For the first time in more than 20 years, California will have an open seat Senate election during the state’s primary election on June 7.
When Senator Barbara Boxer announced that she would not be seeking reelection, Representative Loretta Sanchez announced she would be running for open seat.
Sanchez, D, currently represents California’s 46th district, which comprises a majority of Orange County.
During a conference call interview with various California State University newspaper editors, Sanchez said that once Boxer revealed that she would not run for her current seat in the senate again, California Democrats from the House of Representatives approached Sanchez and encouraged her to run for Boxer’s seat.
According to Sanchez, the members of Congress who approached her said that whoever takes the seat in the Senate needs to have a good understanding of the U.S. military and its place in the world.
Sanchez currently sits on both the House Committee on Armed Services and the House Committee on Homeland Security.
Sanchez said that she’s proud of her work with the military. She has taken many trips to different military bases throughout the world to visit with the troops.
Sanchez said that during her over 20 years in the House of Representatives she’s kept to her convictions and voted with her conscience.
When it came time to vote on authorizing President George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq, Sanchez voted against it.
“When we took that Iraq vote, people spit on me,” she said, “… they thought it was very unpatriotic to go against the president.”
Further, Sanchez voted against the Patriot Act and the bailout of Wall Street.
The Patriot Act, according the the American Civil Liberties Union, has made it easier for the government to spy on ordinary Americans by the monitoring of phone and email communications, collecting bank and credit reports and tracking people’s internet usages.
Born and raised in Orange County to immigrant parents, Sanchez said she had a lot of people invested in her education and would not have been able to attend college if it had not been for Cal Grants, Pell Grants and student loans.
Due to her personal experience with the California State University system and the different financial aid programs available to students, Sanchez said student loan reform and making college affordable is an important issue of hers.
Working towards affordable college tuition, Sanchez authored the All Year Access Bill and the Chance Act.
The All Year Access Bill allows college students to use the Pell Grant during summer school. The Chance Act increased the amount of the Pell Grant to $8900 and lets students use it for 15 months instead of 12 months.
Sanchez said she has fought to bring down student loan interest rates and believes the government shouldn’t be making money off of college students.
“I’m totally in agreement with the president that with this whole issue of making community college free,” she said.
In the upcoming academic year, Santa Ana Community College will be offering free tuition for all of its students, a program which Sanchez said she worked toward.
The first project Sanchez funded was Orange County’s groundwater replenishment system – the largest water recycling system in the world which constitutes 90 percent of Orange County’s water supply.
Sanchez said that considering the severity of California’s current drought, water recycling plants like this can and should be constructed throughout the state.
Everything that Sanchez has been working toward in the House of Representatives she said she wants to continue in the Senate.
According to Sanchez, those she is running against in the Senate race do not have the necessary experience or government connections.
“I know how to work with people and I know how to get votes,” she said. “… I’ve been tough when it takes tough.”