Nearly 200 Republican supporters gathered at the Sonoma County GOP Convention on Aug. 26 in Santa Rosa, California, with local candidates speaking to voters about issues affecting the state.
Crime, drug abuse, and education were key talking points, with influence from the government of China, cost of living, water rights, and energy independence all highlighted by candidates as important topics in the 2024 election.
“We’re watching one of the great cities in the world, San Francisco, crash and burn, and L.A. could be next, and we’re starting to see signs of it in San Diego and certain parts of Orange County,” Eric Early, a candidate for the U.S. Senate and founding partner of a law firm located in Los Angeles, told The Epoch Times after speaking to the crowd. “People are afraid to go outside at night, afraid to go shopping with their families. They don’t want their kids, their families, or themselves to be caught up in a terribly dangerous situation.”
With retail theft increasing across the state—as videos show numerous incidents of flash mob-style robberies resulting in hundreds of thousands of dollars in losses for businesses—and car break-ins and home invasions on the rise, public safety is a primary concern for Californians and is leading to the departure of retailers, businesses, and jobs in some major metropolitan areas, he said.
“Crime is destroying every major city in this state, smaller cities and townships, as well,” Mr. Early said. “It’s a disaster, and conservatives know how to fix this. It’s not rocket science; we have to prosecute criminals, and we have to set bail again.”
Proposition 47—approved by voters in 2014 with the intention of lowering prison populations by reducing some drug and theft crimes from felonies to misdemeanors—was repeatedly denounced by speakers as contributing to crime and an increase in illicit drug use across the state.
Fentanyl addiction—responsible for about 6,000 deaths annually in California, according to the most recent statistics from the Department of Public Health—was specifically blamed for fueling the state’s mental health and homelessness crises.
When questioned about the ongoing debate in the California Legislature between strengthening sentencing guidelines and funding rehabilitation and education efforts to counter the fentanyl problem, Mr. Early was adamant that more needs to be done to penalize those who cause the death of another by selling the synthetic opioid.
“Fentanyl is a nightmare for families all around our state and our country,” Mr. Early said. “Punishment for crime works. What it should be is execution.”
Also, in attendance running against Mr. Early for Senate was Denice Gary-Pandol, a political scientist and national security expert. She spoke to the crowd about the importance of energy independence and national security.
“National security on the border is a crisis,” Ms. Gary-Pandol told The Epoch Times after delivering her speech. “Terrorists have built tunnels from Mexico right into California. Drug cartels are going through those tunnels.”
As to the ongoing debate in the Legislature regarding child sex trafficking, she said Californians are outraged and are demanding action after state Sen. Shannon Grove’s (R-Bakersfield) Senate Bill 14—designed to lengthen prison sentences for those repeatedly convicted of sexually trafficking children—in limbo awaiting a decision on Sept. 1 after contentious debate in unprecedented Assembly Public Safety Committee hearings in August.
“Human trafficking should be a serious felony punishable by death,” Ms. Gary-Pandol said. “We have a situation where children are being sold. We have to end human trafficking.”
The candidate pleaded for a return to law and order and said it would require a change of leadership not only in California but in federal agencies.
“The FBI is failing you, the Department of Homeland Security is failing you, the Department of Justice is failing you,” Ms. Gary-Pandol said. “We’ve got to clean house and make crime illegal again in our state, make crime illegal again in our country: It’s the drugs killing our people and the terrorists coming across our borders.”
Pinpointing water and energy also as fundamental issues in the next election, she stressed the need to deregulate industries to better serve Californians.
“We don’t have a water crisis in our state. We have a water mismanagement crisis,” Ms. Gary-Pandol said. “We have to deregulate the economy. National Environmental Policy Act—passed in 1970—has helped to create bureaucracy like [the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission] that is tearing dams down in the state of California.”
Several dams are in question across the state, as the regulatory commission has approved decommissioning repeatedly over the last two years on the Klamath River, and now infrastructure on the Eel River is under review, according to documents filed with the agency this year. The agency’s stated objective is to replenish water flows for salmon habitats and restore native fish populations.
The issue of water management was equally addressed by 2nd District congressional candidate Chris Coulombe, who noted the prevalence of dam removal as a primary concern for residents in the district covering Northern California from the Golden Gate Bridge to the Oregon border.
“We’re not getting the types of infrastructure improvements we need to make sure these existential resources remain,” Mr. Coulombe told The Epoch Times. “The real issue we have is we have a representative that is trying to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to reduce our water storage capacity. We’re spending money to do the wrong things.”
The project alluded to is the planned decommissioning and destruction of the Lake Pillsbury dam in Lake County, a reservoir that currently supplies water to Mendocino, Sonoma, and Marin counties. Such will impact the region by reducing access to water for drinking and agriculture, he said.
The Lake Pillsbury dam is slated for destruction due to Pacific Gas and Electric’s lack of interest in maintaining the property it controls and following several lawsuits from environmental activist groups seeking to shut down the installation.
After failing to find a buyer for the infrastructure, the utility company filed documents with the regulatory agency to begin decommissioning earlier this year.
“We see it here in the district. Now we have arguably half of the district, and the majority of the population centers, that are going to suffer immensely if this program is completed,” Mr. Coulombe said while noting that less water will exacerbate the high cost of living impacting the area. “Food prices are going up, inflation is tearing us apart, and it’s destroying our expendable income.”
Firefighting will also be negatively impacted by the loss of water, according to the candidate.
“I take issue with it because we’ve had fires here,” Mr. Coulombe said. “This is a proven fire event area, and if we have one less reservoir available for them to dip into, that means they have to go further, and that’s more time, that’s more risk to the firefighters, less time for us to evacuate, and these are real, life-threatening concerns.”
The issues of school boards, parental control, and controversial textbooks also took center stage during the four-hour event, with the complicated matter of transgender athletes repeatedly mentioned as unfair to female students.
“Female athletes forced to compete against a man pretending to be a woman risk losing their national ranking and their scholarships,” Tieff Gibbs, a small-business owner from Novato—just north of San Francisco—and 2nd District congressional candidate running against Mr. Coulombe, told The Epoch Times. “The radical agenda takes front and center stage in California, and if we allow what is happening in California to continue and grow, it is going to take over the rest of the country.”
While the Golden State is currently run by a Democratic supermajority, she noted that millions of registered voters are Republicans and believes many independents are starting to lean right, away from the policies of the past.
“Our country is really on the brink of falling apart, and California has the most Republicans numbers-wise than any other state in the entire country,” Ms. Gibbs said. “The problem is that people feel that they’re not being heard, and as a result, they’ve turned away from paying attention, and unfortunately, that is what the radicals want them to do.”
Candidates mingled with guests and discussed political strategy in addition to giving speeches. Attendees enjoyed a pasta buffet and desserts decorated with American flags and perused memorabilia and a silent auction table filled with gift baskets featuring local wines and delicacies, art, and ideologically conservative books.
Songs from Oliver Anthony—whose hit “Rich Men North of Richmond” recently went viral and topped the Billboard Hot 100 for the second week in a row and remains the top song in the country as of Aug. 28—played throughout the evening.
The artist called out Republican politicians for using his music at their presidential debate, which aired on Fox News on Aug. 23, and said the message also applied to them in an Aug. 26 post on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.
Held in the Barn Building at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds, the event was adorned with red, white, and blue balloons and featured photo opportunities with cut-out portraits of former presidents Ronald Reagan, Abraham Lincoln, and Donald Trump standing with former First Lady Melania Trump.
All mentions of President Trump were met with immediate applause from those in attendance, and when the list of potential presidential candidates was announced by California GOP Vice Chair Corrin Rankin, the former president received by far the loudest response, suggesting the crowd had picked a favorite.
