Congressional candidates answer questions at Cypress College forum

Six of the eight candidates for the newly-formed 47th Congressional District appeared at a forum sponsored by Cypress College and the Cypress Chamber of Commerce. Missing from the session were Alan Lowenthal, Democratic representative of the 27th District in the State Senate, and conservative businessman/blogger Steve Foley.

The panel was composed of Gloria Badal, professor and department chair for the political science department at Cypress College; Theresa Murphy, the executive director of Precious Life Shelter in Los Alamitos; and George O’Hara of Colony West Financial Insurance. Prior to the start of the forum, they accepted questions for the candidates from the members of the audience present, a majority of whom were students at Cypress College.

The candidates were faced with some sticky issues throughout the evening, from questions of how to reduce the size of government to representing the smaller members of the 47th District as well as the “900-pound gorilla” of Long Beach.

The first candidate to speak was Gary DeLong, arguably the front-runner in the race thus far. The Republican has been endorsed by several other prominent politicians, including Congressman Ed Royce and Los Angeles County Supervisor Don Knabe. He made it clear throughout the evening that his primary focus was to create economic opportunities by helping small businesses, and that this strategy would have a watershed effect on the rest of society, including the students and their burgeoning debts.

Sanford “Sandy” Kahn, a mechanical engineer, supported a flat rate income tax and an increase to domestic oil production. “You can’t tax your way to prosperity,” he said in his opening statement, and emphasized that the future is in economic growth. Like Mr. DeLong, Mr. Kahn argued that small businesses are the backbone of the economy.

The only loud liberal voice at the forum came in the person of Peter Mathews, a political science professor at Cypress College. In contrast to most of the other candidates, he spoke strongly in support of government involvement in the economy and education. His most notable objective was to increase taxes on the extremely wealthy and to forgive 50% of the student loan debt to ease the economic burden on college students.

This in particular did not go over well with Steve Kuykendall, who memorably emphasized personal fiscal responsibility and encouraged students to look at whether what they were putting into their education was worth what they would be getting out of it. Mr. Kuykendall, a retired Marine and experienced congressman, said that the first duty is to keep the country safe, and, like Mr. Kahn, was supportive of increased domestic oil production. He also pointed out that Long Beach, the largest city in the 47th District, is not a homogeneous pool, contrary to some significant misgivings from the smaller Orange County cities. Mr. Kuykendall spoke in favor of scrapping the Patient Protection and Affordable Care act, known informally as ObamaCare, claiming that its thousands of pages of provisions would make an unhealthy burden on businesses and doctors and would in fact adversely affect the quality of care, contrary to its intentions.

Jay Shah, MD, made healthcare an important part of his platform – he espoused removing the “middleman” from all dealings and furthermore emphasized that “quality care [was] the birthright” of everyone. The retired U.S. Air Force flight surgeon also desired to expose the corruption of career politicians and to “hang them high”.

Interestingly, his wife, Usha Shah, was the final candidate of the race. Her few talking points were mostly centered around the empowerment of women and the protection of the dignity of those who are under-represented in society, including women, seniors, veterans, and children.

Despite a few snippy remarks (particularly between Mr. Mathews and the conservative candidates), the evening progressed politely and without incident.

Featured photo

Congressional candidate Gary DeLong answers a question during the candidate forum sponsored by Cypress College and the Cypress Area Chamber of Commerce. Photo by Katie Wiedel.

Related articles

• Cypress College forensics students win at Fall Champs (oc-breeze.com)
• Donations of used books sought by Cypress College (oc-breeze.com)
• Cypress College names Geology Professor Castle as Teacher of the Year (oc-breeze.com)
• Cypress College students’ movie premiers at LA FILM + MUSIC Festival (oc-breeze.com)
• Cypress College welcomes re-visit from accreditation team (oc-breeze.com)
• Spring semester census shows Cypress College students target four-year transfer (oc-breeze.com)
• Cypress College Veterans Organization collecting for homeless veterans (oc-breeze.com)
• Cypress Chamber to host Congressional candidate forum at Cypress College (oc-breeze.com)