against the regulatory state with bills that reined in government and sought to limit the state’s growing pension debt.

That’s what makes me different than my opponent, former Orange County Supervisor John Moorlach, in the race for the open Senate District 37 seat. I remember his big moment in the early ‘90s, warning about the county bankruptcy, and respect him for speaking out against excessive pensions.

Unfortunately, like too many Republicans, he allowed his conservative philosophy to be compromised with his time in elected office. Since his first election, Moorlach has advocated for and voted over 150 times for increased fees. He even supported a fee for pet owners.

At one point, the Orange County Register accurately quoted a close observer of county government as saying, “Moorlach’s not even recognizable as a conservative anymore.”

But what is most disappointing is Moorlach’s vote to increase his own pension.

Here is what the Register wrote in September 2007: “The Orange County Board of Supervisors sweetened their own retirement plans on the very day they made their first move to cut the pensions of sheriff’s deputies.”

This vote surprised me, and many other Orange County conservatives, since he was the first to cry the emperor has no clothes on this very issue of lavish government pensions back in 1994.

My record in public life is different. I have no government pension whatsoever and have voted against raising my own pay and benefits. In the Assembly, I received favorable ratings from the venerable Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn. and the California Taxpayers Assn. These organizations join the Orange County Taxpayers Assn.’s PAC, the National Federation of Independent Businesses and the California Small Business Assn. in declaring that I am the conservative, pro-jobs candidate in this race.

They also accompany nearly every local chamber of commerce in their support of my candidacy. I am incredibly proud of this support since local chambers were formed and run by small-business owners, the folks who understand the challenges of starting a business and hiring employees.

All of these pro-jobs, pro-business, pro-growth organizations carefully study the candidates. They know I’ll continue to fight for lower taxes, less burdensome regulations and a smaller, smarter, more efficient state government.

In short, I will continue to pursue the two clear purposes I have always pursued in the Legislature.

Assemblyman DON WAGNER is running for state Senate in the 37th District. The special election is March 17.