State Offices – 2024 Primary Election

(dailynews) “One of the top issues facing the city and his district, Stern said, is figuring out “how to get people off the streets who are maybe mentally ill. Or are they just addicted? What happens when people get dismissed from (Men’s) Central Jail onto the street?”

Extreme floods and fire disasters become the key issues when they hit the region, but on a daily basis, he said, homelessness and public safety are the number one issues.

Henry Stern said he has been working on enhancing criminal penalties in the areas of public safety, retail theft and extreme speeding.

He has earned endorsements from Gov. Gavin Newsom, the California Democratic Party, the California Association of Highway Patrolmen, California Professional Firefighters, the Sierra Club and the California Teachers Association.

After winning the office in 2016, Stern authored the Wildfire Resilience through Community and Ecology Act in 2021, following the devastating 2018 Woolsey Fire that burned 96,949 acres and destroyed 1,643 structures including many homes. The law inspired Newsom to launch the California Wildfire and Forest Resilience Task Force to pinpoint high-risk buildings in wildfire-prone zones and beef up building standards.

Stern lobbied for the permanent closure of the Aliso Canyon Natural Gas Storage Facility, the site of the disastrous 2015 SoCalGas leak that drove more than 11,000 San Fernando Valley residents out of their homes. As chair of the Senate Natural Resources & Water Committee between 2018 and 2022, he led decarbonization efforts to cut the harmful impact of indoor air pollution caused by fossil fuels.

His district, reshaped by redistricting, contains nearly 1 million residents who are 55% white, 24% Latino, 12% Asian and 4% Black, according to the 2020 Censusand live in communities such as Calabasas, Hidden Hills and Agoura Hills, far from the coastal areas that originally put him in office.

State Sen. Henry Stern faces two challengers in District 27 primary election“

(cahighways.org) “Volotzky ran for Congress in 2022, when the wrote during the primary: “No transgender should participate in our women’s sport!”. No explanation, no background. That says everything about an attitude towards transgender (the right answer, by the way, is to eliminate the distinction between men and women’s sports, and instead use strength/weight categories). She’s in favor of gun rights. She states “Let’s bring back business from China.” without providing any reason for those businesses to come back. Does she want to underpay and abuse our labor? Does she want to weaken environmental law? That’s why labor goes to China. So she’s naive.  She states “We have the highest inflation in 40 years. It was caused by printing too much money”. No, it was caused by supply chain issues, combined with unexpectedly high demand. So she doesn’t understand economics either. She’s not the right person for this job.

Revisiting her congressional website in October 2022, she wrote: “who will put America first and stand strong to defeat the radical progressive agenda hijacking our country”. That level of partisanship really doesn’t convince me, but it will play great to the Trumpublican base. I also looked at her endorsements. Our city councilman, John Lee, has endorsed her. This makes me think twice about re-electing Lee at the next election, given the endorsement indicates he agrees with her values. Other than GOP organizations, there are no other real endorsements for this race.

So what about now? This time, she writes: “She will stand against the deceitful Green New Deal, the attacks on fossil fuels, the open border, illegal immigration, human trafficking and drugs, rising crime, defunding of the police, the unconstitutional COVID-19 closures and mandates, the “woke” sexualized school system, a weakened military, the censoring of conservative speech, and foreign companies buying U.S. land.” Back in December,  she used the “America First!” phrasing, a Trumpist dogwhistle.

Her experience? According to LinkedIn: “owner at bedsunlimited”. She’s a MAGA-ite, with no experience. She was wrong for Congress in 2022; and she’s wrong for state level government.

(cahighways.org) “Collins is interesting. According to her website, she is “a board member on Neighborhood Council, Chair of the Public Safety Committee, and a member of the Community Police Advisory Board”. She’s also “an active member of the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Association”. I’ve always said that politicians should start at the local level, and being on the Neighborhood Council is such a start. Her endorsements are strange: the Peace Officers Research Association of California and former Sheriff Villanueva (who was a bad apple). All the rest are at an individual level.

Her positions are not quite in alignment with mine. She writes on her campaign page: “We must withdraw from the Federal “Housing First” Policy and fund supervised, supportive housing and inpatient treatment centers using city, and state funds combined with private donations.”. Studies have shown that homelessness is helped most by getting people into housing. Thinking the homeless have mental illness is a incorrect thought.  She talks about protecting parental rights, but it doesn’t seem to be quite in the Republican sense. Other positions are OK.“