I'm not a career politician and I don't intend to be. I’m not interested in the limelight and I don’t have an ego that needs to be stroked. After 22 years flying for the Air Force and running a business with more than 100 employees I don’t need the excitement or the frustration of politics. In short, I like my life. I like coming home every night and seeing my wife and I’m not at all excited about being away from home 3 or 4 nights a week.

But someone has to say stop. The runaway spending and the departure from moral convictions are going to ruin California. As the seventh largest economy in the world, California’s influence is felt not only in the United States but around the world. An Assembly seat in California can literally change the way America and a great deal of the world lives. The ramifications are astounding. People are needed to populate those seats who have the practical experience to understand the impact of the legislation which comes rolling out of the place and who have the intestinal fortitude to say “No”, even when it is not in their best political interest.

I understand that concept. Cathleen Galgiani doesn’t, as evidenced by her voting record.

Assemblywoman Galgiani has never put her capital at risk to create jobs and provide for her family. She doesn’t know what it is like to make business plans and commit hundreds of thousands of dollars, only to have the government change the rules at the last minute and not care about the impact the legislation has on small business.

Assemblywoman Galgiani promised the people of the 17^th Assembly District she would never raise our taxes and that public safety would always be her first concern. Her recent votes on the budget raised taxes billions of dollars and cut 600 million dollars out of local law enforcement state wide. Since she has been in office, the state budget has grown by billions and billions of dollars, your dollars not the government’s.

We need people who understand the primary role of government is protection of its citizens. Our legislators need to understand the capitalistic system and what makes it work. They need to believe in long term planning for the long term good of California. Californians have to be able to trust legislators won’t pander to the whims of large donors but will vote their convictions. That is the role of the citizen legislator. It is what our founders envisioned. We must return the citizen legislator to the seats of power in our government, at all levels. And we must do it soon. That is why I am running for the 17^th Assembly District.