The local newspaper wondered last year why Rocky Chávez was abandoning his safe Assembly seat to run for the nearly unwinnable seat in the US Senate. That was a fair question then. Chávez campaigned for the US Senate and was endorsed by 19 current members of the Assembly’s Republican Caucus, the Mayor of California’s second largest city (San Diego), the current Republican Leader of the Assembly, and two former Republican Leaders of the Assembly. That’s an impressive list.
Now that Chávez has chosen to abandon his Senate bid and run for re-election in his Assembly District, we should ask that impressive list of people if they choose to back him in that re-election bid.
Chávez has an impressive biography. Anyone who has heard his life story heard him talk about working hard in Central Valley fields, graduating college, and serving 28 years as a commissioned officer in the United States Marine Corps. After his military service, he served as an Oceanside Council Member, the head of a charter school, the Acting Secretary of the California Department of Veterans Affairs, and for four years in the California Assembly. He mostly voted with the Assembly Republican Caucus.
That biography is less important today than it was four years ago. We know Chávez today and know what he has done for the past four years. Now that Chávez chose to forfeit his incumbency status to run for US Senate, we should ask what he intends to do with the eight years of incumbency remaining (and if he intends to run for higher office during that eight years).
Chávez is Vice Chair of the Assembly Education Committee. He has stated that he is passionate about education but we have seen no meaningful discussion on school choice. We should ask him what specific plans he has to advance charter schools, tuition tax credits for parents who choose parochial or private schools, and deferred vouchers for parents who choose to home school. Low income parents ask Republicans why they can’t send their kids to private schools and Chávez should be able to answer their questions. To many minorities, they see access to the best education as the modern civil rights issue.
We have a clean slate with the known legislator Rocky Chávez. His late decision to run for re-election derailed his colleague Jerry Kern’s candidacy. Politics ain’t bean ball — it’s a high stakes, winner take all game, so I don’t blame Chávez for wanting to influence public policy in an arena which he has served.
But we gotta ask him why he wants to run…again
….and which of his colleagues will endorse him…again
…and what he intends to do to effect meaningful reform in Sacramento…again.