Endorsement: Levine for 10th District Assembly

San Rafael moderate has shown promise this year|

In the race for 10th District Assembly, which includes all of Marin and parts of Sonoma County, including the City of Sonoma, incumbent Marc Levine, of San Rafael, faces challenger Veronica Jacobi, a resident and former city council member of Santa Rosa.

Jacobi, an energy management consultant, earned a place in the top-two general election runoff by earning 17.7 percent of the vote in the June 7 primary, edging out lone-Republican candidate Gregory Allen by 0.7 percent. Levine, by contrast, used his incumbent name recognition and sizable campaign war chest to pull in a whopping 65 percent of the vote in the district. Jacob certainly faces an uphill battle Nov. 8.

Jacobi deserves credit for recognizing that curbing climate change is arguably the most crucial issue of our time – she was a leader in the City of Santa Rosa adopting a climate action plan, and advocated for PG&E’s paper recycling policy.

Jacobi, only received 5 percent of the vote when she ran for Assembly in the 2014 primary – quietly bowing out before the election, while endorsing one of the other progressive candidates in the race. At the time she was two years past serving on the Santa Rosa City Council; now she’s two years even further away from having directly crafted public policy. While we like her leadership in climate action and recycling, we’re not convinced she makes the case for replacing Levine in the state Legislature.

Levine heads into his third 10th District Assembly campaign having authored a multitude of bills signed into law. And, like most of his colleagues in the state legislature, many of his bills are narrowly focused laws, which are easier to pass, but don’t affect a wide variety of constituents. Examples include: AB 1810, which allows the free exchange of goods between seed libraries (sort of a NAFTA for gardeners); AB 2827, which limits litigation against businesses that incorrectly brandish “Made in the USA” labels; and such feel-good resolutions as naming the Waldo Grade tunnel after the late Robin Williams and declaring a Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month (it was March of 2014).

He’s taken heat in this paper for his time spent trying to legalize “ballot-box selfies” and establish weight standards for people in the modeling industry – which, quite frankly, still wouldn’t be a legitimate 10th District concern if Gisele Bundchen, Adriana Lima and Natalia Vodianova all decided to get a place together on the Sonoma east side.

Levine’s battle last year with New York-based daily fantasy football websites over the definition of gambling was perhaps his most surreal moment in the legislature.

Ultimately, Levine is a moderate Democrat who rarely swings for the fences in the way many of his more progressive constituents would like their Assembly representative to do.

But Levine also has his moments.

We think he particularly deserves credit for AB 1664, legislation to close the “bullet-button loophole” making it tougher to sell assault weapons in the state; and AB 2262, a bill to give more weight to mental illness in criminal sentencing.

The intriguing AB 157, meanwhile, calls for opening up a third lane on the San Rafael/Richmond Bridge by repainting the stripes – which would be about as simple a fix to a small amount of gridlock as the district is ever going to get. (He’s less keen on the percolating proposal to turn Highway 37 into a privatized toll causeway.)

He’s also passed legislation of particular interest to Sonomans – such as AB 2488 and AB 774, which, respectively, permit wine and beer tastings at farmers markets; AB 1295, which eases distribution barriers for craft distillers; and the upcoming AB 2511, which would create standards for biochar, a naturally processed soil that local water conservationists are championing.

AB 1530, meanwhile, removes the unnecessary charge energy consumers get when they switch from a utility to a green-energy provider – of particular note here in Sonoma, where the city just became the county’s first to purchase 100 percent renewable energy from Sonoma Clean Power and hopes to set an example for other consumers.

As Levine goes into his final term in the Assembly, he may still deliver a few head-scratching moments – but we’re encouraged by the fact that some of his more ambitious pieces of legislation were introduced in 2016.

Going forward, we’d like to see him let the super models fend for themselves and delve deeper into the concerns – water use, ag protection and transportation for starters – that truly affect the 10th District.

Who knows? Levine may start swinging for the fences yet.

We recommend Marc Levine for 10th District Assembly.

– Jason Walsh, editor

– John Burns, publisher

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