Joanna Garcia Rose is no stranger to bureaucracy. She is currently running against incumbent Esmeralda Soria to become a member of the California State Assembly, and the 39-year-old Atwater resident has spent a large portion of her working years as a state employee, doing everything from working at the Department of Motor Vehicles to working as an auditor for the Employment Development Department. She currently works for the California Department of Corrections.
Garcia Rose received a degree in Ag Business from Fresno State, and graduated from San Joaquin College of Law in 2013. She won the primary earlier this year for the District 27 seat, but she shared with the Times that she had not initially planned to run for any political office.
“I was registering to vote and I looked at what happened last year, and how close it was, and I felt like California hasn’t had balance for a long time. Whether you’re one party or the other party, complete control by one opinion is never going to be a good thing for everyone. I’ve always known that,” said Garcia Rose. “So I sent a joking text about the seat to the consultant that helped me out like 10 years ago when I ran for Congress.”
“I was kind of kidding. …I wasn’t prepared right now. I have a three-year-old. But within five minutes he was calling me, and then within a couple days I had people calling me, party leaders calling me, saying ‘We need someone who’s good for this seat. You’re it.’ And I’m like, wait, what?” she said with a laugh. “I prayed about it a lot and I felt like doors don’t open like that on their own. … You don’t get that much support unless there’s, in my opinion, something bigger happening.”
Garcia Rose describes her approach to politics as sometimes more libertarian rather than traditionally conservative, and prides herself on pulling voters from the other side. She has a host of endorsements, including Congressman John Duarte and Merced County Sheriff Vern Warnke. She is also supported by the Fresno County GOP, Madera County GOP, Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association Political Action Committee, Fresno California Republican Assembly (CRA), Merced California Republican Assembly (CRA), and the Young Republicans.
Garcia Rose’s top priorities are crime, water, and education. Garcia Rose acknowledges that water in California is a complicated issue, with federal and state influences that require consideration. Regardless, she says it is a priority for the valley that requires making tough choices.
“God gives us water. He gives us all the water we need. We’re just not doing anything with it and we need to be, and we need to be doing it in an intelligent way,” said Garcia Rose. “You can’t just bulldoze an area and wipe out the wildlife, but I think we’re in a position now, we have enough environmental studies, we have enough science, you can mitigate the damage, and now we need to be looking at balancing the damage.”
For Garcia Rose, it’s about balancing environmental and economic needs: “We have to focus on sustainability. I am not against making sure that we are monitoring our groundwater, but we have to do it in a responsible way that doesn’t cause an economic collapse. And we need to prioritize. So we need to get way more surface water. We’ve had all these rains, all this flooding, and so you’re getting double fold damage with those scenarios, because we don’t have any way to capture the floodwaters, and they’re just running rampant.”
When it comes to education, Garcia Rose describes California’s system as broken, as well as an opportunity to mitigate other issues facing the state, including crime.
“I’m really blown away by what’s going on for our kids in education. … I don’t see the same opportunities for my son as I had, and that’s upsetting. And I don’t see those for other people’s children either. So we really need to focus on what are we doing with our tax dollars as far as education goes, because we have kids who are graduating and they don’t even know how to fill out a one page application,” said Garcia Rose.
She added: “Everyone should be able to graduate high school and do something with their life besides be a criminal. And so I really think we could eliminate some of the criminal population if we had better management and opportunities of money that’s going to education. I don’t think we need to increase taxes. I think we need to be smarter with what we’ve got. I think we need to be more conservative with what we’ve got.”
At the end of the day, she hopes to bring balance to a state that has long held a Democratic majority, and establish more cooperation between the parties.
“I really think we need to get the balance back where people, parties, ideals are more equally represented across the state of California. … We’re a very conservative area here in the Central Valley compared to the Bay Area,” said Garcia Rose. “We have to have a little bit more of a balance, so that people can just come together and actually pass things, because it makes sense for the residents of the state of California to pass them.”
Garcia Rose expressed that she’s tired of political posturing, and is more interested in getting things done: “Nobody needs to be teaching anybody lessons when it comes to the safety, well-being and fiscal responsibility of taxpayer money. We need to just be collaborating, doing what makes sense and what’s responsible.”