With the primary election in full swing, voters now have the opportunity to cast their ballot for the 19th Congressional District covering the northern part of San Luis Obispo County.
The candidates for District 19 include incumbent Congressman Jimmy Panetta, a Democrat, Republican Jason Anderson, and Sean Dougherty who is representing the Green Party.
District 19 covers parts of Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, and Monterey Counties as well as the northern part of San Luis Obispo County including Paso Robles, Atascadero and Cambria.
Jimmy Panetta says it’s been an honor to be a U.S. Representative for the past seven years. If re-elected, he’d like to focus more on affordability which he says is the number one issue in the 19th District.
“We got a lot of people who work here but unfortunately don’t live here and we want to make sure that they do both, that they don’t spend time in commutes but spend more time in our communities," Panetta said. "What type of legislation can I author, can I introduce and can I pass to make sure people have more affordable housing.”
Panetta is proud of legislation he’s created that promotes clean energy, small businesses, allowing military members to obtain bachelor’s degrees and protecting natural habitats for pollinators like the monarch butterfly. He’s also proud to have helped pass the American Rescue Plan.
“Basically, helping us get out of the pandemic and deal with global inflation that we’ve all continued to deal with but also getting through that and making sure we have affordability and a big part of that was through the American Rescue Plan,” Panetta said.
Candidate Sean Dougherty is an engineer who lives in Santa Cruz with his wife and son. He has previously helped candidates run for city council, county offices and volunteered his time for local ballot measures.
“My focus would be spending money on our local communities and what I would like to see happen, I would like to cut our military budget in half and that may sound radical to some people but even if we cut it in half, we’d still have the largest military budget in the world. It wouldn’t make us less safe,” Dougherty said.
Dougherty says the money saved by cutting the military’s budget in half would go toward areas such as paid family leave, tuition-free college, universal childcare and housing and medical debt forgiveness.
When it comes to housing affordability, Dougherty says he would like to see a social housing program.
“The cost of rent would be scaled to someone’s income. For example, 30 percent of their income. I know that there are many people who define 30 percent of income as affordable housing,” Dougherty said.
KSBY News reporter Sophia Villalba requested an interview with candidate Jason Anderson, calling his campaign eight times and emailing four times, but was told he was unavailable for an interview at this time.
Because this is a primary election, the two candidates who receive the most votes on March 5 will face off in the November election.
Ballot drop box locations are open throughout SLO County through Election Day which is March 5. Ballots can be returned by mail, ballot drop boxes and polling places on Election Day or at your county elections office.
