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Unchallenged Cardoza, Kanno prepare for District
18 election
May 25, 06
By Cheryl Winkelman, STAFF WRITER
Rep. Dennis Cardoza is going solar.
As part of a way to explore alternative energy sources, Cardoza,
D-Atwater, is having solar-powered panels installed on his house
in the next few weeks.
He said people in his district, the 18th, which includes
Lathrop, Stockton and rural Tracy, have told him about their
frustration over high gas prices. We must stop the dependence
on foreign oil, he said.
Cardoza, 47, is running unopposed within his party in the
June 6 primary and so is his Republican opponent, John Kanno,
46, an electrical engineer from Modesto.
The primary is just a warm-up of sorts for the two candidates,
who seem to agree on only one issue - the outlandish spending
by the federal government.
Cardoza, hoping to be elected to a third term, is co-chair
of the Blue Dog Coalition, 37House Democrats committed to balancing
budgets and fiscal responsibility.
The coalition believes the deficit is out of control and
supports a pay-as-you-go system. Now the federal government just
borrows money that it doesnt have, Cardoza said.
Kanno blames some of the spending problems on Cardoza. He
said Cardoza had promised to support lower taxes and then voted
against tax cuts.
This guy has flip-flopped more than John Kerry, he said.
After almost four years in office, Cardoza said his major
accomplishment was the passing of CALFED legislation to manage
the states water system, including money for the Sacramento-San
Joaquin Delta and water storage studies.
Cardoza said he also helped get more than $15 million in
block grants for specialty crops to foster innovation and market
development.
In conjunction with his six years in the state assembly,
Cardoza helped establish UC Merced, the first University of California
campus in the Central Valley.
Cardoza said he will continue to fight for a better quality
of life for the Central Valley. That means addressing the methamphetamine
problem. He recently organized a conference in Stockton with
Congressman Richard
Pombo, R-Tracy, and national narcotics officials to discuss
the issue. Kanno said illegal immigration is one of the most
important issues the Valley faces.
Youre talking to a person that came here legally, he said.
If we dont fix our borders, thats going to be a national security
problem, he said.
Kanno is Assyrian, an indigenous people of Iraq. His family
left Iraq in 1958 for England. He immigrated here in 1981 and
then became a U.S. citizen.
He was one of only 260 people chosen to work on the Future
of Iraq project to rebuild the country with the U.S. State Department.
He helped create the post-Saddam electrical blueprint.
From 1996 to July 2003, he ran a weekly political television
show called This Week in Politics in Ceres, Calif. For a year,
it was shown via satellite to his fellow Assyrian Christians
in Iraq and the Middle East.
Kanno said the media has not shown the real situation in
Iraq - a country with no more torture rooms and regular elections.
Weve been fighting this war for three years, a relatively short
period of time, he said.
Kanno said his experience with complex foreign policy and
his understanding of the Middle East will help him if elected.
Other important issues in the Central Valley are creating
more jobs and preserving the agricultural way of life, Kanno
said. There is too much federal red tape that discourages business
here, he said.
Kanno also wants to preserve disappearing farm land, adding
that he is ready to battle Cardoza.We want to debate Mr. Cardoza
anytime, anywhere, he said.
To contact Cheryl Winkelman, call
(209) 832-6144 or cwinkelman@
trivalleyherald.com.
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