Assembly Candidates All Business at Forum

In politics, it’s called working the crowd. And in a forum Tuesday sponsored by the Ventura Chamber of Commerce, the candidates in the 35th Assembly District race did just that.

In their statements and answers to questions, the trio of hopefuls--Democrat Hannah-Beth Jackson, Republican Chris Mitchum and Natural Law candidate Eric Dahl--tailored their platforms to the 90 or so businessmen and businesswomen in attendance.

Employee benefits, the minimum wage, government regulation and legal reform were the focus, although so far the campaign has concentrated more on social and quality-of-life issues such as education, crime and the environment.

Business analogies were common: Dahl alluded to free-market competition in discussing school vouchers, and Jackson called children “the work force of the future.”

More a question-and-answer forum, the hourlong event at the Holiday Inn presented little opportunity for debate among the candidates in the district that includes Ventura, Ojai, Santa Paula and most of Santa Barbara County.

But tension between Mitchum and Jackson was evident at the close, when Mitchum refused to shake his Democratic opponent’s hand and later called her a “known liar” who is distorting his positions on gun control and off-shore drilling in new campaign mailings.

Dahl appeared to be selling his little-known party more than himself. Most of his statements outlined the platform of the Natural Law Party, which advocates preventive measures to combat crime and reduce health-care costs.

Mitchum, citing statistics he says prove that increases in the minimum wage decrease employment, said he opposes further increasing the minimum wage and worried that state-mandated employee benefits overburden employers.

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Jackson sounded more supportive of the minimum wage and California’s higher-than-average level of employee benefits.

“When you respect your employees, they respect you as well,” said Jackson, who repeatedly mentioned that she and her husband run their own law offices in Ventura and Santa Barbara.

All three candidates seemed to favor decreasing government regulation and paperwork in several areas, although they also acknowledged that corporate law-breaking proves the need for government’s punitive powers.

Mitchum advocated reform of the legal system to eliminate what he called a “third-party, deep-pocket philosophy” that he believes benefits only lawyers.

Jackson, an attorney, disputed Mitchum’s assertion that the courts are clogged with “frivolous” lawsuits and said there needs to be a punitive system for business.

“We are going to have to have some sort of enticement [for corporations] to do some of the things they are supposed to do in the first place,” Jackson said.

Local issues also were discussed. Though unfamiliar with the proposal, all three candidates said they would support the transfer of control of Ventura’s beaches from the state to the city.

On the SOAR growth-control initiative, Jackson and Dahl spoke in favor of the measure that would give voters the power to decide whether farmland and open space should be developed.

Dahl worried that Ventura County could lose its signature citrus trees, once a common sight in Orange County and the San Fernando Valley.

“Ventura County could easily have the same fate, and I think that would be a tragedy,” he said.

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Mitchum said he opposes the Save Open Space and Agricultural Resources initiative, saying that government already offers adequate incentives to protect agricultural land from development.

Tuesday’s forum will be broadcast Thursday at 8:30 p.m. and next Tuesday at 6 p.m. on Ventura’s Channel 6.