Incumbent Heath Flora sat this one out, but four political newcomers challenging his Assembly District 9 seat didn’t seem to mind.
Republicans Jim Shoemaker, Tami Nobriga and Branden Owen and Democrat Matthew Adams shared their views in a lively debate moderated by The Modesto Focus. Issues ranged from water and wildfires to election fraud and homelessness – with an occasional reference to the incumbent, who was invited but did not participate.
Voters in parts of Stanislaus County – Oakdale, Riverbank, Salida, Waterford and Hughson – represent the second largest bloc in District 9 next to its swath in San Joaquin County. The district also goes into Amador County and parts of Sacramento and Calaveras counties.
Here is a transcript of the debate, edited for brevity and clarity.
Opening statements
Modesto Focus – Let’s hear your opening statements.
Adams – I’m a teacher and a community organizer. I’ve lived in Woodbridge my entire life. I love this district, and I want somebody to actually represent us and the community and not the corporate interests as our current incumbent has for the last 10 years. I care greatly about our schools, making sure they’re publicly funded, making sure that our teachers have all the resources they need, as well as our students; making sure we have affordable health care and people can afford to live in our district. I promise to fight for everybody in our community.
Nobriga – I (ran) for this position in 2024 and I did quite well, so I figure I might as well stay in the race and get to the finish line this time. My focus is on children. I believe they’re our future and we need to save them not only from indoctrination but from trafficking. I want to make a law that puts traffickers in prison for life, no parole. I’d like to put air marshal-type security in our schools. I will not take money from Big Pharma or Big PAC. I’m concentrating on lowering housing costs by giving tax breaks on the back end, and free and fair elections. It’s so important that we not throw our water away and that we support our farmers and unregulate them. I’m stepping up to fight corrupt Sacramento.
Owen – I grew up in the Elk Grove area. I’ve lived in the farming community. I’ve been married for 21 years. I have three boys. One of my primary focuses is affordability. The high cost of taxation in California is strangling families. My goal is to bring family back to California. I anticipate authoring a bill that I call the ‘No hidden agendas act’ where we can no longer have hidden topics in any of our legislation and bills. I want to be your voice and I plan to fight for you.
Shoemaker – My involvement politically goes back many years, almost 40, and my involvement from life issues on through gun issues and regulation issues that I had to deal with. I started numerous businesses that I’ve owned. Dealing with government overreach and wanting to run our lives has increased the cost of living in this state substantially. We can’t have affordable housing when we don’t have affordable energy. Energy drives everything. Our food costs are directly related to our farming costs. Those farming costs are related to energy. We also need to worry about our water. But the biggest issue, and the reason for me running, is the fact that in the 10 years that our current assemblyman has been in office, we’ve had no representation locally, at city, county or a number of our water boards, even the port of Stockton. We haven’t had somebody following through. I will do that.
Public safety
Focus – Have California policies weakened public safety?
Nobriga – We have to back the blue, get rid of no-cash bail and keep people in jail where they need to be. There’s so many idiotic laws out there right now, or loopholes like the ones that let ‘elderly’ prisoners out because of age when they’re horrendous people that should not be out on the street. We need to revamp the whole situation and get people in there that actually know law enforcement, rather than people that are just business people. We need to take care of our citizens and not our politicians.
Owen – As a prior law enforcement officer, I believe our policies have weakened our connection between crime and criminal justice. We need to support our local law enforcement agencies and coordinate better with them. We need to improve staffing. We also need to have more neighborhood watches and tougher consequences on crime. The cost of everything has gone up so high that petty theft has increased. A cell phone is an electronic device that has everybody’s information being utilized to steal people’s identities. We need to get harsher on our crime penalties.
Shoemaker – Policies through Sacramento have caused all of our problems with crime. Everything is because of what some goofball in Sacramento decided to push through. You can steal $950 and you don’t have any real consequences. When people are abusing children, there should be no special coddling whatsoever in prison, where they have their own private jail; they need to be put in general population and then justice will be served.
Adams – We need to ask ourselves, ‘What are we hoping to achieve?’ Our goal should be making sure people get due process. We can punish them; we should also rehabilitate them. We want them to be better people, and we want our society to be safer. Once they’ve served their time, California has the right approach in terms of we need to treat these people like people and not have them in prison forever.
All political newcomers here
Focus – No one here has held office before. Does being new to politics help or hurt your ability to serve constituents?
Owen – I’ve been let down by our current representative, and that’s why I chose to join in this race. We’re forgetting the majority while we’re representing the minority, and we need to get back to representing the majority again.
Shoemaker – It’s actually an advantage. I’ve been involved (in) trying to get policies adjusted and changed. There’s almost nobody I can’t relate to, from my past experience being a blue collar guy, a union guy, I was a Teamster and a private business owner.
Adams – As a former high school government teacher, the amount of times I’d be teaching a lesson about government, and I would have to add in, ‘Ideally,’ or, ‘if everything worked as we hoped,’ I mean, it’s innumerable. Government should represent its people. The way we don’t get that is if people are not held to account, if they never face a competitive election, if they’re beholden to their corporate donors. If I didn’t connect with people, I’d be out of a job.
Nobriga – I’m a conservative Christian and I was actually called to step up and do this. Being a business owner and out and about and in front of people all the time in the radio business, which was 30 years of my life, I know how to deal with people. I can do it with truth. I don’t have any bad habits or anything in my past that could sway me this way or the other way. I will go with truth and common sense.
Election fraud in California?
Focus – Has California suffered from election fraud?
Shoemaker – Yes, as Lodi has shown, we have someone that went to prison for election fraud. We need to work on that, it’s through voter ID.
Adams – The case in Lodi was unfortunate, but it really was a needle in a haystack. The threat of election fraud is greatly overblown. We are incredibly safe with our mail-in voting. We don’t need voter ID laws. I trust greatly that (elections officials) in all five counties in our district have done a really great job. Laws ensure that our elections are safe and secure. If you want election fraud to go away, the best way is to get more people to vote. Make Election Day a holiday, make it easier for people to vote early, pre register 16- and 17-year-olds.
Nobriga – Our elections are not good at all. I was working at the polls myself. I personally brought all of the ballots to the counting area, and before I could leave the parking lot, they were calling the race, a race that I saw at my polling station was a red wave.
Owen – Our polling is definitely broken. People in recent days have described situations where family members have passed away, and they found that those family members had voted four consecutive votes. I’m going to introduce legislation that requires anybody who passes away or dies that the family handling their documents afterwards must notify the county registrar’s office within 30 days of passing.
Affordability
Focus – What ideas do you have to help California become more affordable to families?
Adams – Any conversation about affordability needs to start with housing. People are coming into our district with larger salaries than people are making here, and housing is getting more expensive. Over 95% of all new homes built in San Joaquin County, the largest county in our district, have been single family homes which are not affordable. It leads to higher rents and housing prices. We need to incentivize construction companies to build more affordable multifamily homes, apartments. Homelessness problems in our county have doubled over the last four years. This is a very visible problem. This is something that impacts you every single day. If you don’t have a good place to live every night, everything just snowballs from there.
Nobriga – People when they’re first starting out, the rent in California is astronomical. I came up with a plan that you give landlords a tax break on the back end so that they can lower the rent on the front end. They still make their money but people have an easier time to afford the rent.
Owen – Affordability is also reflected in our high taxes, our high cost of fuel, our high cost of energy. We need to create policies that reduce the tax burden on everyday people who are paying $7, $8 a gallon to get to work. The cost of energy has gone up in the last 10 years, every year it’s increased.
Shoemaker – Affordable housing isn’t going to happen until we create housing. It’s supply and demand. As probably one of the only people here that has actually built houses and done construction, I can tell you until government gets out of the way of those that want to build homes, apartments or condos, the price is not going to come down. This is all regulatory, permits and fees. We need government to get the hell out of the way.
Owen – Your statement about yourself being the only one to build housing is incorrect. I’ve actually built my own house that I live in currently. I also represent buyers and sellers every day as a real estate broker. The cost of everything is too high – cost of construction, cost of labor, cost of building supplies are too high.
Shoemaker – I appreciate his point of view, that he at least built one home. But being in the industry I also did mortgages and sold property and had one of those licenses everybody in the country has. Affordability only happens if we get rid of the regulations that are impeding the ability to build.
Adams – I worked for Habitat for Humanity for a year, and I worked with families that were struggling with affordability at the lowest income level. And I helped build a lot of homes. I agree we need more ways to incentivize this. (So) you’re not the only one that’s been involved in house building.
Do voters care about endorsements?
Focus – How important are endorsements to voters?
Nobriga – (Going) out and about and speaking to voters is what’s going to make it or break it. Endorsements are great, but it’s a few people in a room.
Owen – I have received endorsement from the California Cities for Local Control. I received an A rating from the California Rifle Pistol Association. I care about the voters. I don’t care about the endorsements. Money comes with endorsements, and money is helpful for marketing and helpful to get our word out there. But I’m not here for backdoor deals. I’m here to stand in front of the people, fight for the people and be their voice.
Shoemaker – I am sitting on quite a few endorsements. The Amador, San Joaquin and Stanislaus County Republican central committees, which encompass the three largest areas of the district, have endorsed me. I have Impact Republicans, the California Republican Assembly endorsement, and I also have Tom McClintock, who does not endorse very many people, because of our years of knowing each other and how we’ve been fighting for the people for so long, him in an elected position, me in a volunteer position. Amador, Manteca, Lodi, Escalon and multiple school districts.
Adams – Voters typically are not paying attention to a lot of these lower priority races. (Endorsements) are a shortcut, another way for voters to get information, and it shows that you as a candidate are taking the time to build relationships and do the work. A lot of the voters don’t have a way to look into it because they have their own lives to live. I’m endorsed by Run for Something, a group that supports a lot of younger first-time candidates fighting entrenched incumbents and a lot of these harder-to-win races. I’m endorsed by Equality California, a place I used to work, a civil rights organization for LGBTQ+. The lack of endorsement can really be quite telling. If you look at our incumbent, why hasn’t he gotten endorsements of all the local Republican parties? He has not been present and kept up ties with the people.
Nobriga – I have the Latino endorsement, and I have the Amador County Sheriff’s Department. The most important thing is not to have any money situation going around when really what we need to do is get in front of the people, because that’s who we work for.
Owen – Receiving any endorsement before all other candidates are available is in bad taste. And all of the endorsements that (Shoemaker) has received were prior to March 6. The (California) Republican Party intentionally did not vote to endorse Mr. Shoemaker for that very reason.
Shoemaker – It’s nice to have so many people debate when I have all the endorsements of the Republican Party. As for the state party, I had the majority of the executive committee but Heath Flora being the minority leader, there were some challenges there, but I do have all the endorsements and it’s because of my involvement over so many years, working with so many people within the district.
Helping the unhoused
Focus – What can state government do to ease homelessness in District 9?
Owen – We don’t have a homelessness problem. We have a mental illness problem, we have a housing problem, and we need to take care of those issues. We need to address drug problems. As a prior law enforcement officer, I’ve spoken to hundreds of homeless people who displayed actual want to be homeless, and that comes specifically from mental illness. Luckily, we’ve been offered an opportunity that Californians should take advantage of and introduce Ibogaine to our drug protocols.
Shoemaker – The majority of our homeless(ness) is a drug issue. There’s no compassion in letting a person stay out on the street and hurt themselves even more. But because the law is written the way it is, we can’t take them off the street to get them help without them agreeing to it, and then they can leave the program anytime they want. We have to come up with a better program where we can get them into the mental health facility that will help them and hopefully rehabilitate them so they can come back into society.
Adams – One of the underrated aspects of this debate is keeping people in the home or apartment they have right now to prevent homelessness in the first place. We need to invest in resources for tenant protection for those that are getting evicted unjustly as rents continue to rise. We need to ask ourselves, why are homeless people unwilling to go into shelters and a lot of times it’s because the counties and the cities that have these resource centers, that have the shelters are not given a lot of resources to make them desirable places to be. They are oftentimes not clean and not given enough resources for food, their beds are very close together. If we’re offering these people actual escape routes out of homelessness, let’s make them actually something that is better than living on the street.
Nobriga – There’s been millions and millions of dollars just thrown out the window that’s supposed to be for homeless(ness), but that’s not where it went. So the first thing is accountability. We really can’t take them off the street, but we can close the area, which is what they’ve done in Lodi. I see it when I drive through Lodi. You can’t throw money at a problem when it’s the people that need to decide what they want to do. Because they can’t take drugs, they’re going to leave that homeless shelter.
Spotlight on Stanislaus County
Focus – District 9 is large, spanning parts of five counties. What can you do to represent us in Stanislaus County?
Shoemaker – I motorcycle ride all over, from Oakdale to Knights Ferry and all through the back country and down through Riverbank and over into Salida. I’ve had work in those areas. Reaching out to school board directors and superintendents and city managers and water district managers, I have a good idea what is transpiring down there, and a lot of my friends are down there. San Joaquin and Stanislaus are very compatible and the foothills also, we all are pretty much the same.
Adams – Stanislaus County is the second-largest part of our district. It really doesn’t get a lot of love because it’s the furthest away from Sacramento. Stanislaus County is kind of a leader on water issues. There’s a lot of really great things being done when it comes to recycling water, finding ways to reuse it that can pay dividends in the future. More can be done to invest in water storage, local levies.
Nobriga – In the radio business I’ve always thought of Stanislaus and San Joaquin together, because the radio stations meet both markets. One of the things in Stanislaus County, which a lot of people are not aware of, is the gang factor. And I think that’s something that needs to be addressed and really focus on, because it’s growing in the Stanislaus area, more than a lot of people even realize. Safety and infrastructure.
Owen – Agriculture is near and dear to my heart, because it brings food to our table. As a former game warden I’ve actually patrolled the riparian habitats, the tributaries and the agricultural lands in Stanislaus County. Modesto Junior College focuses on agriculture. They’re giving opportunities to children to learn about our agriculture.
Only you can prevent forest fires
Focus – What should the Legislature do to better protect District 9 against wildfires?
Adams – People are getting eaten alive by rising insurance costs in our district. Wildfires are going to continue to ravage our district, and people live where they do. We can’t ask people to get out of fire zones, because the whole state is becoming a fire zone. You have to have fire insurance, and the state should step in a little more to make that affordable for people. Something we can do to ensure that people can continue to live affordably in California is to give them the insurance that they need, so if fires come through their area, we can rebuild.
Nobriga – We need to make sure there’s water. Our reservoirs have been taken away or they’re not full. We have people in Sacramento that decide that they don’t want to repair them and they’d rather have nothing. We need to clear our area, something that other states do successfully. We should give bonuses for homeowners who do take advantage of the 100 foot area around their homes.
Owen – We’ve gone away from grazing in this state and utilization of agricultural livestock to minimize fire potential. In the ‘70s and ‘60s, you would see livestock grazing along I-5 or Highway 99 up and down the Central Valley. That no longer happens. We need to bring grazing back. It’s kind of a joke that Donald Trump mentioned that we should rake the forest. I think he was talking about grazing and managing this problem at ground level. Second, we’ve got to find policy that works for not only families, but the insurance companies themselves, because they have to have a profitable business.
Shoemaker – Wildfires in this state are fueled by what happened in the 90s, when we quit managing our forests. Amador and Calaveras counties used to have large logging operations (but) we quit logging and clearing the forest of debris, and grazing was a huge part of that also. To get our fire situation under control, we need to start managing our areas, cleaning them up, getting rid of the dead trees. For insurance companies to help, you need competition, and the state created an environment that there isn’t competition. It’s easier to leave and let the state take it over. That has to stop.
No new taxes v. support for fire safety
Focus – Most people running for office profess a commitment to no new taxes and also to public safety. On this same June 2 ballot, your constituents in Salida and Del Rio will vote on Measure J, a special tax for fire protection. What’s your position on this tax measure?
Nobriga – I really don’t know a lot about it so I’m not going to pretend that I do, but I never think that new taxes are the answer.
Owen – I’m a solid ‘no’ on Measure J. I don’t believe that we should be introducing any new taxes until we’ve done audits of our current spending, especially with unaffordable fire insurance that has plagued this state.
Shoemaker – I’m a ‘no’ also. Dealing with fire districts, I understand what they’re trying to do, but there has to be a reevaluation of resources that have been misused in other areas.
Adams – When any new tax is introduced for resources in dire need, we have to ask, where is the money going? How long will it be taken? The money needs to go to the right places.
Grading Gov. Gavin Newsom
Focus – Please give the governor a letter grade.
Owen – Negative F.
Shoemaker – Negative F.
Adams – I’ll say a B, B minus.
Nobriga – Definitely negative F.
Reaching across the aisle
Focus – How important is working with the other party?
Nobriga – It’s extremely important. Things are absolutely not going in the right direction. So I would cross the aisle with negotiations.
Owen – It’s extremely important to shake hands and come with common ground across the aisle. We need to come together and come up with solutions that not only meet the needs of one party, but the community as a whole, the right and the left party. I plan to work diligently on both sides. I’m not willing to destroy my ethics or my integrity (though).
Shoemaker – A few people on the other side that probably we could be working with are looking at the fact that the state has gone way too far to the left. We need to bring it back to some sort of common sense where we’re not overregulating and just telling people how to live their lives in every aspect. You have to deal with people that sometimes you don’t agree with, but you find the common ground.
Adams – If you get any of us in a room long enough to have these discussions, a lot of us agree on what the problems are that are facing our state and our district. Where we differ, of course, is the solutions. If you have a good idea, you have a good idea, if it comes from the Republican side or the Democratic side it shouldn’t matter. Frankly, as a Democrat, I have a lot of problems with the way that my party has tackled a lot of these issues. They’ve screwed over a lot of districts like District 9 because it has had Republican representation. We have a lot of Republican voters. It’s not fair, it’s not right, and it doesn’t serve the state’s best interest.
Looking out for our lifeblood – water
Focus – How would you protect our regional water resources?
Adams – The way that the state has approached water definitely does not serve our best interests. Our water resources are not the state’s piggy bank. We can invest in our local levees and habitat restoration, get the Delta protected and keep the water in the Delta while also satisfying the water needs of Southern California and the Bay Area. 80% of water usage in our state goes to agriculture. Where does that happen? Right here in the Central Valley. If we start taking water away from here, everybody suffers. Southern California and the Bay Area (should) start getting their own water from collecting rainwater, recycling water, whatever method. The state needs to invest in that and stop picking on the Central Valley.
Shoemaker – Our water has been an issue for me for more than 40 years.The state water board needs to be disbanded (and water) put back in charge of the Assembly and Senate, so we can start actually having something done instead of special interests that keep pouring our water out to the ocean or flushing out the Bay Area to get the pollution out that they’re dumping into the bay. The state regulates how they build desalination plants. There’s been numerous plants planned, and then they’ve been attacked by environmental groups and the state Legislature.
Owen – Lake Tulare is a perfect example of mismanagement. We need to find more catch basins. Our current system has sewer drains, gray water that’s gone through the street, into the sewer drain, they hit the tributaries, they go out the Delta and out to the ocean. So we need basins associated with catching this rain water. Once we do that, we can utilize that for irrigation. We need to do aquifer charging.
Nobriga – We need to keep our reservoirs full. There is mismanagement. We have people that are appointed rather than voted for because we don’t have people that know what they’re talking about. Rather than throw it away, we need to keep our water here and make sure it’s available for our farmers and for our people, so they don’t start asking people to pay for pumping water out of their own wells.
Owen – As a prior law enforcement officer, I personally witnessed a situation where we mismanaged water. To prevent people from partying on the American River on the Fourth of July, they increased the (flow) to flood the river so people couldn’t hang out. These are the policies that our current government believes we should be doing. They make these decisions every day.
Shoemaker – All the cities that make up the Bay Area have been dumping raw sewage into the bay for years. It was an article I found in (an) environmental group, I read it in their magazine. I researched it, started finding out because they haven’t upgraded their sewage treatment plants, they actually dump sewage in the bay. If you go to Monterey or down that way, they put the signs up saying you can’t be on the beach, it’s because they’re flushing the bay out, they are using water for that.
Closing statements
Focus – It’s time for closing statements.
Shoemaker – I’m not going to use my age in this campaign to exploit any of my younger associates here. Through my experience and years of being involved in many areas, I have the expertise to work through many of the issues that our state is dealing with now. We need representation that doesn’t look at any one person but looks at everybody and does the best job we can to limit what government does to the people. The Constitution holds elected officials accountable, not the public.
Owen – My experience in interpretation of law is extremely valuable in this position. It’s been underestimated by some of my candidate colleagues that have not interpreted the law prior to this day. I plan to fight for you. I will be your voice. I will be a bull in a china shop at the Capitol, and I totally anticipate winning this race.
Nobriga – I am a conservative Christian and I was called to save our children and our future. And as a business owner, marketing specialist and competition gymnast many years ago, I know how to win. I’m God, family, Second Amendment, America first. I stand for proof of citizenship, photo ID, paper ballot voting. I will keep our water here and stop the insane water regulation, and I’ll pass legislation to put traffickers in prisons with no parole. I will outlaw Big Pharma ads on radio and television, because I know I’m not the only one that can’t stand it. I will also fight to reverse the gas tax and the ignorant regulations and abide by our Constitution. I’m here to fight the corruption in Sacramento and the fake Republicans.
Adams – We all agree that the representation we have in the Assembly for District 9 is substandard. All four of us cared enough to make the case. Voters tell me things are too unaffordable. We don’t have affordable places to live. Our schools are too expensive. People are burdened by student debt. The healthcare we all need to have greater quality of life is not accessible in an affordable way. As a teacher and community organizer, I’ve worked with people and I care about our community.
Focus – We appreciate your willingness to answer our questions and to serve your constituents in California Assembly District 9.
Viewers, please see our other debates at themodestofocus.org, and don’t forget to vote.
