Fountain Valley's County Supervisor to Run for State Office

Orange County Supervisor Janet Nguyen, who represents Fountain Valley, and former Assemblyman Jose Solorio today announced they intend to run to succeed state Sen. Lou Correa, who will be termed out of office in 2014.

Nguyen, who gave birth to her second child last night, sent out an email to reporters today announcing her bid for the 34th State Senate District next year.

An hour later, Solorio sent out a "quick update" to his supporters and reporters about his campaign for the same seat.

Solorio, who is a trustee on the Rancho Santiago Community College District board, said he had been working on his announcement for the past couple of days and that the timing with Nguyen's notice was coincidental.

Nguyen, a Republican, touted endorsements from a number of GOP leaders in the state senate, including Senate Minority leader Bob Huff and Senate Republican Caucus Chairman Ted Gaines. State Sen. Mimi Walters, R-Laguna Hills, said, "Janet knows what it takes to run and win tough campaigns because she has done it time and time again. She is a tenacious campaigner and a dedicated public servant."

Nguyen was just sworn in for her second term on the Orange County Board of Supervisors. She said that 60 percent of her district covers the 34th state senate district.

Nguyen said her legislative priorities in Sacramento would be fully funding local schools, tax and regulatory relief to small business, boosting public safety and improving health care quality for seniors. Nguyen said the state needs to do more to reduce waste, control spending and grow the economy.

"The people of our area work hard to build a better life for themselves and their children," Nguyen said. "They care about our schools, the local economy and the safety of their neighborhoods. They want and deserve results and care little about the partisan debate in Sacramento."

Solorio told City News Service he would have a "Strong focus on education, public safety and growing the economy. Those will continue to be areas of focus of mine and also protecting and strengthening our higher education."

Solorio said he has more than $400,000 cash for a state senate bid and that the district has a two percent advantage in registration of Democratic voters over Republicans.

"In a district that gets bluer by the day we have a two-point Democratic advantage, and given the trends in the district and the state that's going to grow," Solorio said.

The district includes north and central Orange County cities, including all of Stanton, and parts of Anaheim, Buena Park, Fullerton, Garden Grove, Santa Ana, Huntington Beach and Westminster. The district has a sliver of Los Angeles County in Long Beach, but most of it is in Orange County.

Solorio said about one-third of the district's registered voters are Latino and 15 percent are Vietnamese-American.

One issue that is likely to be a focus of a race between Solorio and Nguyen will be a recent report from the Orange County grand jury on CalOptima that was highly critical of Nguyen.

Nguyen represents the county on the board of CalOptima, which provides healthcare for the county's poor as well as one-fifth of its seniors. The grand jury report was critical of her role in shaking up the agency, saying it was a model of efficiency until Nguyen engineered changes that led to a defection of 16 senior-level executives.

Nguyen blasted the grand jury report as error-ridden and that the agency was badly in need of reform.

"Recently we've been reading a lot about the grand jury investigation and CalOptima and her mismanagement of CalOptima," Solorio said. "About one in three children are covered by CalOptima and many seniors depend on CalOptima, so it's a big deal."

Nguyen's campaign consultant, Dave Gilliard, laughed off Solorio's criticism.

"I think the bigger issue will be his mismanagement of the state of California," Gilliard said. "We'll be happy to compare the records side by side. I expect the voters will take a close look at both of their records and we're very happy to be able to make that comparison as the campaign develops."

Another issue may be Nguyen's role in the redistricting of Orange County supervisor districts in 2011 when many Latino leaders felt the supervisors made it safer for her re-election efforts by adding more Asian and white voters from Fountain Valley and western Garden Grove, splitting up Latino voters among two districts.

- City News Service