FiNd us oNliNe at independent.com, Facebook, aNd tWitter
congressional cash: down to the Wire
Last week, Rep. Lois Capps, who is retiring after 18 years in Congress, received a mailer portraying congressional candidate Bill Ostrander next to Bernie Sanders. At first blush, the image is no surprise. The left-leaning — and campaign finance reform — candidate has embraced the association with Sanders, even making bumper stickers that say, “Feel the Bill.” But what is surprising is that the California Republican Party paid for the mailers. And then sent them to registered Democrats. Less than a week before the June 7 primary election, outside money from both parties in the 24th congressional race has exceeded $1 million. Because of California’s open primary system, the top two vote getters — regardless of party — advance to the November general election. With the Ostrander ad, the Republican strategy appears to draw liberal voters to Ostrander, thereby pulling votes away from frontrunner Supervisor Salud Carbajal. Kaitlyn MacGregor, the California Republican Party spokesperson, denied the intent was to split the Democratic vote. “Our thing is really trying to say, ‘He’s too liberal,’” she said. “The Democrats have a contested primary. That’s going to draw turnout.” (The cost of the ads has not yet been reported.) Likewise, the National Republican Congressional Committee — which spent $220,000 so far — attacked Carbajal for approving his own pay raise on the Board of Supervisors while portraying Santa Barbara Mayor Helene Schneider as ultra-progressive, which could help her among liberal voters. In fact, the ad used language — that she supports universal health care, for instance — straight from her campaign website. Supporting Republican Justin Fareed, Citizen Super PAC, a political action committee functioning as a crowdsourcing model, spent $286,000, according to the latest federal reports. Money continues to stream in every day. American Action Network, a far-right lobbyist group, reported Tuesday $48,800 in mailers picturing Schneider and Sanders as ’60s-era “liberal peas in a pod.” For his campaign, Fareed raised $1.1 million total. Of that, $23,000 came from political action committees (one $2,000 check came from Congressmember Duncan Hunter, who represents San Diego). Republican Assemblymember Katcho Achadjian raised $750,000, of which $28,000 came from committees. The national Democrats, meanwhile, have enthusiastically backed Carbajal. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) and the House Majority political action committee reported more than $600,000 in independent expenditures to support him. “What does he owe them back?” Schneider asked. “What are they going to expect of him? That’s a big question mark.” For his part, Carbajal pledged to “always be independent” — “I am who I am” — and vote in the best interest of his constituents. On his own, Carbajal, well-known to be a fundraising king, has raised nearly $1.9 million, triple that of Schneider, his chief Dem rival. Of Carbajal’s total, $223,000 mostly came from a number of political action committees. Of the $630,000 Schneider raised total, just $8,700 came from political committees, including $5,000 from the L.A.-based Women’s Political Committee. — Kelsey Brugger
news briefs cont’d feet of new construction and upgrades, bumping the number of residential units from 320 to 357, plus new facilities for memory care, personal care, dining, and maintenance across the 48-acre property at 300 Hot Springs Road. The project is expected to go before the Montecito Board of Architectural Review in June.
EDUCATION Santa Barbara Unified School District boardmembers narrowed their search for a new superintendent last week during two days of closed-door interviews of an undisclosed number of semifinalists. Contender names are being kept confidential. Boardmember Ed Heron said site visits to the finalists’ home districts will likely happen in the coming days, with the announcement planned for the evening of 6/14. Superintendent Dr. Dave Cash announced his retirement in December. President Barack Obama awarded UCSB professor emeritus of electrical and computer engineering Arthur Gossard a National 10
THE INDEPENDENT
JUNE 2, 2016
Medal of Technology and Innovation. The 5/19 ceremony, which took place in the White House’s East Room, honored eight researchers with medals for technology and innovation. The awards are bestowed upon the nation’s highest achievers in science and technology. Gossard is known for his work with molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) — a technique for making crystals used in semiconductors — among other aspects of nanotechnology.
ENVIRONMENT With Lake Cachuma down to its last few drinkable drops, the Santa Barbara County Grand Jury has concluded the dam on which 250,000 residents rely will not be able to deliver in the future nearly what it’s yielded in the past. Local water managers, the Grand Jury found, will need to take considerably less water out of Lake Cachuma each year than they have in the past, learn to cooperate with each other better, and plan for new development assuming poor water years rather than abundant ones. Read more at independent .com. n independent.com
society
anti-Feminism talk draws crowds, critics
Breitbart Journalist Invited by UCSB’s Young Americans for Liberty Chapter
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by kelsey kNorp
cynth ia Zh u/Th e b oT Tom l i n e
News of the Week
ritish journalist Milo Yiannopoulos made his UCSB entrance atop a padded chair hoisted by student organizers through a capacity crowd that filled Corwin Pavilion last Thursday evening. Many were even turned away from his controversial talk — titled Feminism Is Cancer — after waiting in a lengthy queue at the venue’s door. POLARIZING: Milo Yiannopoulos addresses a UCSB audience Since February, UCSB’s during his Feminism Is Cancer talk. fledgling chapter of the Young Americans for Liberty (YAL) has touted the Yiannopoulos visit as a main tensions brewing at UCSB and at college event in its free-speech crusade on campus. campuses nationwide. Anonymous chalk Intent to make a statement about the types of messages began appearing across campus messages welcomed or condemned by their in early April, the most provocative bearing fellow students, group members purposely mantras such as “Black Lies Matter,” “Sodinvited a “no-holds-barred provocateur,” omy = AIDS, Repent,” and “Deport them all, according to newly elected YAL president Build a wall, But save the tacos,” according Dominick DiCesare. to UCSB’s The Bottom Line. New chalkings YAL cofounder Brandon Morse recently appeared last Wednesday, a day before Yianresigned from his position as copresident of nopoulos was set to arrive on campus. One the group but appeared at the event regard- of the most prominent, scrawled in large letless.“It’s important for him to be able to come ters near the University Center and Storke on campus and be able to challenge the status Tower, read, “Protect Diversity of Opinion.” quo, and I appreciate kind of the abrasive way Complaints of student oversensitivity from that he presents his message,” Morse told The outside media date back to the 2014 “trigger Santa Barbara Independent. “Whether or not warnings” resolution passed by UCSB’s stuI agree with him, he presents it in such a way dent senate, which encouraged professors to that it breaks down the barriers that are tradi- place disclaimers on class syllabi for content tionally in place that stop conversation from that could trigger panic attacks in students with post-traumatic stress disorder. happening.” Indeed, Yiannopoulos — equally proud UCSB alumna Bailey Loverin, the resoluin his homosexuality and conservatism — tion’s sponsor and most vocal supporter in spared few aspects of “intersectional third- 2014, paid dearly in time and energy for a wave feminism” in his broad and biting cri- central role in the issue that quickly turned tique of the movement. He claimed most sta- her into a national media scapegoat. A critical tistics on American labor fail to validate issues article in the New Republic that made UCSB like the equal pay gap and suggest that what its focal point sparked an onslaught of interfeminists see as oppression actually derives view demands from institutions both small from inherent differences between men and and as large as the New York Times and NPR. Concepts like trigger warnings or “safe women. “Encouraging women to have a job, and spaces” for students with shared experiences have it all, and to do it with kids is making of oppression have been denounced by critics women miserable,” Yiannopoulos told the as forms of censorship and coddling. Many audience. conservative or libertarian groups — YAL Despite a considerable stir among students included — have echoed such criticism. in months preceding the talk, Thursday’s Loverin, 19 years old when she speardisruptions were minimal. Most vocal were headed the legislation and now headed for Yiannopoulos supporters, who offered wide- UCLA School of Law, admits to some faults in spread “boos” in response to critics during the the resolution’s wording but stands by its core Q&A portion of the event. A previous stop on intention. That intention, she said, is to give the Breitbart writer’s Dangerous Faggot Tour students such as veterans or others exposed at DePaul University was canceled after pro- to violent trauma control over their mentesters — or, in Yiannopoulos’s words, “crazy tal health through advance warning — not bitches in Chicago”— rushed the stage soon censorship. “It’s not being PC,” Loverin said. “It’s not after he began speaking. Both the inception of YAL and the visit by saying,‘Don’t say that’ or ‘Change the curricuYiannopoulos are indicative of free-speech lum.’ Reevaluate your use of shock value.” n