The Santa Clarita Valley Chamber of Commerce (SCV Chamber) hosted a virtual Congressional Candidate Forum with Congressman Mike Garcia, R-Santa Clarita, and Assemblywoman Christy Smith, D-Santa Clarita.

The candidates took turns responding to questions submitted by local community members that covered a variety of topics including local infrastructure, California’s wildfires and, particularly, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The forum was moderated by the SCV Chamber of Commerce, who enforced the forum’s two-minute limit for responses and a one-minute limit for rebuttals.

The conversation opened with a question of the candidates’ legislative priorities in regard to businesses and the economy if elected in November.

In Garcia’s answer, he called for businesses to be allowed to reopen, to make the 2017 tax cuts permanent, investments in public safety via forest management and firefighting assets and a national bill to prevent legislation similar to California’s Assembly Bill 5 (AB 5), a frequent topic of contention between the two candidates.

Smith focused her answer on the impact the COVID-19 pandemic has had and could continue to have on the economy and local businesses without a scientifically based, national plan for contact tracing and testing until the infection rates are under control.

She expanded her answer to include providing assistance to businesses during this crisis in terms of personal protective equipment (PPE), and going forward as the economy looks to regrow out of the downturn caused by COVID-19, with cash infusions and tax incentives.

Both candidates did agree on a need to become less dependent on Chinese manufacturing in regard to critical personal protective and medical equipment.

When asked if there should be a more coordinated federal response to COVID-19, Garcia said all levels of government can improve and issued support for getting financial resources to small businesses and individual taxpayers, a national PPE program, and rebuilding the national reserves of medical equipment, but pointed to state leadership for the lack of coordination in the response.

“The problem is right now that we have got states making decisions, and really in California, in our district in L.A., we’ve got a governor right now who is not downloading the authority to open up businesses and schools down to the local levels,” said Garcia. “The local mayors should be making these decisions based on local data.”

Garcia further criticized state leadership for the budget crisis brought on by the pandemic and for seeking federal funds despite the large “rainy day fund” the state has boasted.

“California has a balanced budget requirement, we balance our budget every year. The state’s robust rainy day fund is going to allow us to get through year one that we’re in right now of this COVID crisis, as well as years two and three. That’s how the rainy day fund was structured to work,” said Smith. “That in a time of significant economic downturn we use those funds to mitigate the fallout that would happen if we had to implement drastic cuts all at once in one budget year, that’s why it’s spread out over three years congressman and that’s called good public policy.”

One of the other main topics of the afternoon was in regard to transportation, which saw some agreement between the candidates. Both saw a need to expand the 5-14 interchange, but Smith used the opportunity to speak to the interconnected nature of infrastructure bills and the environment while Garcia highlighted AB 5.

“After about a year we all realized that AB 5 was a poison pill and that it was killing jobs, AB 5 is the reason why Uber and Lyft are leaving the state,” Garcia said. “In the midst of the COVID environment, not only losing potentially 200,000 jobs from the gig economy and independent contractors, but really inducing a major public safety concern, not having Uber and Lyft in our community is going to drive DUI rates through the roof and teenage vehicular deaths through the roof.”

Smith contends that the loss in jobs is attributable to the COVID-19 pandemic rather than AB 5 and that she does not believe that Uber and Lyft will follow through on their threats to leave the state if the effects of AB 5 are made permanent this November.

In regards to the environment and the increasing number of wildfires impacting California and our local community, Smith highlighted the need to acknowledge the role climate has played, but also spoke to the need for mitigation tactics as well as federal funds for rebuilding communities that are impacted.

Garcia’s response focused on brush management and additional assets for firefighting, such as the purchase of large aerial tankers.

The forum grew its most contentious when Smith claimed Garcia had misrepresented the truth on why she lost a committee seat in the assembly, which she claims Garcia attributed to a failure to hold and attend meetings, but she says it was due to a pro-business vote she made in opposition to her party.

“I lost my committee position because of a vote I took, the reason we were not holding hearings is because in the California state capitol we were being COVID compliant. Policy committees were given priority over informational committees, which mine was,” Smith said. “It also makes absolutely zero leadership sense to pull emergency officials off the frontline of a crisis to have them come and testify in a committee when the state needs them on the frontlines doing their job.”

For more information on Mike Garcia’s campaign, visit his website here.

For more information on Christy Smith’s campaign, visit her website here.

Election day is now two weeks away and all Los Angeles County registered voters have been mailed a Vote by Mail ballot, information on how to cast and return your ballot is available here.

Voting in person is also still available to votes, with some vote centers set to become available as early as Oct. 24, with all vote centers scheduled to be open by Friday, Oct. 30, according to the L.A. County Registrar-Recorder’s office.

Information on where to find a vote center and the precautions taken to ensure safe in-person voting is available here.

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