Arambula, Caballero, Grove want new terms in Legislature. Here are our recommendations

Two veteran Democrats are campaigning to continue representing Fresno and westside communities in the California Legislature. Both have done admirable work in their respective houses and deserve new terms.

The legislators are state Sen. Anna Caballero and state Assemblymember Joaquin Arambula. Both face Republicans with no elected experience.

In a third contest, a Bakersfield politician now seeks to include Clovis in her representation, thanks to redistricting.

Here is The Bee Editorial Board’s recommendations on these races:

Caballero for state Senate District 14

Caballero began her political career in the 1990s on the Salinas City Council, and was that city’s first woman mayor. She then became the first woman elected to the state Assembly to represent what was then District 28, which covered parts of Monterey, San Benito, Santa Cruz and Santa Clara counties.

Ever since, Caballero has steadily moved eastward into the San Joaquin Valley by virtue of the offices she has held. Now the senator for District 12, she is campaigning for the new District 14, which takes in Fresno and western Fresno County, as well as Madera and Merced counties.

Housing affordability and supply is a critical issue facing the district. A year ago UC Merced had a delayed start because so many students could not find housing. Caballero led efforts in Salinas to create a first-time home-buyer program. She also gained experience with housing under former Gov. Jerry Brown, whom she served as secretary of the Business, Consumer Services and Housing Agency. She had oversight of oversight of departments in charge of funding affordable housing, civil rights enforcement, banking and financial transactions and consumer protection.

To increase land available for housing, Caballero backed Senate Bill 6. That measure, signed by Gov. Newsom into law, requires the state Department of General Services to create a public inventory of local sites suitable for residential development, along with state surplus lands. Today she wants to regulate the practice of hedge funds buying large swaths of new and existing housing as investments, which cuts supply and drives prices up.

Opponent: Running against her is Amnon Shor, a Republican from Fresno. An immigrant from Israel, he came to America in 1980 and he began a jewelry business. In 1986 he and his wife and three children moved to a horse ranch in Fresno. In the early 1990s, Shor returned to school to become a rabbi. He then began directing a congregation in 2004.

When asked how he would address the housing crisis, Shor responds with a standard GOP answer: Cut regulations that burden and slow down development. He did not offer additional ideas, and he offered typical Republican responses to questions about water supply, climate change and pollution plaguing the Valley.

Democrats hold a 45% to 25% edge in voter registration over Republicans. Another 22.6% are no party preference.

Arambula for state Assembly District 31

Joaquin Arambula is seeking re-election to a seat he first won in 2016. Arambula, an emergency room physician, has stressed improving Californians’ health care during his time in the Assembly. Notably, he has worked with counterparts in the Senate and certain nonprofit groups in a consortium, Health4All, to get health insurance coverage for all Californians, even those who are undocumented.

A bill he sponsored this year was passed by the Legislature but was ultimately vetoed by Gov. Newsom. The measure, AB 2550, would have required state regulators to work with the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District to find new ways to improve the region’s dirty air. Fresno has some of the most polluted census tracts in California. In his veto message, Newsom said state law already allows state regulators to do what Arambula’s bill specified.

Opponent: Republican Dolce MiSol Calandra is listed by the website Voter’s Edge as a real estate agent. He did not respond to numerous requests by The Bee Editorial Board for an interview.

Democrats represent 47% of the registered voters, to the GOP’s 22.5%. Another 22.8% are no party preference.

State Senate District 12

State Sen. Shannon Grove, a Republican from Bakersfield, is in her first term and represents District 16. Under redistricting, she is running to represent the new District 12, which includes parts of Kern, Tulare and Fresno counties, and heads as far north as Clovis. She previously served in the Assembly for six years.

Given that she represents Kern County, where most of the state’s onshore oil production occurs, it is no surprise that Grove is a supporter of the petroleum industry. She authored a bill this past session to require the state Energy Commission to report on imports from any nation with proven human rights abuses or lower environmental standards than California. The bill did not make it out of the Senate.

She also co-authored a bill to make human trafficking a violent crime that is eligible under the Three Strikes law. It was her second attempt to make the law, but it failed to clear the Senate Public Safety Committee.

A Kern County native, she served in the U.S. Army before entering politics.

Grove was a leader of the Senate Republicans until she got in hot water with her colleagues over a Tweet about the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol. She initially blamed the rioting on left-leaning protesters known as Antifa. Once she learned that was inaccurate, she removed the Twitter post and sent a revised one criticizing the attack and saying it was how “Antifa behaves.” Nonetheless, the Senate Republicans removed her from her leadership position.

Grove has made no secret of her support of Trump in recent years. In one tweet, she called him “the greatest of all time,” and retweeted a post that claimed Trump lost the 2020 election to voter fraud.

Opponent: Running against her is Susanne Gundy, a Democrat from Visalia who worked as a high school teacher in Delano and then as a health educator for Tulare County. Among her key issues are protecting women’s reproductive services; cleaning up polluted water and air; ensuring health care for all residents; and providing rehabilitation to prison inmates to integrate them back into society.

Republicans hold a 45% to 28.4% registration edge. No-party preference is another 18.6%.

The Bee Editorial Board offers no recommendation for this contest.