Teenager Elijah Mack challenges State Senator Monique Limón in 21st District race
SANTA BARBARA, Calif. – A 44-year-old incumbent is running against a 19-year-old in the new 21st State Senate District that stretches from San Luis Obispo to Ventura County.
Teenager Elijah Mack defines himself as a Libertarian rather than a Republican.
"Libertarianism just boils down to the notion that every individual has the right to live life however they see fit, conduct their business as they see fit, as long as they don't directly affect or harm personal property of other people, as long as they are not manipulating other people or defrauding them and as long as they are not doing damage to the environment," said Mack.
State Sen. Limón said she has been a registered Democrat.
"When I think of what Democrats do, we raise the living wage for individuals, we insure that we have a middle class, " said Limón, "We ensure that our public schools are protected, we ensure that we protect our environment, we ensure that when we think of opportunities it is employment it is housing, and so for me it really is the combination of people and values."
Mack graduated early from Olive Grove Charter High School and is currently a senior at Liberty University online. He said he has been working at Rusty's Pizza to help pay for his education.
My birthday is November 23rd, and so if I was elected I would take office at the age of 20, making me the youngest State Senator in California."
"I am very proud of the fact that here in this community it is a community where I was born and raised and I spent 14 years working in our education system both in higher ED at UCSB and Santa Barbara City College, so my pathway into elected office came from the community from serving on various non-profit boards," said Limón.
Both want to help improve the economy.
"I want to really cut a huge amount of red tape around our small businesses," said Mack, " I want to cut red tape around regenerative agriculture farms, things of that nature, I want to make it ultimately so that individuals as long as they are not harming their employees, harming the public defrauding the public they can really just conduct their business with absolute minimum taxes as possible, as long as they are not breaching into the rights of others."
"As the chair of the Banking and Finance Committee," Limón said. "We have already thought about streamlining that process for the loan process and I am very happy that in the last two years I have been able to co-author the bill to be able to do that for small businesses."
Mack, who lives in Santa Barbara, makes it clear on his grass roots campaign posters that the environment is important to him.
"When it comes to environmental policy. I am a big advocate for regenerative agriculture and traditional preservation," said Mack.
"I feel that the Democratic party in this state has kind of leaned more towards pushing environmentalism as a justification for more progressive policy rather than a real and traditional environmentalist sentiment in and of itself," added Mack, "in some ways I can compare my environmentalist views to that of RFK Jr."
Limón, who lives with her husband and daughter in Santa Barbara County, links her environmental work to public safety.
"I was the representative when we had the Thomas Fire, for example, and the Montecito debris flow and so protecting our environment in that situation and really thinking about, not just what you do as a community, as a team to be able to help and uplift the community at a time of crisis, but also to get ready for the next thing that comes," said Limón,. "I think of the work that I've done in terms of pre-positioning for our environment, I think of the work we have done to ensure we have clean air, clean water, uncontaminated soil."
Both are campaigning for votes in the new 21st district that includes parts of San Luis Obispo County, all of Santa Barbara County and western Ventura County.
"I want to come in there and break the division that has caused that fear of our neighbor," said Mack, "I want us to be able to come together and have a mutual recognition of our rights as adult individuals and be able to sort of get along without that fear and come together and have more constructive political and cultural milieu in California."
"For me I hope that people will see the work that I have done over the last eight years and they understand the experience we bring to be able to advocates and voices for our district matters and certainly does in a place like the capital with 120 legislators," said Limón. "I hope that I am able to earn the vote of all our voters and I hope they see the work we do is on behalf of the people and certainly it is difficult and not everyday we agree with each other, but at the end of the day, the values that are important for the Central Coast are the values that we move forward."
If Mack had his way they would debate before Election Day.
Your News Channel will have more on this race on the news Thursday.
