VALLEJO – Five candidates are running to represent District 3 in the California State Senate in the March 5 primary election.
The winner will replace state Sen. Bill Dodd, who is not eligible for another term. The candidates include Dixon City Councilmember Thomas Bogue, former West Sacramento Mayor Christopher Cabaldon, Rohnert Park City Councilmember Jackie Elward, Vallejo City Councilmember Rozzana Verder-Aliga and Republican candidate Jimih Jones.
The district includes all of Solano County, significant portions of Sonoma, Napa and Yolo counties, as well as a sliver of Sacramento County. A portion of eastern Contra Costa County encompassing Brentwood, Oakley and Discovery Bay was added in the 2020 redistricting process. In that process the district also lost portions of Northern Contra Costa, Sonoma and Sacramento counties.
Scott Morris
The two candidates who receive the highest number of votes in the primary, regardless of party affiliation, will compete for the office in the November general election.
The Vallejo Sun interviewed each of the District 3 state senate hopefuls to better understand the unique qualifications each candidate would bring to the position.
Thomas Bogue
Dixon City Councilmember Thomas Bogue, who is running as a Republican, served on the Dixon City Council from 2010 to 2014, then he was elected to serve a 4-year term as mayor in 2016. After losing his reelection bid in 2020, Bogue won back his current seat on council in 2022.
As owner of First Choice Automotive in Dixon, Bogue is an advocate for small business. He said that excessive taxes and fees are driving many businesses out of the state and the businesses that stay have to pass those costs onto the consumer. Bogue argues that those fees and taxes along with excessive regulation are also holding back much needed projects like housing development.
Bogue said he would support a roll-back of laws like AB 329, which amended portions of California’s existing sexual education laws to explore the harm of gender stereotypes and affirmatively recognize sexual orientation and gender identity.
Although some of Bogue’s positions fall along Republican party lines, his unique personal experiences make him a difficult fit for any standard mold. As a teenager, he survived the Jonestown massacre in Guyana by escaping under gunfire with members of his family. Not long after his harrowing experience at Jonestown, he suffered from drug addiction and was homeless.
Bogue said that with the lethal strength of synthetic opioids today, drug dealers need to face charges that are tantamount to murder. He is also an advocate for stronger security on the U.S./Mexico border. He said he believes that there should be adequate legal pathways for immigrants but he also said that immigration is impacting the housing crisis and placing a burden on social services.
“I don’t want to see human suffering no matter where people come from,” Bogue said. “”But we can't take care of other people. It's just that simple. We need to close down that border until we can take care of our own.”
When asked how he would address community concerns over police violence, Bogue said that although he strongly supports law enforcement, he also knows that officers can overstep their bounds. He said that accountability is the key to restore community faith in law enforcement.
“We all have Constitutional rights.” Bogue said. “If [officers] ignore the individual's Constitutional rights, then they should be held personally responsible. It all comes down to personal accountability of officers. When they overstep their boundaries, they need to be held personally accountable. And not just a slap on the wrist.”
Bogue said that his approach to improving access to education after high school would be to support programs that create definitive pathways to free college or free vocational programs. But he believes high school students should make a firm choice between a vocational path or college and those who go on to college should be required to maintain minimum scores or lose their funding.
When asked what industries he believes are a good fit for District 3 and how he would attract or support those industries, Bogue said that solar energy is a fantastic industry and he wants to step up recycling programs for renewable technology.
“One of the things that California likes to do is ship their waste off to other states to handle instead of taking full responsibility and being accountable for the bills that they put through,” he said. “I don't think there's really a bad industry, as long as we're willing to handle the waste from that industry.”
The California Secretary of State website does not show any campaign contributions for Bogue.
Christopher Cabaldon
Former West Sacramento Mayor Christopher Cabaldon has a strong foundation in politics and education. He worked for eight years in the California State Assembly as a committee staff director and then as chief of staff. He was vice chancellor of California Community Colleges from 1997 to 2003 and continued to take on roles in education policy leadership while serving as mayor of the city of West Sacramento for more than two decades, from 1998 to 2020.
Cabaldon cites a number of accomplishments from his lengthy tenure as mayor of the port town, including the city’s record as one of the top housing producers in California. West Sacramento’s population grew from 31,000 in 2000 to 54,000 in 2020, with most of that growth occurring in the first decade, according to the U.S. Census.
Cabaldon said that initially there were a number of concerns about how both affordable and market rate developments could affect the community, so the early projects had to alleviate those fears. “My approach has been, we have to build,” Cabaldon said. “And we have to build on diversity, and we have to build whole communities, not just the shelter, but the park, the bike path, even the public art. These are the things that make a community successful.”
In the process of working with developers, financiers and state agencies to move projects forward, Cabaldon said he faced several policy gaps that did not take into account the unique needs of semi-rural and suburban communities. For example, he said that some funding sources required developments to be located along transit lines with service every 15 minutes but many smaller cities can’t yet support that level of service.
Cabaldon said that state Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, East Bay, and Sen. Scott Wiener, San Francisco, are crafting great legislation on housing, but they don’t see how that legislation has different effects on cities like American Canyon or Dixon. Cabaldon said that he is running to bridge those gaps so financing structures also work for rural and suburban communities.
One of Cabaldon’s early priorities as mayor of West Sacramento was to address community concerns that the area was a playground for a kind of cowboy law enforcement. He said that the city instituted a peer review based accreditation process for their department and improved officer training.
However, he said “You can't solve these problems with policies around practices alone,” Cabaldon said. “It has to be around who is choosing to join this department. And who are you signaling would be welcome and would thrive in this department.”
Cabaldon is a former vice chancellor of California Community Colleges and professor of public policy and administration at California State University Sacramento, so he emphasizes education policy. He said that his first priority is to protect education funding, noting that enrollment has been declining and schools have lost students to chronic absenteeism and homeschooling.
To reverse that trend, Cabaldon said that schools need to be safe from shootings and bomb threats but also safe for students who face bullying or discrimination, like transgender students.
“One of the core tenets of a democratic society is that we all learn together, we all are exposed to a common set of cultural and democratic and educational norms, and public schools are critical for that,” he said.
Creating career pathways for students in California’s education system has been a focus of Cabaldon’s policy work in education. He said that he has worked to set up vocational classes that not only lead to lucrative careers but also meet eligibility standards so students can go on to university if they decide at a later point that they would prefer college.
Cabaldon has received a total of $418,599 in campaign contributions from 607 contributors. Cabaldon has received endorsements from Planned Parenthood Northern California Action Fund, the Sierra Club, California Asian & Pacific Islander Legislative Caucus, and The California Legislative LGBTQ Caucus.
Jackie Elward
Jackie Elward was elected to the Rohnert Park City Council in the fall of 2020 during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic Elward grew up in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and is the first immigrant and the first Black woman to be elected to the council. She served a yearlong term as vice-mayor in 2021 and then served for a year as mayor in 2022.
Along with her current role as Rohnert Park city councilmember, Elward serves on the board of North Bay Jobs with Justice, an agricultural labor advocacy group, the Sonoma County Homeless Coalition and on the board of the non-profit renewable energy aggregator Sonoma Clean Power.
When Elward came into office, the homeless population in Rohnert Park had been growing at an alarming rate. Elward said that she had heard from homeowners who were concerned about their property value declining, which she said she understood because many people had worked their whole lives to be able to afford a home.
But she said she also listened to community members who were homeless, many of whom had lost their jobs due to the pandemic or because of wildfires. So when she became mayor, she said she worked for solutions to help all her constituents. A partial solution came in the form of $14.6 million in Project Homekey funds that the city used to build a 60-unit supportive housing facility.
Elward said that after the supportive housing facility opened there was a noticeable difference in the number of encampments on the city streets. Now, she said, many local residents are supporting her candidacy for senate because they want that work reproduced on a larger scale.
During Elward’s tenure as vice mayor and mayor the city also appointed an independent auditor for the police department and broadened officer training to include programs on bias, sensitivity and de-escalation.
“When someone loses a life, there's no way you can bring that life back,” Elward said. “Our law enforcement will say that they need to go home as well. So on both sides, we need to sit down and work on legislation that can protect all communities while helping our law enforcement to regain the trust of the people,” she said.
Trust is foundational, Elward added. “We need to promote policies that will make law enforcement part of the community and not an occupying force,” she said.
Elward said that nine years of experience as an instructional assistant and educator in Santa Rosa schools has informed her position on education policy. “We need someone in the State legislature who understands what is happening on the ground,” she said.
As a senator, Elward said that she would work to reduce class sizes so teachers can provide higher quality education. She also wants to ensure that programs for students with disabilities are well funded and that teachers don’t end up paying out-of-pocket for class materials.
Elward often connects many of her priorities and policy ideas back to what she and others are experiencing in her own community. As a mother of three, she said she is concerned that students and young adults have access to dangerous street drugs. Elward said that the opioid crisis is particularly personal for her because she has lost members of her community.
“We need leaders in Sacramento that understand that, although this crisis rises to all levels of society, poor and the minority communities are the ones most affected, and in order to protect our senate district and the state against fentanyl we need to make sure that communities have access to life saving opioid overdose medication, along with better training and resources to combat this crisis,” Elward said.
Elward has received $245,953 in campaign funds from 275 contributors.
Elward is endorsed by the California Nurses Association, California Federation of Teachers, California Faculty Association, California Legislative Black Caucus, American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees California, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 551, Service Employees International Union California State Council, North Bay Building Trades Council and Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria.
Jimih Jones
Republican candidate Jimih Jones is an assistant manager at Hanlees Davis Toyota. He began in an entry level position and received promotions as a shuttle driver, then in shipping and receiving until he worked his way up to his current position. Prior to his work at the dealership he worked for California Conservation Corps, where he was involved in weatherization and home repair. Jones lives in Woodland and is the father of two children.
Jones has posted campaign goals in the form of draft bill proposals on his website along with a selection of his hip-hop and soul music tracks. One of the draft bills is entitled “The Forever Parental Protection Act,” which is intended to grant parents authority over state intervention in decisions regarding minors. The draft bill discusses parental authority to discipline children in their care but does not offer details or definitions. The bill aims to eliminate powers of state agencies over children.
“Child protection agencies can no longer come to your door on (hear say) and or baseless claims of abuse or neglect,” the draft bill states.
The draft bill also intends to grant parents the power to determine what books or other content is available to minors through schools or libraries.
The second bill is entitled “The California Cleanup Act” which proposes to remove homeless encampments in neighborhoods and move homeless individuals into older buildings that have been rehabilitated as part of a countywide effort. The bill suggests services that differentiate between individuals with mental health challenges, drug addiction and who are experiencing economic hardship. Jones suggests that the state and federal government split the cost of these projects.
At the same time Jones commits to working to reduce state taxes.
“We are the highest taxed state in the union,” Jones said in an email to the Vallejo Sun. “Are we going to hold the super majority accountable, for mismanagement of our hard-earned tax dollars, or do we need to suffer more before we act?”
Jones said, as state senator, he will apply his blue-collar work ethic to the problems that people face on a daily basis. “Regardless of your political preference, no one has been exempt from inflation, high gas prices, the homelessness, unaffordable housing, the record number of migrants that we cannot afford, here a tax, there a tax, here a fee, there a fee, energy bills through the roof, crime, and all businesses passing their high taxes to the consumer.”
Rozzana Verder-Aliga
Rozzana Verder-Aliga is in her 10th year on the Vallejo City Council. She became the first Filipino American woman to hold office in Vallejo when she was elected for a partial term in 2013. Verder-Aliga was then reelected to full terms in 2016 and 2020 and she has served three one-year terms as the city’s vice mayor.
Prior to her time on the city council, Verder-Aliga served on the Vallejo City Unified School District Board of Education from 1994 through 2005. In 2007, she was elected to the Solano County Board of Education where she served for 6 years.
Verder-Aliga’s bid for state Senate comes after a long career in the mental health field. She is a licensed marriage and family therapist and recently retired after 28 years with Solano County Behavioral Health. Verder-Aliga has managed several programs, including both the adult and children's outpatient clinics.
Verder-Aliga’s campaign priorities run the gamut of California concerns – including wildfire safety, climate change and transportation. But in her interview with the Vallejo Sun she often connected back to prioritizing education and mental health as foundational to a number of the state’s economic and social issues.
Verder-Aliga said that there is a shortage of workers in key fields like construction, policing, civil service, education and mental health. If elected to the senate, she said her long-term strategy would be to push for legislation that can support education career paths in those areas.
She traced out a number of connections to California’s homelessness crisis that relate to the need for both skilled and professional workers. She said that the development of affordable housing projects is slowed by a shortage of construction workers and city planners. “I'm always about starting to develop a pipeline to those kinds of careers, because they are high paying careers, and we need to work with high schools and community colleges on how to build that pipeline,” she said.
In order to move projects forward quickly, Verder-Aliga said, city, county and state agencies need full staffing to effectively process environmental reviews and permitting. “We have to partner with environmental advocates but we don't want to put any more undue burden on the developers,” she said. “They also have to make a profit,”
When asked about how the state and school districts should manage their budgets in lean years and still attract the quality teachers who can inspire career development in students, she said, “It’s not just all about pay, it's also about the working environment. Folks may be getting a lot of benefits but the working environment is toxic.”
In addition to ensuring that teachers have a supportive environment, Verder-Aliga said that she would work with federal legislators on creating programs to assist teachers with down payments on a home and other benefits similar to those that veterans receive. She also said that she would advocate for programs to support affordable workforce housing not only for teachers but for workers in health care and service industries.
Verder-Aliga also touched on the benefits of education in discussing addiction and other behavioral health issues that can lead to homelessness. “So in addition to holding [opioid] suppliers accountable, meaning arresting them and putting them in jail, we have to address where demand is coming from.”
“Many of our substance use clients did not start when they were adults,” Verder-Aliga said. “They had been using for a very long time. So we need to start early with prevention and intervention. Also providing options for young kids. Recreation is a big piece in helping kids find ways to make good use of their time.”
Another component that Aliga emphasized is early childhood trauma which she said impacts learning outcomes. She said that mental health agencies need sufficient funding so they can partner with school districts to ensure that there is early identification, diagnosis and treatment of mental or behavioral health issues.
Verder-Aliga has received $534,473 in campaign contributions from 447 donors.
Verder-Aliga is endorsed by California Professional Firefighters, California Teachers Association, California Highway Patrol, Iron Workers Local 378, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1245, International Longshore & Warehouse Union Local 18, Napa-Solano Building & Construction Trades Council, California Statewide Law Enforcement Association, and California State Council of Laborers.
Editor's note: This story has been updated to include Jimih Jones' interview, to correct the amount of campaign contributions to Christopher Cabaldon and to update the fundraising totals for all candidates as of March 4.
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