[ from "Second candidate enters race for 35th Assembly seat," By Timm Herdt, Ventura County Star, Tuesday, July 7, 2009 ]


A contested Democratic primary in the race to succeed termed-out Assemblyman Pedro Nava was assured Monday when Santa Barbara City Councilman Das Williams officially announced his candidacy at campaign kickoff events in Ventura and Santa Barbara.

Williams, 35, is in his second term on the council after having become the youngest person elected to that office in Santa Barbara in 2003. He is an organizer for the Ventura County-based community group CAUSE, and is heading the group’s efforts to stop the proposed Wal-Mart project in Ventura.

He will square off in the 35th Assembly District primary in June against environmental activist Susan Jordan of Santa Barbara, who is Nava’s wife.

Williams said his campaign will be about “bringing new energy and new local leadership” to the district, which includes Santa Barbara, Ventura and much of Oxnard. His connections to the area run deep, having moved to the Ojai Valley as an infant, attended Santa Barbara City College before receiving his bachelor’s degree from UC Berkeley, earned a master’s degree from UC Santa Barbara and taught at the private Antioch University in Santa Barbara.

Williams also serves as a trustee at a charter school in Santa Barbara, and says his background in education would inform his decisions as a member of the Legislature.

“Nothing in the budget crisis could be more destructive than what’s happening in the education system,” he said, noting that his charter school is “waiting for the other shoe to drop” as it prepares to cope with budget cutbacks.

The prospect of a contested Democratic primary is good news for former Santa Barbara County Supervisor Mike Stoker, the only anticipated Republican in the race.

The district is heavily Democratic, with the party holding a 20 percentage-point advantage among registered voters. In addition, Democrat Barack Obama carried the district with 67 percent of the vote in the 2008 presidential election.

Williams was joined at his Ventura news conference by Supervisor Steve Bennett, Ventura Unified School District trustees Debbie Golden and Barbara Fitzgerald, former Supervisor Susan Lacey, and Ventura County Community College District Trustee Art Hernandez.

Williams has also secured the endorsements of a number of leading Santa Barbara County Democrats, including former Assemblywoman Hannah-Beth Jackson, two members of the Board of Supervisors and five of the other six members of the Santa Barbara City Council.

Williams’ entry into the race is somewhat controversial because he had initially pledged not to run and to support Jordan, but changed his mind in the aftermath of a split among environmental groups in Santa Barbara over a proposed offshore oil drilling project.

A number of groups supported the proposal because the company pledged to dismantle much of the oil-industry infrastructure in the area in a number of years. The project was rejected by the State Lands Commission earlier this year, with Nava and Jordan leading the opposition.

Williams declined to disclose how much money his campaign had raised before the close of the June 30 reporting period (reports must be publicly submitted by the end of this month), but said the report will “show a lot more strength than people in Sacramento were expecting.”





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