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Six men are vying for two spots on the fall general election ballot when voters in the state Assembly’s new 5th District go to the polls on June 5. The fundraising front-runners by a 10-to-1 margin compared to the rest of the field are Republicans Rico Oller, a San Andreas building material company owner, and Frank Bigelow, a rancher and executive of a family-owned telephone company from tiny O’Neals in Madera County. Republicans hold an 11 percentage-point registration advantage in the Sierra foothill district and are expected to carry it comfortably in November.
Both men are also the only candidates with prior elected experience. Oller served two previous terms in the Assembly and another in the state Senate, leaving him eligible for one more term in each house of the Legislature. Bigelow, meanwhile, is a four-term Madera County supervisor. A new “top two” primary system in place this year in California would allow Oller and Bigelow, despite sharing party affiliation, to advance to the general election if they are the highest vote-getters. Thus more money is pouring into the race than is typically seen in a heavily-tilted district. Oller and Bigelow each have a war chest approaching $200,000, while the independent Mother Lode Taxpayers Association Political Action Committee For Bigelow Assembly 2012 has amassed another $200,000. Formed April 16, the PAC has started running radio ads in support of Bigelow’s candidacy. Two donors are identified as being the contributors of the PAC with $50,000 from the California Dental Association Independent Expenditure Political Action Committee and $150,000 from the California Real Estate Independent Expenditure Committee. Though that may put Oller at a financial disadvantage with his main rival, he is expected to rely on voters’ familiarity, having represented the northern two-thirds of the district previously in the Legislature. He has also spent much of his campaign touting a fiercely conservative record and attacking Bigelow for more moderate stances on high-speed rail and immigration. “Frank Bigelow voted for high speed rail four times,” said Oller campaign manager Isaac Kight, who switched his allegiances from the Bigelow campaign to Oller’s early in the race. Bigelow said he has shifted his position after seeing the plan’s details and now regularly refers to the project as a “boondoggle” from which he will defend taxpayers. The California Democratic Party has given its endorsement to Arnold substitute teacher and property manager Marc Boyd and Democrats hope a GOP split may propel their candidate to become the top vote-getter in the primary. Boyd has spent just shy of $10,000 on the race and has focused largely on developing a district-wide economic summit if elected and criticizing state government for a failure to adequately fund K-12 and higher education. Facing the daunting task of overcoming Republican demographic advantages, Boyd sought to dismiss the notion that Democrats are anti-business in a recent debate. “Silicon Valley is the most dynamic economic region in the world and 90 percent of them are Democrats,” Boyd said. Boyd is in favor of same-sex marriage and Gov. Jerry Brown’s tax proposition proposal to fund education and prison realignment. Boyd faces an intraparty challenge that could thwart his effort to campaign through November. Sonora author and economist Tim Fitzgerald has presented an unorthodox campaign, lending his effort more than $8,000 of his own cash, naming Jamestown exotic dance club owner Rosalinda San Martin as his campaign treasurer, and suggesting massive reforms of the state education system, including a wholesale shift to Montessori-style pedagogy. Fitzgerald has repeatedly claimed that Democratic operatives have tried to push him from the race, thwart his campaign and even suggested they were responsible for a break-in at his home. County Democratic officers in the district have denied those charges while Tuolumne County Sheriff’s deputies told Fitzgerald they believe someone he knows committed the burglary. He believes his party’s endorsement of Boyd is unfair because he did not receive an invite to a nominating convention and has stressed a lengthy educational background including advanced economic degrees from San Jose State University. “There’s some places (in the district) the economy is so economically stagnant young people have to go someplace else to get a job,” he said. Independent candidate Mark Belden, a Rail Road Flat entrepreneur and hotel owner, hopes to capitalize on the growing trend of voters registering “no party preference.” Formerly a Republican, Belden said he is “as conservative as any Republican” and opposes heavy regulation on business. He holds more moderate social stances such as decriminalization of marijuana, support of abortion rights and what he calls a “neutral” attitude toward same-sex marriage. “As an Assembly member of the 5th Assembly District, my independent voice will be as loud as any other state legislator in Sacramento,” Belden said. “Since October, I have driven to the four corners of the 5th Assembly District and personally handed out more than 12,000 ‘An Independent Voice’ booklets and personally have met more than twice that many constituents.” Belden has filed no campaign finance disclosure statements, saying he does not expect to surpass the $1,000 limit required to file with the Calaveras County elections office. Republican Soulsbyville taxi driver Kevin Lancaster submitted his candidacy in the final week of the filing period. Lancaster said in a recent debate he was inspired to run for Assembly by his father who said that one cannot complain about government unless he participates in it. Lancaster said that global warming was “a load of crap,” and that he thinks taxes, in many cases, are unconstitutional. “We should not be raising our taxes, we should be looking at the state of our budget,” Lancaster said. It has been a rough run for Lancaster in recent years, laid off by SPI in 2009 and robbed at knifepoint while driving his cab last December in Willow Springs. Lancaster also has not met the threshold to disclose campaign finances Editor’s note: This is the second in a weekly series of Union Democrat election profiles tracking candidates running for offices in the June 5 primary. Next week we will profile judge candidates for Tuolumne County Superior Court. |