The Race
California State Assembly District 33 encompasses all of San Luis Obispo County and 44.25 percent of Santa Barbara County. Last updated in 2001, assembly records show 219,200 registered voters.
The Candidates
Sam Blakeslee
He is a Republican, the incumbent and President of the investment firm Blakeslee & Blakeslee.
He was first elected to the assembly in 2004, and is running for his third term in office. A graduate of San Luis Obispo High School, he went on to obtain both a bachelor’s degree and master’s degree in geophysics from UC Berkley and a Ph.D. from UC Santa Barbara.
After graduation, he became a research scientist for Exxon, eventually leaving to join his family’s firm. He currently serves on ten committees in the assembly including the budget committee. He is a resident of San Luis Obispo.
Robert Cuthbert
He is a Democrat, former labor organizer and substitute teacher for Lompoc Unified School District.
He graduated from Cal Poly in 2001 with a bachelor’s degree in Social Science and began work as a youth home manager at Sweeny Youth Homes while working as a labor organizer for United Food & Commercial Workers..
Having been an activist since age 18, he decided to move from demonstrations and organization to elected office after serving on party delegations. He is a current resident of Lompoc.
The Issues
Mustang Daily: Describe your platform and what it is that you expect to accomplish if elected:
Cuthbert: “I would be very dubious of anyone who can tell you, ‘I’m going to do this or I’m going to do that.’ It’s really all about being part of a process. My years as an activist are going to make me an effective part of that force.”
“In Sacramento there are 80 people in the legislature, but there’s this Senate Bill 840 which is health care for all. It’s a single pay health care program and that’s going to be my number one goal. It’s been passed by the legislature twice, sent twice to the governor’s desk and been vetoed twice. Sam Blakeslee voted against this.”
Blakeslee: “My platform is helping the state balance its budget, promoting good jobs and protecting the environment. The way we need to balance the budget is to generate more revenue by attracting clean businesses to California.”
“Some of the bio-tech and renewable energy firms employ very highly compensated individuals which pay very high taxes. Unfortunately, those businesses have actually been leaving the state in droves. We have to bring those jobs back. There was a time when folks tried to locate here but that’s just been to costly.”
MD: Your policy differences come down to economic goals. How do you justify your choices?
Blakeslee: “My opponent and I have a different perspective on the issue of creating a vast new government program during a time of very large deficits. SB840 would be the largest and most expensive government program to come out of the legislature in a generation. We don’t have the money to pay for it.”
“When we do have money we need to target spending. For heaven’s sake, we must spend more on education. We have a failing educational system. It’s very frightening to imagine a future in which the educational community would have to fight with an extremely large universal health care program run by the state. I believe it would be an unavoidable fight for available money.”
Cuthbert: “The single payer system would make the State of California the number one insurer. It would bring in everybody, every family, every child and every adult. It brings down administrative costs dramatically. It means that everyone in California would get basic healthcare, including preventative care… The money that is coming from the federal government that is now used for things like Medi-Cal goes into the system, so everybody pools their money. Everybody pays and efficiency becomes a part of administration. Efficiency is in preventative care. It’s a lot cheaper to treat somebody for a mild heart condition that it is a major heart attack.”
MD:You both agree on education’s priority but to you go about funding differently. How do we increase revenue to meet the goal?
Cuthbert: “I would like to see the state of California have an independent audit. There are a lot of programs that are in many ways blended in. A large company does independent audits just to tell where the money’s going. We’ve got an independent summary; the out line takes 80 pages. In other words, the devil’s in the details.”
MD: You favor increasing property taxes then?
Cuthbert: “By necessity.”
Two local graduates vie for
district 33 state assembly seat
Blakeslee: “I would change the tax code to something called ‘hyper-weighted’ sales tax factor. There is a number of ways to compute taxes on corporations, some of which actually penalize the company for being located in California. I believe we need to use a formula which essentially incentivizes companies to move to California. We actually passed a bill two years ago that did that and it was killed in the senate. So I’m going to be working with others to bring that bill back and get it passed.”
“When you have a company like Intel that wants to open a factory, they pay sales tax on the machinery that they buy and then the chips that they produce are taxed. What’s legal under federal law is to adopt a system that forgive the taxes on the original equipment if the overall outcome will be to bring more money to the state.”