Three-Way Democratic Race In California's Central Valley-- The Choice Is Clear

It's crucially important to get to know who a candidate is in order to be able to predict what kind of a member of Congress they are likely to be-- not just how they will vote-- but also how they will lead, how competent and effective they will be, etc. Recently, we asked incisive author, labor activist, author and former congressional candidate Jonathan Tasini to spend some time with Central Valley progressive Kim Williams. The resulting interview on the Working Life Podcast (above) offers one of the best opportunities to get to know Williams. I urge you to listen to the 23 minute discussion. If you like what you hear, you can contribute to Kim's grassroots campaign by clicking on the Congress Needs More Progressive Women thermometer below.

Recently, Fresno Free Press reporter Emily Brandt dug into the crucial election in CA-16, a blue district that takes in parts of Fresno, Merced and Madera counties. It's a D+9 district where Obama won both times he ran and even Hillary beat Trump (58.0% to 36.4%). Brandt began by looking at the very conservative Blue Dog incumbent, Jim Costa, by asking if he deserves another term.

In his 14 years in Congress, Costa has only written five bills, one of which was the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act of 1995. This pivotal legislation prevents local municipalities from enacting rent control on any properties. It was largely supported by Republicans, but some Democrats voted for it because of a clause that states “if serious health, safety, fire, or building code violations were discovered and not corrected for six months” rents cannot be raised. Attempts to reverse and/or repeal this act are ongoing, the last of which failed in 2018 over the fears that rent control lowers the production of low-income housing.

Money in political campaigns: Representative Costa’s congressional career began before public interest and scrutiny into money and campaigns had grown to the current high level. That focus is the direct product of Bernie Sanders 2016 campaign and his insistence on remaining distant from for-profit Political Action Committees, large influential donors such as Wall Street investment firms and banks, large pharmaceutical companies, the fossil fuel industry, private health care companies, and other interest groups that have a comfortable history of controlling the policy of Democratic candidates as much as Republican candidates running for office.

Costa’s record belies his stated commitments to climate change, improving air and water quality while taking large sums from Chevron and others who are even now polluting Kern County, the City of Richmond, and other areas of California. He appears not to be bothered by the frequent benefits to the privileged few resulting from his votes with Republicans rather than Democrats and his embrace of powerful interest groups. This is no great surprise to anyone since it has been the pattern of hundreds of members of Congress for decades.

  Costa’s family owned a large corporate dairy farm called Costa Brothers Dairy and real estate interests worth several million dollars, which in no way reflects the experience of farmworkers. His family’s farming interests have turned to almonds rather than dairy over the years.

His stories of driving tractors on the farm ring hollow next to the accounts of those who have been paid below minimum wage for decades, suffering health problems from repetitive work injuries and pesticide exposure, at the least, whose stories of farm labor fail to be romanticized as do Costa’s. That isn’t to ignore the fact that Costa’s ancestors had a hard row to hoe as they accumulated sufficient wealth to establish a dairy of their own.

Costa’s family finances have made money matters easy–on paper–with $1 million in the bank from the corporate farm and $1 million from his family’s real estate business. Another view of Costa’s campaign donations can be found here. The differences between his finances and Williams are, not surprisingly, very large; Soria has pledged not to take any for-profit donations during the Primary, so for the moment, there’s not much there.

In the past, Soria’s Councilmember runs reveal big donations from developers and other interests. What her finances will look like should she win the Primary will be interesting to watch. Senator Elizabeth Warren has made the same pledge in her run for president. The amount of influence purchased can only reveal itself over some terms in office, as they have with Costa.

Environment Commitments: Costa’s bill-sponsorship record is pretty small given his eight terms in office. With his record of sponsoring a meager five bills in nearly 16 years, Costa could not be described as an active legislator. To vote 43% of the time with Republicans is very high, especially in a district with a high number of Democratic voters, most of whom represent a high rate of poverty, low educational levels and who suffer from high rates of serious disease due to environmental pollution.

The League of Conservation Voters gives him a 69% rating–though to be fair–Costa did miss a number of key votes due to a medical procedure. In May of 2019, he did vote in favor of the U.S. staying in the Paris Climate Agreement.

Reversing Pres. Obama’s Offshore Moratorium Act; Bill H.1231; vote number 11-HV320 on May 12, 2011, Costa voted YES on Opening the Continental Shelf to Oil Drilling in 2012 at increasing levels through 2027. This bill reverses new efforts after the BP oil platform disaster at implementing stronger safety regulations to prevent spills. It also gives access to Exxon-Mobil and Shell Oil Company profits at the expense of the environment. Costa’s reliance on very large donations from Chevron among others, explains his willingness to vote against bills that restrict the access of Big Oil to new oil fields.

In the same year, Costa voted for the Energy Tax Prevention Act; Bill H.910; vote number 11-HV249 which would have prevented the EPA from regulating  Greenhouse Gas Emissions. This is an especially damaging vote since his district, Congressional District 16 has the worst air quality in the State of California. Yet, he was re-elected following a whole series of votes that put his district’s residents at greater risk. Democrats have stood by him for decades and are only now beginning to show signs of rejecting this record of failing to serve their best interest.

Clearly, protecting farmworkers and others was not an issue on Costa’s mind when he voted for the ACRE Bill, Agricultural Certainty for Reporting Emissions, eliminating  vital provisions in the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) which protects the public through the clean up of industrial toxic waste dumps, oil spills, and chemical tank explosions and enforcement of environmental regulations on farmland.

Anything that would reduce or lessen these types of public health protection is a very bad idea and the City of Fresno and surrounding county is replete with such former Superfund sites. The Bill even makes it easier for farmers to dump pesticides into waterways regulated by the Clean Water Act.

Costa’s vote to fund the Keystone Pipeline is in direct contradiction to any commitments he has made to mitigate the impact of climate change. He was one of 28 Democrats in the House of Representatives who voted to build the pipeline. Overall, Costa’s votes on energy were rated at 33% by the Campaign for America’s Future...

Medicare For All/Single Payer/Medical Debt Forgiveness: When it comes to the Affordable Care Act, Costa only voted in favor of the legislation in March 2010, long after other Democrats had committed themselves. His vote was only secured after the Democratic Party promised to give Costa and Dennis Cardoza funding for a medical school in the Central Valley. Costa would only commit to healthcare reform as far as Soria has. Both believe that the ACA needs a few minor unspecified tweaks.

Clearly, Soria has every reason from her parent’s experience to support Medicare for All. Costa, however, does not seem to have any personal incentives to do so. Williams is committed to Medicare for All and to all of Bernie Sanders platforms as she demonstrated on her website kimwilliamsforcongress.com and further sealed in her open endorsement of Bernie Sanders.

...Free Public University Tuition/Student Debt Forgiveness: College debt forgiveness does not seem to be a concern to Rep. Costa. He has devoted several pages of his website to the subject of financial aid, to help students navigate the process in high school and maintain solvency in college though there are no promises of amending the current plan in any way. The pages make access to existing loan information available to students in a step-by-step process. 

On Friday, Brandt asked another question for Fresno readers to ponder: Kim Williams: Can A Policy Wonk Change The Central Valley For The Good? She began by asking Williams what motivated her to run for Congress. Williams told her to is poverty and wrote that she went on to reflect: "My day-to-day encounters and then researching the numbers and just seeing how many homeless families [there are in Congressional District 16] was so appalling to me and so unacceptable that I couldn’t understand why more federal resources weren’t being put into place and the more I saw that, the more I see that there was just a ton of political neglect here."

One particular area of interest to Williams has long been American History which she taught for seven years as a tenured faculty member at Hillsborough Community College in Tampa, Florida. She studied the slave trade and traveled the slave route ultimately leading her to a U.S. State Department assignment in the African nation of Ghana. One persistent thread through her life seems to be to seek out geographical places and cultures that are unlike any she’s previously known.

This seems to be what led her to and has anchored her in the Central Valley of California working for Mariposa County as the Director of Human Resources where she is currently. This type of work follows naturally upon her work in Management and Communications in the U.S. State Department where Williams spent her last years before moving to California.

As a U.S. historian, she looks for the roots, the causes as the key to finding solutions; as a diplomat who served in Africa and Siberia, she also tends to look at everything on a large scale. As she emphasizes, this kind of poverty isn’t happening in other parts of North America and there is a reason for that. Her efforts to reach public officials to get answers here have been unsuccessful.

She has learned, as many of us have, that the powers that be make a concerted effort to avoid taking our calls and engaging with community members. The reasons, she concluded, must be linked to the fact that they don’t want to answer for their conservative voting patterns and inability to take on this district’s tougher challenges.

Williams begins talking about her experience as a single mother. She describes the many moments of “low-grade terror of ‘I know she’s not well, I have a meeting at work and I feel forced to choose between caring for my child and for my job that supports my child.’ I don’t ever want another parent to feel that way and I know millions do.” That’s why she was attracted to Elizabeth Warren’s Universal Pre-K Plan. Now, she’s recognized that Bernie Sanders offers exactly such a plan and offers much more along the lines that Williams enthusiastically supports which have won her the important endorsement of Our Revolution, Sanders’ non-profit PAC and Justice Democrats.

Money In Political Campaigns: Williams has never run for public office before, so there is no record to compare her current practice of refusing corporately funded PAC money. Williams devotes a section of her VISION statements to the subject. She explores the damage it is doing to the whole exercise of government as the primary protector of the people from the exploitation of largely unregulated big money and corporate interests that pay few if any, taxes. A comparison of the three Congressional District 16 candidates Federal Election Commission filings is here.

At the Fresno County Latina Democrats Debate Forum, Williams addressed the persistent problems of billions of dollars being spent to influence Washington to make decisions that favor corporate interests and hurt the public in very direct ways. This is why she proposes solutions such as creating publicly funded elections and eliminating corporately-funded Political Action Committees such as those created by oil companies, pharmaceutical companies and the health insurance industry to name a few. They are ultimately creating, controlling and approving the litigation almost without the middle “people” sitting in chairs in Congress. Williams does not accept Democratic National Committee funds.

Environmental Commitments: Williams states very directly that “everything is intersectional” or interdependent, and Climate Change is really at the center of this. She embraces the Green New Deal completely and is committed to the ways in which each part of the process from transitioning off of fossil fuels to renewable energy affects every area from producing electricity to manufacturing cars that are fossil fuel independent, food production, food waste management, toxic waste management to rethinking geopolitics on a global scale. Williams turns to history to draw parallels and make distinctions between the original New Deal and the Green New Deal.

Like the New Deal of the 1930s, she says the Green New Deal can establish “fixed-term project and programs” and those types of investments, particularly to rural communities, was just life-altering for generations to come to bring in experts . . . who can solve the water and air problems and get us to where we have clean air and not the least-breathable air in America. Unlike the New Deal which excluded women, people of color for some time and would not work with unions, the Green New Deal would be worker protected and eliminate all the flaws of the original New Deal.

“The Green New Deal does two things: it fixes the immediate crisis of environmental concerns, but then it’s building that class of engineers, healthcare workers, scientists who can support a middle class for generations to come and attract jobs to the area because you have this great base of workers,” she explains,” this forms the new middle class, as sustainable and growing new businesses, attracting new businesses to the area who will depend on the now skilled workforce while also providing a need for the service sector once again. This then leads us into the future of the “next new bold ideas.”

This is how Williams sees the impact of the Green New Deal as it focuses the economy not on maintaining the status quo with industries as they currently are polluting air and water, but in industries that will clean up and solve the problems those industries have brought with them. She goes on to contrast that picture of the future with what we currently have: Amazon-like businesses which do not choose to base their headquarters for management in Fresno, but chose instead to build a fulfillment center that didn’t require an educated or skilled workforce.

These centers will fade into obsolescence in five years perhaps as they are replaced by robots and which once again, leaves Fresno with a large group of unemployed workers who have gained no skills and/or education to lead to better jobs and a better quality of life. Even the trucking industry is working very hard to develop systems of self-driving trucks to replace drivers.

The added cost to the community in forfeiting the Amazon, Ulta and other corporate taxes, that could have funded a myriad of improvements to the poor community, is what lured them to this poorest of areas in the first place. It is rank human and environmental exploitation which Soria defends because it brought “jobs.”

Medicare For All/Single Payer/Medical Debt Forgiveness:  “Healthcare is a human right.” Aside from the fact that all European countries have some variation of universal healthcare which covers all medical, dental, optical and mental healthcare, Williams envisions a system that will absorb all the current healthcare workers who are now part of the private industry.

These tasks will largely still need to be performed for processing payments, prescriptions, procedures, therapies, hospitalizations, etc. Redundancies will be eliminated and the bloated executive class who are grossly overpaid will no longer exist. There will also be no corporations, no advertising for healthcare companies or big pharma and no stockholders. These are some of the major generators of high cost.

In many ways, it will be a return to pre-Nixon healthcare when it was illegal to make a profit from healthcare-related industries. “Nixon signed into law, the Health Maintenance Organization Act of 1973, in which medical insurance agencies, hospitals, clinics and even doctors, could begin functioning as for-profit business entities instead of the service organizations they were intended to be.”

The current system has only been in place some 46 years and it shouldn’t be viewed as such an irrational move. As Williams states on her website, “California’s family coverage premiums have increased by 248.8%. This high cost has not improved the quality of our healthcare or increased access. In our district, 62,000 individuals have no coverage at all.”

...Free Public University Tuition/Student Debt Forgiveness: Working her way through college was difficult but not an impossibility at the time that Williams attended in the 1990s. It was vastly different from Soria’s younger brother’s experience. The first increase in the price of a public college education came after Baby Boomers had attended for nearly free.

Costs rose steadily through the 1980s, 1990s and the first decade of the 2000s, but the recent jump in cost didn’t begin until about five years ago, during the Great Recession. Working your way through college used to mean you could pay for your living expenses and use financial aid for your tuition. That no longer works after the massive cuts to financial aid, in addition to incredibly high tuitions, and the steep rise in interest rates on student loans.

Given Williams’ awareness of this history and her time spent overseas where higher education is often free or nearly free, it doesn’t seem like a pipe-dream or unrealistic plan to her. Forty years ago, California had such a system for public universities. Living expenses weren’t free; students either lived with their parents or they worked their way through college, but tuition itself was free.

People actually left their Canadian homes to take advantage of the free public university tuition after establishing residence in California to get eligibility. Williams calls her vision for this “Debt-Free College.” On her website, she states: “Education is key to breaking generational poverty. Higher education leads to greater social mobility and economic opportunity, and when we prioritize education in all communities, the middle class will grow.” 

Williams plan...

I support student debt cancellation of up to $50,000 and public service loan forgiveness programs that connect graduates with high need communities like those in California’s 16th congressional district. I also support tuition-free community colleges and technical schools as well as tuition-free education at public four-year schools for financially-challenged families” (https://kimwilliamsforcongress.com/wpcampaign/debt-free-college/ is very similar to that of Bernie Sanders.

Soria has no college debt plan nor any plan for funding colleges in a way that makes them affordable for all students. Costa’s website, like Soria, does not provide any policy positions or platforms beyond a list of his accomplishments.

Will the Central Valley recognize the rare opportunity to be represented by someone who has valuable State Department experience in the foreign service which means being sent to new areas of the world to assess and embrace the cultures, problems and solutions quickly and deeply. The Central Valley is another area-- a deeply troubled area that legislators and local politicians have left behind to be ruled by real estate developers and Big Agriculture for decades. Will Central Valley voters yet again be blindly loyal to the lure of unsatisfactory leaders simply because they are local?

The third candidate in the race, Esmeralda Soria, is a member of the Fresno City Council who, at least ideologically, is more like Costa than like anyone resembling a progressive. "Her record," wrote Brandt, "is mixed on redevelopment policy in Fresno, environmental restrictions on industrial and agricultural pollution, and policies that will end the gross under-employment suffered by tens of thousands of city residents. In her campaign letter, Soria mentions her commitment to clean water and air and says she is a leader who 'will stand up to corporate special interests and the powerful to do what is right for the Valley–no matter what the political consequences.' Does her voting record bear out this commitment?

Although she was absent for the Fresno city council vote to give Amazon tax benefits and locate a fulfillment center in South Central Fresno, one of the most polluted and poorest areas of Fresno, she has since spoken favorably about the Center. Prior to that, Soria and Baines voted against The Gap’s warehouse because of environmental and health concerns.

Then Soria reversed course on Amazon saying in our interview that “we need the jobs.” She forfeited the tax monies that the community could have benefited from and sank the residents into increased trucking and diesel pollution that brings in tons of toxic air. An example of the pollution damage can be found [in the video below] from the failed Caglia Project in South Central Fresno.





During this interview, she said that she would stand up to corporate interests, but she has not shown this willingness to stand up, whatever the cost, in her actions so far as some of her policies fail to pass as progressive. Nor do they reflect the environmental values she professes regarding protections against water and air pollution by vigorous enforcement of restrictions with legal consequences. As with most issues, Soria often knows what she should be against, but she lacks the expertise or will to read and research the subjects to gain the expertise to be able to write legislation and make informed policy decisions.

Money In Political Campaigns: In the past, Soria has not been above taking money from real estate developers and other big donors. One look at opensecrets.org reveals a history that is not aligned with the current practices of progressives. In her political novitiate years, she worked for two masters of acquiring corporate funds, former public officials, Henry T. Perea and Michael Rubio. Both men took large donations from corporate interests and then retired from politics early to work full-time as lobbyists for them.

She has committed herself to not accept any “corporate PAC funds,” though she is still accepting direct donations from developers and other powerful corporate interests. This will make it very difficult for Soria to do as she states in her campaign letter “I did so [declared my candidacy] knowing I would be going against incredible odds and entrenched corporate interests.” A comparison of all three candidates’ financial records can be found here.

There is a vast difference between the three Democratic campaigns for Congressional District 16 and their willingness to accept money from corporations. Rep. Jim Costa accepts money from all corporate interests including corporate PAC funds. Soria said in our interview that she is accepting “small donations,” however, her FEC filings reveal money in all forms except corporate PAC funds. To be clear, this means she has accepted money from individuals who are powerful developers giving the maximum amount allowed and which could make Soria beholden to their interests.

Kim Williams accepts money only from individual small-amount donations and from non-profit PACs; she accepts no for-profit corporate PAC funds. The fact of the matter is that even if Soria were currently scrupulously avoiding such big donations by individuals who represent a corporate interest, she still has a record of doing so which continues to provide ties to these interests. Williams has no such history as she has never run for public office before.

Environmental Commitments: The term, “Green New Deal” during this interview, elicited no response from Soria. At the recent Fresno County Latina Democrats District 22 Debate Forum, which featured only Williams and Soria, the latter candidate showed a clear lack of mastery of the subject matter. As a city councilmember, Soria doesn’t seem to have considered it a subject that demanded much research and concern. This, clearly, is not the case since Fresno development is fraught by what to do with land that has been restricted in use by land covenants due to complex toxic land-use histories.

These matters do not seem to have surfaced as areas of focus for Soria. They were not explored deeply in this interview either. During the Fresno County Latina Democrats Forum, Soria gave no hint of having dived into a study of the Green New Deal. She didn’t mention it or any part of the subject of green jobs, ending the reliance on fossil fuels or Climate Change as it will affect the Central Valley.

Climate Change wasn’t a term Soria used or appeared to consider in any way. As mentioned above, she failed to protect South Central and Southwest Fresno from the devastating pollution of the Amazon warehouse, Ulta Beauty distribution center, and other truck distribution headquarters in South Fresno that contribute to life expectancies that are 20-25 years shorter than in North Fresno.

Medicare For All/Single Payer/Medical Debt Forgiveness: [A compelling personal story] didn’t drive her to take a second look at Medicare for All or immerse herself deeply in studying healthcare policy. At a recent UC Merced debate forum, a student asked Soria about Medicare for All. Soria responded that Medicare for all is a “dream.” She likewise said in our interview that it couldn’t become a reality.

...Free Public University Tuition/Student Debt Forgiveness: “I can tell you that I have personally experienced what it is to have college debt,” Soria says, but she fails to go further to solve the problem of what to do to prevent future generations from accruing such college debt and of how to resolve the problem for those who have five and six-figure college debt which is impeding their quality of life right now. They don’t have access to buying houses, in many cases, to having a family and many other things that their parents were able to afford. She spoke of no plan for debt forgiveness, or any other method of solving the problem of college debt.

Likewise, Soria did not talk about how to reduce the cost of college education, but she did devote considerable time to telling the story of her brother who went to the University of Southern California as an undergraduate and then completed a Master’s in Education. He taught for over a year only to leave the profession because he wasn’t earning enough money to support his family.

She mentioned that it makes her mad that he had to make this hard choice as he is now a truck driver and no longer contributing to student lives through teaching, which he clearly loved. Still, Soria provides no broader statistics of information on how these problems can be resolved. What is her plan to fix the problem or will she rely on others to formulate plans and she will just vote for or against them? And will that be enough for residents of Congressional District 16 to vote for her?

Last weekend at the party convention, the California Democratic Party denied Jim Costa its endorsement, making him the only 2020 congressional incumbent without the party's support. Blue America has endorsed Kim Williams, who we feel strongly will give CA-16 the kind of smart, committed advocacy the district badly needs. Williams is one of the best of the 2020 challengers so far this year anywhere and we ask you to consider supporting her campaign by chipping in what you can here or here or here... or here.