Three candidates seeking to be the Santa Clarita Valley’s representatives in the state Assembly, state Senate and in the nation’s Capitol spoke at a candidate forum Thursday hosted by The Signal at Grace Baptist Church in Saugus.  Patrick Gipson, seeking to represent the 40th Assembly District, Suzette Martinez-Valladares, seeking the 21st District in the Senate and Rep. Mike Garcia, R-Santa Clarita, seeking reelection, all made their pitches to local voters and then stayed after to answer questions for the meet-and-greet.   Assemblywoman Pilar Schiavo, D-Chatsworth, Senate candidate Kipp Mueller and congressional candidate George Whitesides declined to attend.  Mike Garcia a candidate for U.S. Congress in CA-27, shows his pocket U.S. Constitution book to attendees at a candidate meet-and-greet hosted by The Signal on Thursday evening at Grace Baptist Church. 101024 Maya Morales/ The Signal. Message from Congress   Garcia said he grew up across the street from the Copper Hill Drive venue, lived just up the road off Seco Canyon Road and first ran “because I saw things happening at the federal level that looked a lot like what’s happened in California.”  He said he loved California, but its policies in Sacramento are terrible, echoing the concerns shared by the Republican candidates for the state Legislature and citing problems with the Democratic supermajority.  “And so my job is to make sure that the country doesn’t turn into what California has already become,” he said. “That is something I have literally been running on now for five years, and it’s why we continue to win. And I want to remind people that for every ugly piece of legislation that comes out of Sacramento that my colleagues here have mentioned, there’s an ugly twin in Washington, D.C., that I have to make sure doesn’t get out of the incubator and become federal law.”  However, he also said partisan division is a part of the problem, and he’d like to see weaker parties and stronger leaders.  “While people may not agree with every single vote, there’s people to the right of me who think I’m not far enough right. There’s people to the left who don’t think I’m, you know, far enough left, but I explain my votes and my rationale. I think communication is the key, and the great unifying word is security,” he said, referring to stability and safety for the economy, border and local neighborhoods, among other areas.  He said that’s what people really care about, and why he’s been able to withstand about $60 million in campaign funding from the more than 30 candidates he’s faced over the past five years.   Garcia said much of that money is being spent on misrepresentations of his positions on issues including Social Security and abortion. He said he stands firm on preserving Social Security, calling it a contract between taxpayers and the government, and added that, contrary to his opponents’ advertising, he would not vote in favor of a national abortion ban.  Garcia said abortion is now a state-level issue, after the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, and California has its own abortion laws in place.  Suzette Valladares, a candidate for state Senate, speaks to attendees at a candidate meet-and-greet hosted by The Signal on Thursday evening at Grace Baptist Church. 101024 Maya Morales/ The Signal. Valladares seeks return  Valladares is no stranger to Sacramento, having won a seat in the Assembly in 2020 before losing her reelection bid to Schiavo in 2022.  Also mentioning her professional experience, which she said began at Six Flags Magic Mountain and included serving as the executive director of the nonprofit organization Autism Speaks, she focused on what she described as the “serious challenges” for this state due to problems that come from Sacramento.  “Think about it. In California, education, we spend billions of dollars, billions of dollars every year, yet, less than two-thirds of our students are proficient in the basics in English. This is a failure of leadership. We need to invest in our schools,” she said, advocating for more school choice, support for charter schools and more funding for local districts.   “And as a mom and a former educator, I believe that parents have a right to be involved in their children’s education, and that should never be taken and the future of your child should never be taken away from you, and you should not be excluded from classrooms,” she said.  She also cited the homeless crisis as a failure of leadership.  “And I have said it before, and I’ll say it again, we need to get the homeless off the streets and into care facilities to treat their mental health and addiction,” she added. “This is an issue that doesn’t need more spending. It needs political courage, political courage that is committed to enforcing solutions that get people the help that they need.”  She labeled Democratic leaders, including Gov. Gavin Newsom, “woke elitists,” and said their efforts at criminal justice reform have resulted in an exponential increase in fentanyl deaths and an environment where people just don’t feel safe.  She closed out to applause from the group after calling for tax cuts in a range of areas, including for disabled veterans’ property.  Patrick Gipson, a candidate for state Assembly, speaks to attendees at a candidate meet-and-greet hosted by The Signal on Thursday evening at Grace Baptist Church. 101024 Maya Morales/ The Signal. Call for change  Gipson, a retired sheriff’s deputy and relatively newer face on the political scene, began by describing his hardscrabble upbringing in the Santa Clarita and San Fernando valleys, sharing that his family lived homeless for a time in Bouquet Canyon during his childhood.  “We lived in the campground. So, I understand how going to sleep hungry is, parents struggling and trying to make ends meet. So, I’ve seen how from growing up here and to now, how things have changed, and that’s one of the reasons why I’m running, because the things have gotten a lot worse. So, I want to make sure that we change that in the future,” he said.   He shared frustration about how during his time as a deputy, he would write a citation for a suspect and then that person would be seen breaking the law somewhere else the same day, not long after their release from custody.   He said he was concerned because the California Legislature is failing to provide local communities with laws and resources to protect them.   “We need mental health support. We need effective addiction treatment, because that’s most of the homeless on the streets — and stronger law enforcement,” he added. “Like I said, without them, we are that. That’s why they call it a thin blue line, because that’s what that line is, between us and chaos.”  The post Candidates discuss Sacramento, DC at Signal forum  appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.