Politics & Government

7 Questions With 30th Congressional Candidate Susan Shelley

Berman vs. Sherman? She wants to make sure you know about Shelley.

It's been billed the , as Democratic heavyweights Howard Berman and Brad Sherman are set to do battle in the 30th Congressional District.

But there are other candidates willing to take on the heavyweights in this majority Democratic district, including Republicans Mark Reed and Susan Shelly.

Shelley wrote a novel, the "37th Amendment," that was published in 2002 about what would happen if the Constitution were amended to remove the guarantee of “due process of law.” She says while she was researching the novel she became interested in constitutional issues, which led her to getting more involved in politics. Learn more about Shelley's background on her website.

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Patch spoke with Shelley by phone recently to learn more about her candidacy and why an unknown who has never held political office before would want to get in the middle of this showdown.

 

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PATCH: What made you want to get involved in politics?

SHELLEY: I was writing after I published the book in 2002, I was writing articles based on the research and I started a blog and I would just write to get things off my chest about these constitutional issues and how they were not being decided in the way that they had prior to this change in the legal theory. And when the health care bill passed I was really angry because I thought it was just a terribly intrusive and expensive thing to do to everybody, and the way that it was rammed through after Scott Brown won the Ted Kennedy seat in Massachusetts, I felt that it was just wrong and I got much more involved in politics. I formed a meetup group called Freedom-Loving Fiscal Conservatives in Los Angeles and I volunteered for a candidate who was running in the 30th district in 2010 in the primary. That was David Benning. He was going to run again in 2012 and I was volunteering for him again, and then, for whatever reason after the final maps came out, he decided that he would rather not. So I talked to him and said, "If you don't want to, I think I'm going to." And he said, "Absolutely." So I threw my hat in the ring, and here I am.

PATCH: Well it's definitely quite a ring. With all the focus on Berman and Sherman, clearly that's the challenge right now, you've got these two long-term guys heading it off and they get all the attention right now, right?

SHELLEY: Oh, they certainly get all the attention and they are going to spend, if you believe what's reported, they're going to spend $5 million attacking each other. So, you know, one of them could get out. I don't think the filing period opens until January or February. So anything could change.

PATCH: So far no one has blinked and they've both indicated they are going to run. What do you think of your odds?

SHELLEY: Well the math is really complicated. It could be a four-way race, it could be a six-way race. I'm just going to make the arguments for policies I think will straighten out the problems in the country. I think that really, if we turn around the economy everything will be better. We'll have more funding for Social Security and Medicare, there will be more jobs and people will be able to pay their mortgages, we won't be burying everybody in debt. We have to have economic growth. We have to reverse these policies that are holding back economic growth. I just feel so strongly about that. I'm sitting up nights writing about it on my website and I haven't had any sleep. I'm really working hard at it. And of course I know it's a long shot to win but I think it's not a long shot to put these ideas on the table and have them make a difference.

PATCH: What community do you live in here in the Valley?

SHELLEY: I live in Woodland Hills. I was born in Chicago. My dad was an actor and he did commercials and regional theater and what's called industrial films, corporate video is what they would call it today. He did a lot of that kind of stuff, and he wanted to do television and movies so he moved the family to Los Angeles and moved us to Woodland Hills. I eventually got rid of my Chicago accent and now I blend in.

PATCH: What do you think are the biggest issues to voters in the Valley here?

SHELLEY: I think it's the economy, the economy, and perhaps its a little of the Israel policy because I really feel that President Obama, by giving moral equivalence to the Hamas terrorists who want to be in control of a Palestinian state, I just feel very strongly that people are upset about that. I feel it very deeply. On that issue, I feel there are some voters who would be willing to cross party lines.

PATCH: In the presidential election, is there anyone you really like or dislike?

SHELLEY: I don't really want to commit on that yet and endorse a candidate, but I'm a liberty candidate, I believe in freedom and lower taxes, and I'm a social moderate. I'm pro choice. 

PATCH: What did you think when you saw after the final congressional lines were drawn?

SHELLEY: Well, I think it's a big improvement over having Howard Berman's brother Michael draw all the lines himself, it's a big improvement over what we had ten years ago! The intention is good and really, in general I think it's not a good idea for incumbents to control the re-election playing field so thoroughly. Obviously, they raise a lot of money, they are selling off pieces of the government for us. They are selling tax provisions in bills and trade provisions in bills and access and all kinds of things. So it's very easy for them to announce a problem and say we're going to deal with this, and then all the industries involved, they come to the dinner and they buy a table. It's very easy for them to raise money. But in terms of the districting, I don't think it should favor the incumbents. That just slants the playing field to such a degree that they become like little kings in their little fiefdoms there, and no one can really be represented by that. 

 

This conversation has been edited to fit the format.


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