CANDIDATES FOR 48TH DISTRICT DISCUSS ISSUES
3 contenders for House seat respond to three questions
Two Democrats and one Independent are challenging a Republican incumbent to represent East County in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Stephen Houlahan, a nurse and former Santee City council member, Matthew Rascon, a security guard, and Lucinda Jahn, an audio and video technician, are running against longtime Congressman Darrell Issa.
The 48th District stretches from the U.S.Mexico border through Temecula and part of Murrieta. Before lines were redrawn after the last census, much of that area made up the 50th District, which Issa currently represents.
Terms last two years. Members of Congress are generally paid $174,000 a year. June 7 is the primary. The two people with the most votes will move on to the general election, regardless of party.
Candidates are listed alphabetically. Interviews were conducted by phone and have been condensed for clarity and length.
FROM B1 Stephen Houlahan
Age: 48
Residence: Santee
Current job: Documentation specialist for Sharp hospitals
Party: Democrat
Past experience: Nurse, former Santee City council member
Education: Bachelor’s in nursing from San Diego State University, master’s of science in nursing and MBA from the University of San Diego
Q:How would you balance the region’s need for more housing, especially for people at risk of homelessness, with concerns that more homes will only make wildfires worse? A:
“If you look at a
general plan of a community, the affordable housing component is usually toward the middle, and the areas at risk for fire are usually in the periphery. So the most important thing is to protect that component.
“Building out into the periphery doesn’t help as much because those aren’t affordable houses.
“When you look at your affordable housing component, typically the developer won’t make as much money. There should be federal dollars made available to developers of affordable housing.”
Q:
The drought that
we’re in and the war in Ukraine have highlighted how reliant the region is on imported resources like water and oil. How can the region become more resource independent?
A:
“Water conservation
is great, but a lot of us, including myself, we’ve already cut back as much as we can.
“There’s reclamation. Some people might think that’s not as palatable, but all of our water is reclaimed in some manner as it comes down the Colorado river.
“We have areas where there’s aquifers, we need to protect those aquifers. There’s an aquifer under Santee, and we should be injecting water into that.
“All the water that comes from anywhere east should go to reclamation plants. (Desalinization) is great, but it’s very expensive.
“When new development comes in, it should be xeriscaped from the beginning — putting in plants and surfaces that don’t require a lot of water. Federal dollars should be brought in for conversion of people’s grounds.
“Talking about the gasoline issue: We subsidize the fossil fuel industry when we should be subsidizing the electric vehicle industry. We could provide incentives for the purchase of electric vehicles so the demand for gasoline will go down.
“We should be looking at more electric charging stations, and I think we could definitely use federal dollars for that. And of course increasing miles per gallon on vehicles.”
Q:
What will you do to
ensure you’re not corrupted by opportunities to profit from this position?
A:
“I’ve been a registered nurse for over 20 years, I’ve been a city council member and I’ve stood by my word. I can make promises, but I think my voting record and my record of service speaks for itself.
“I have a career, so I’m not doing it for the money, I’m doing it for the future, for my constituents and for the love of country.”
Darrell Issa Age: 68 Residence: Current job:
Vista U.S. Representative
Party: Republican
Past experience: U.S. Army from 1970 through 1980 and former owner of the car security company Directed Electronics
Education: Bachelor’s from Siena Heights College in Michigan
The Union-Tribune first reached out to Issa’s staff on April 11. The congressman was not made available for an interview during the following four weeks, but he did respond to an emailed questionnaire from the newspaper’s Opinion desk.
Lucinda Jahn
Age: 60
Residence: Ramona
Current job: Setting up lights, video and sound for live events with Bigger Hammer Production Services and Power Plus Productions
Party: Independent
Past experience: U.S. Air Force from around 1982 through 1985, co-owned a graphic design studio
Education: Bloomington South High School in Indiana, classes at multiple community colleges
Q:
How would you balance the region’s need for more housing, especially for people at risk of homelessness, with concerns that more homes will only make wildfires worse?
A:
“You have building
codes that have to be addressed, you have to take into account the environment that you’re building the homes in. There’s only so much the local environment can actually take.
“There’s a lot of information the federal government has, of what works here and there; I don’t know that they’re very good at sharing it. Those resources (should be) more available.
“As far as solving that issue, that’s not as much a federal one as I would say it’s a local one, because the feds don’t make your local building codes, and those codes have to be specific to the area.”
Q:
The drought that
we’re in and the war in Ukraine have highlighted how reliant the region is on imported resources like water and oil. How can the region become more resource independent?
A:
“We need to broaden
our scope, being more self-sufficient in terms of manufacturing.
“There are abuses that we know go on in the manufacturing sector of other countries. We want clean water and clean air, but we’re OK with them polluting the water and air somewhere else if it was cheap. So we’re gonna have to start reinvesting.
“We’re gonna have to look at treatment plants, I know there are cities in California treating sewage water. We’re gonna have to do some water management on ground water.
“Oil? I’ve looked at hydrogen fuel cells, we have that technology. We have electric, and we have to look at how that electricity’s being produced; not all of it’s being produced cleanly. We do have oil resources.
“If we have a more diversified energy production system, we can start dialing back how much of that we need to use. It’s gonna take investment.”
Q:
What will you do to
ensure you’re not corrupted by opportunities
to profit from this position? A:
“I am the ‘zero donate candidate.’ I am not for sale. I have literally accepted no donations. I work for a living, that’s why I’m talking to you at 4:45.”
Matthew Rascon 27
Age: Residence: Santee
Current job: Security guard at the Sycuan Casino and Resort
Party: Democrat
Past experience: Instructor at Traditional American Karate, baking assistant at Nothing Bunt Cakes, volunteer at local Catholic church
Education: Associates degree in law enforcement from Grossmont College
Q:
How would you
balance the region’s need for more housing, especially for people at risk of homelessness, with concerns that more homes will only make wildfires worse?
A:
“With East County,
especially around Santee, El Cajon, Lakeside specifically, people are on the fence with the whole idea of more developments. A lot of people worry about the traffic.
“In order to facilitate more housing, federally and statewide, we need to focus on increase of infrastructure. Increasing additional lanes where we can for highways, preparing what needs to be done, and then focus on housing developments.
“In regards to wildfires, I honestly think the best thing we can do is look at controlled burns, practices that worked before we stopped them.”
Q:
The drought that
we’re in and the war in Ukraine have highlighted how reliant the region is on imported resources like water and oil. How can the region become more resource independent? A:
“Have you ever
heard of controlled environment agriculture? Controlled environment agriculture deals with indoor-growing hydroponics, vertical farming — both of these facilitate growth of things that might not be a suitable crop in our climate normally.
“Most of them require soilless growing, so it can reduce water. It’s been doing quite well for Singapore, and that’s something we should be looking at here. It also reduces land usage.
“As much as it can be annoying to admit, I still think the infrastructure we have regarding our energy and our oil needs to be continued until we have the solar and wind-based infrastructure to meet our power needs.”
Q:
What will you do to
ensure you’re not corrupted by opportunities to profit from this position? A:
“The bulk of my
platform is the reform of Congress.
“One of my big ideas is mandatory divestiture. That’s essentially a requirement that by day of inauguration, members of the House and Senate should have to divest from financial interests. By not having those, it removes the ability to have that conflict arise.
“Personally, I plan on never being one of those House members that’s off from the Capitol, looking for donations. I want to be able to spend no time on fundraising so I can focus more on reading up on bills, spending time with constituents, seeing what they need done.”