Meet Congressman John Campbell

Today it is official, former State Senator John Campbell will take the Congressional seat vacated by SEC Chairman Chris Cox.

In September, I had a chance to interview him during his race. I have republished that interview in full in the extended section. Read the whole thing, and you will see that Campbell will be a welcome addition for conservatives.

TC: We’ll start with some questions about conservatism in general. Can you explain to me, and to our readers, what you see as the core foundational principles of conservatism?

JC: Core foundational principles to me are individual rights and individual responsibility. From a domestic policy basis, I think everything kind of flows from that, even the concept of smaller government, or if you want to go into lower taxes or less regulation. All of that flows from the concept that most rights and privileges should be incumbent in the individual and also the responsibility for one's actions, the consequences for one’s actions come from the individual. I think from a domestic policy standpoint it’s that.

From a foreign policy standpoint, it comes simply from the view of America’s place in the world in that of strength, but also of being the world leader and world’s example for democracy and for the rights and responsibilities of the individual as expressed through democracy.

TC: What conservative thinkers and philosophers have influenced your own political journey?

JC: Well, if you go back early in life, Milton Friedman—from an economic standpoint. I was an economics major in college, and a lot of Milton Friedman’s writings influenced me. And also, and I know sometimes this person has been riddled with controversies of late, and I understand that. I have read almost all of Ayn Rand’s books. Whereas I know she’s come under attack of late for some things, again the core philosophy of individual responsibility comes through so clearly, and is so eloquently put in books like Atlas Shrugged and Fountainhead. So if you want to go back kind of early in life, in terms of philosophers, those are a couple I would say.

JC: You know, I always have a hard time doing this. I’m a student of history. I love to read history and am fascinated with history. That’s part of why I’m doing what I’m doing, because I think history’s lessons are so clear to us on so many things. But yet, liberals so clearly want to ignore those lessons of history. It’s very easy to say Ronald Reagan. And certainly as a Californian, I was able to witness and experience him both as governor and as president. So that’s an obvious one. Teddy Roosevelt, however… And Lincoln, another one obviously. I am a Civil War buff and a Civil War re-enactor, and so I have to go back to that. But Teddy Roosevelt is one of the most underrated presidents, and one of the most improperly maligned presidents was Calvin Coolidge. And so those might be a few, if you want to go back in terms of admired presidents.

TC: You are obviously paying a lot of attention to Congress, since you’ve been running for it, and I’m sure you were before then. Could you pinpoint some challenging issues facing conservatives in Congress?

Clearly, the biggest one is government spending. And it just disgusts me when I see Nancy Pelosi basically running to the right of Republicans in Congress on spending. I hear around here—and I’ve been in this campaign for two months—over and over again, from Republicans and Democrats alike. We work hard to put your Republicans in charge, and when we look at the budget, we don’t see a difference. And we need to show them the difference. I divide the budget into two categories, defense and non-defense. Defense is one thing. I know when I write my federal tax check every quarter, I don’t have a problem with the part that I’m writing knowing it is going to keep America free, safe, and strong. What I do have a problem with is domestic spending. I’ve witnessed over-spending in Sacramento, close up. And I’m seeing it from afar in Washington.

We’re going to need an external discipline. It seems that the pressure is on individual members of Congress. And I hate to say this, but we’re seeing it in both parties. The pressures to spend more money, and make people happy, are so great that you’ve got to have an external discipline, which is why I was author in California of something we call the Deficit Prevention Act, which would have limited the growth in state spending annually the growth of population and inflation, so that you have an external cap of some sort, so that you have to make a decision. There’s only so much you can spend. So you have to make a decision between good spending and bad spending. And I think we’re going to need something like that. But that’s the single greatest challenge facing Republicans in Congress, and our ability to keep control in Congress, and also our ability to show the people that if they continue to give us control of Congress, that we will do more than what we’ve done.

TC: If you’re elected, would you plan on introducing a bill in Congress similar to the one you introduced in Sacramento.

JC: Yes. I would absolutely like to do that. Now, realizing that I would be the freshman—the lowest on the totem pole of 435—I understand that there is some protocol of what you can and can’t do. But I will begin talking, from the moment I’m elected, about a spending limit on domestic spending and some kind of external discipline like that, so that we keep the growth of spending below the growth of revenue.

TC: I was in a meeting two days ago, where Senator Brownback from Kansas was speaking. He said he never felt a time, like he does right now, where people in the country are paying attention to the spending issue like they do. It’s not going to be enough just to stop pork for one year, but that’s absolutely needed, according to Brownback. But you have to do something like you suggested where you fundamentally change the budget process.

JC: That’s correct. I hear from what I call the “least represented constituency in politics,” which is the average person with a home, a job, and a family—I hear from all them that we’re spending too much. We’re wasting too much. “You guys gotta cut it back,” almost invariably, regardless of the person’s party registration most of the time. But then I also hear, from the various special interests, “You’re not going to cut Medicare, are you? You’re not going to cut this, are you? We need more money for this. We need more money for the other.” And once you get it, because I’ve seen it in Sacramento—and if Congress is is the big league, then Sacramento is the AAA. We have a legislature, and we have 1400 lobbyists working on us all the time. But once you’re a staunch inside that building, people become detached from the everyday voter, and the people they hear every day are the people who want the money. And that’s why we have to have that external discipline, so people have to decide. I often say that people often know they have to save for their retirement. But it’s hard to do. There’s kitchens to remodel and cars to buy and trips to take. So what you do is you have your employer take it out of your paycheck. It’s an external person making you do what is right, but you don’t have the discipline to do. Congress needs to do that.

TC: Just along those lines, you probably noticed when House conservatives introduced something to help defray the costs of Hurricane Katrina. There was a laundry list of essential savings that could add up to hundreds of billions of dollars. At the top of that list was the delaying the implementation of new entitlement programs for a prescription drug benefit and reopening the highway bill to pull out the pork in it. How do you feel about those two ideas?

JC: I’d be absolutely in favor of both. I’ve been saying in my speeches we have an obligation to help rebuild disaster areas, just as if we have an earthquake here in California we would want federal help with that as well. But I think every single dollar we put in should come out of something else. Coming out of those two areas would be fine with me, and there are probably plenty of others as well. Part of me says what we ought to do is take two dollars out for every dollar that we spend just to start to move spending in the right direction.

TC: Quick question about social security reform. I know you are in favor of social security reform. You’ve made plenty of statements about the need for it. How do you feel about the prospects of social security reform in this Congress?

JC: Well, I am not…since I am not there now and therefore I haven’t got the feel from talking to everyone, I’m not sure I am the best person to comment on that. But I would hope that there would be prospects for it and I certainly will be one championing it…this reform. In fact, the Bush Administration contacted me before I was running for Congress to see if I would be a surrogate for that hearing here in California on various issues as a representative from the state senate and I agreed to do so. So, I will be a champion of that. I would hope that there is some emphasis that will get it across the line but since I am not back there I really can’t say anything.

TC: Let’s talk about illegal immigration and border security. I assume that you are hearing from the grassroots the same types of things we hear here which is that conservatives in general…not just conservatives, lots of people are concerned about our borders. What’s your plan for border security?

JC: The plan is to finish the fence, finish the wall so that there is a complete physical barrier across the entire border with Mexico. And then to put federal officers all along that border so we secure that border. And then to enforce the immigration laws on this side of the border both with employers and by requiring not just allowing local and state police turnover illegal immigrants that are here. And then…now, I am very anti-illegal immigration, I am not anti legal immigration. And I believe we need more legal immigration than we have now. But we can’t really do that until we are enforcing our laws. So we then can talk about more forms of legal immigration at all ends of the spectrum. There are a lot of high technology companies in California trying to get H1 visas. They want to get highly educated, highly paid visas for these people. And they can’t get visas for these people to work here where there are just not enough Americans of this education and expertise. There’s quite a bit of additional legal immigration I think we can look atonce we are in control of our immigration policies.

TC: Quick follow-up on that. What’s your view on illegal aliens being allowed to obtain drivers licenses?

JC: I hate it. I voted against it 6 times. That has been a big issue here in California. The Democrats have put it up and voted it out every year for I think the last 4 years in the legislature, and I’ve voted against it every year, including this year. This year they modified it to fit with the Real Idea Act., but I think every Republican here, except 1, voted against it. This year again the governor has announced that he will veto it. It’s a terrible idea. Basically, what you’re doing is legitimizing they’re a born national who has come to this country illegally. We cannot legitimize born nationals coming to this country illegally, particularly in a time of terrorism.

TC: Assuming you’re elected, you’ll come to Congress at a time when tax reforms may be a big issue. Do you support, or you do you have any specific ideas for, reforming the tax cuts?

JC: Yeah, here are my thoughts. So you may or may not know, I’m a CPA, and I have a master’s in taxation, so this is really an area in which I have a lot of knowledge and background, and tend to spend a great deal of time. And let me say, at this point, I am open to a number of ideas. But here are my leanings: My leanings are against the fair tax, because the fair tax, or basically having a national sales tax or value-added tax, would require repealing the 16th Amendment to the Constitution. Repealing the 16th Amendment to the Constitution would be a very hard thing to do, so I think there’s a political barrier there. But even if we could do it, and put in this value-added tax, when you add that to state sales taxes you’re looking at a sales tax basically somewhere north of 30%. With that huge amount, the incentive to barter, trade, go underground is going to be enormous. And I think the enforcement mechanism for that will have to be so intrusive, it will have to be something we won’t want to do. So although I remain open to being convinced otherwise, my leaning is that this idea of the fair tax is not going to work.

Now, the flat tax—the Steve Forbes type idea—from a conceptual basis, is very attractive and doesn’t have any of those limitations that I just described. But the issue is the political reality of, if you make it revenue neutral, then you raise taxes on the middle class and lower them on the higher income people, which politically is unpalatable.

Now, Steve Forbes says, “Well, we make it an overall tax decrease, so that no one gets an overall increase in taxes?” If we could do that, that would be great. But we’re going to have to cut a whole lot of spending first, before we can do that. And I can support that, but what you might be able to do is get to a nearly flat-type tax, something that still has some progressivity to it, but is flatter than what we have now. So my leanings at this point would be to go toward a flat tax to wherever we could get to there that was politically palatable.

TC: Do you support a federal marriage amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman?

JC: This isn’t as easy as you might think, because this becomes very easily a states’ rights type issue. And as a person who is pro-life—now this isn’t something I’ve heard talked about very much—what do we think? We think that it shouldn’t be something defined by the Supreme Court, but should be by the states, right? Well, if we don’t take the same position on marriage, then we may effectively be being inconsistent in that we want abortion determined at the state level and marriage determined at the federal level. That’s my concern. I am strongly in favor of limiting marriage between a man and a woman, but I think we as conservatives have to think about whether that is a federal issue or whether that is something we want to leave to the states. Again I am open to the discussion on it, but I am not ready at this point to run fast down the path of defining that federally until we fully think through the ramifications on the tenth amendment and things like that.

TC: Are you suggesting a better way for conservatives to deal with this issue to have state legislatures come up with solutions on their own?

TC: Stem cell research—how do you feel about human embryonic stem cell research?

JC: I do not support it, and I certainly don’t support any government funding of it, because I think we have to be very careful when we cross the line into essential creating human hearts for research. That is a very scary line to cross. And I think that with embryonic stem cell research, we can be crossing it. Plus, rationally, this thing has been so politicized. Embryonic stem cell research is being done in places around the world, but they’re not achieving a lot of results. The results are coming in adult lives. It’s another one of those issues where liberals are pushing it to accomplish their social agenda, when scientifically, the results aren’t there. And of course, now you can get everything out of an umbilical cord, which you could get out of an embryo, then that really makes the scientific need for it removed.

TC: What would you say are the most important issues to your constituents right now? What are you hearing the most about, what are you running on?

JC: Hearing the most about—illegal immigration. In California, we’re near a border, so we get hit with it long before other states. Illegal immigration is huge here. The budget and deficit and too much spending and “my taxes are too high already.” Hearing a lot about that. Hearing a lot about the death tax. This is a generally affluent business district that wants the government out of their wallet and out of their business. But it also has the ability to think globally. And so there’s also support for the war in Iraq, for completing the mission there. And a general look at keeping America free, safe, and strong with all the world challenges we have, whether it’s North Korea, China, India, Pakistan, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, you name it. A lot of talk about issues on keeping America free, safe, and strong in foreign policy.

TC: You all have a lot of referendums out there. Which of those is currently being debated in the state and is of national interest?

JC: The biggest one being debated here is Proposition 75, which is the paycheck protection initiative, the initiative that would require a government employee union to get annual written consent before they deduct money from an employee’s paycheck to use it for political purposes. That thing is huge. It is attracting money—unions money from all over the country. The governor is saying they will spend $100 million of union money, and I don’t doubt it. They’ve been spending it for months already. Trying to defeat that, and some of the other initiatives, that is the number one. That is the big kahuna, because the 3% of people in this state that have some connection to working for government unions, are running the other 97%. The Democratic Party in California is 100% owned by the government employee unions out here. And this would break that control, because it would break their money.

The second thing is the redistricting, which obviously has national impact of the other states looking at this, of the 53 congressional members from California in the House. So that obviously will be a big issue and will have national implications as well.

And then there are some others. There’s a big war on prescription drugs, which is Proposition 78 and 79, that will have some national implications, given the Democrats’ proclivity for liking to demonize the industry that has probably done more to benefit the lives of people in the United States than any other industry. But they still like to demonize them, so there will be that issue.

And then also the parental notification of abortion, which even the governor yesterday—very very strongly—came out in favor of. He said, “If somebody went and took my daughter to get an abortion and didn’t tell me, I’d kill them.” And then he had to come back and say, “Well, I didn’t really mean I’d kill them. But you know what I mean.” Here’s a very openly admitted pro-choice governor very vocally saying “but there’s something that’s a line that I and others won’t cross.” I think that will be important.

And then changing teacher tenure will begin at least some of the talk, if that passes, to say, “Hey, the way to improve education is not always about throwing more money at it. But it’s in fact about reforming the system.”

Best of luck to Congressman Campbell. Hope he learned from the discontent within GOP ranks about his Am-nasty proposal.

Whatever happened to the other Congressman Campbell from northern CA, a liberal Republican who tried to run for the Senate several years back?

That was Tom Campbell. I believe he's now a tenured professor at Stanford University. When Stanford offered him tenure if he taught full time (instead of part-time, with most of his time being spent in Congress), Campbell decided to challenge Dianne Feinstein in the 2000 Senate race, since I guess he figured that if he was going to forgo tenure at Stanford it might as well be for a 6-year job. Running to the left of Feinstein on social issues is no way for a Republican to mobilize the base, and he was defeated handily.

DJ, if I got any details wrong, please correct them (I was paraphrasing what I read in Mike Honda's page on the 2002 Almanac of American Politics).

We cannot legitimize born nationals coming to this country illegally, particularly in a time of terrorism

Ah the words but watch the lack of action.

All true. Although a lot of Campbell's record was subpar - there was one thing that stood out. He had the courage to vote for Impeachment in a pro-Clintonista district. He could've taken the weasel way out or kept to a RINOista path, but he didn't. He at least had my respect as far as that was concerned.

6 posted on 12/07/2005 12:34:07 PM PST by fieldmarshaldj (Cheney X -- Destroying the Liberal Democrat Traitors By Any Means Necessary -- Ya Dig ? Sho 'Nuff.)

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