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Katcho Achadjian to run for Congress

April 17, 2015
Katcho Achadjian

Katcho Achadjian

Republican assemblyman and former San Luis Obispo County supervisor, Katcho Achadjian, is joining the congressional race to replace Lois Capps.

Achadjian said he was considering a run for Congress shortly after Capps announced earlier this month that she would retire. The assemblyman plans to officially announce his campaign for the 24th District congressional seat at 11 a.m. Friday outside the Santa Barbara County Courthouse in Santa Barbara.

Achadjian is currently in his third term in the California Assembly where he represents San Luis Obispo County and parts of Northern Santa Barbara County. He will term out of the assembly next year.

Prior to entering the Legislature, Achadjian served three terms on the board of supervisors, for which he represented much of Southern San Luis Obispo County. For the final four years of that span, Achadjian also served as a member of the California Coastal Commission.

Achadjian is widely considered a moderate Republican. He recently carried a bill through the Legislature that calls for the creation of a groundwater management district in Northern San Luis Obispo County.

Democratic San Luis Obispo County Supervisor Bruce Gibson was the lead proponent of the legislation, and Democratic Governor Jerry Brown signed the bill into law.

As an assemblyman, Achadjian has voted against multiple gun control bill that have become law. But, he also introduced a bill Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law that requires local courts to quickly notify federal officials when a person is barred from owning firearms.

Achadjian is the second Republican to announce his intent to run for Capps’ seat in 2016. Justin Fareed, who ran in 2014 and narrowly missed advancing out of the primary, announced that he would run again, doing so just hours after Capps said she would retire.

The Democrats currently in the race are Santa Barbara Mayor Helene Schneider, Santa Barbara County Supervisor Salud Carbajal and San Luis Obispo farmer Bill Ostrander.

The district includes all of San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara Counties and parts of Ventura County.


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American ‘Republicans’ in the 21st century are the German Brownshirts of the 20th century.


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That gratuitously insulting generalization is about as correct as this one: American ‘Democrats’ in the 21st century are the East German Stazi of the 20th Century. Now go troll somewhere else.


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I stand by my remarks: American so-called ‘Republicans’ of the 21st century are fascists and anti-civilizationalists… authoritarians, totalitarians, and brutes.

KILLERS, when they can, or when they think they are allowed.


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Ho hum.


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It is as true here as ever——–Those that can, do. Those that can’t, run for Congress.


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Those that can in Idiot America (given enough resources) DO emigrate to more civilized and peaceful climes like Costa Rica, New Zealand, the Scandinavian countries ( if one can stand the cold ).


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Don’t let the door hit ya on the way out?


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Achadjian would suck less than Capps or those who have already announced their intention to run. It would still be nice to have someone run who a bit more substance.


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RINO


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It just might take a RINO to win, given the failures of the GOP going back as far as Bordonaro


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You’re smarter than I first thought.


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A RINO only to the right wing extremists who have defined anyone that doesn’t follow their dogma to the letter as a political traitor. Katcho may not be perfect even by my more moderate standards but he is acceptable. This area has a population of moderates (R,D and I) that has been ignored by the GOPs dominant extremists in congressional elections. If they were to actually nominate someone with more reasonable views, they might have a decent chance of replacing a “rank and file” Democrat in Congress.


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Achadjian is a useless toady. He can not point to any accomplishments while in Sacramento, he’d be fully useless in Washington. He needs to go back to managing his gas stations.


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Has there ever been any accomplishment in Sacramento? From anyone?


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The Democrats have gerrymandered the district so it is impossible for a Republican to win. Katcho would be a good Representative. He would at least make some impact in Washington. Capps was an invisible woman in Congress and she just voted the straight party line; she could have just stayed home and handed out her proxy vote to the DNC. She didn’t contribute anything to any important pieces of legislation or get any significant extra resources for our district.


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What a stinking pile !


Lois Capps was instrumental in passing the Affordable Care Act, and now upwards of 11,000,000 Americans now have health insurance ad ‘pre-existing conditions’ are no longer an impediment. Countless thousands of your fellow citizens will live and not die quickly like most Republicans desire.


Name ONE thing, ONE program, ONE piece of legislation that has benefitted America and/or Americans that has originated from the Republicans over the last 100 years.


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And the Band-Aid to repair medi-care because of the Obama Care is going to cost taxpayers how many billions or did we finally hit the trillion mark?


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Where are your facts for this, or are you just blowing smoke out of an orifice ?


Nonpartisan CBO estimates that Obamacare will save taxpayers at least 8 billion $ per year.

http://www.nationaljournal.com/health-care/that-obamacare-bailout-saves-8-billion-20140204


Obamacare to save $190-$300 billion over ten years:

https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/healthcare/report/2013/10/23/77537/the-affordable-care-acts-lower-than-projected-premiums-will-save-190-billion/


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americanprogress.org and the CBO enough said, and the IRS hard drives crashed and Hillary Clinton turned over all required emails……


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FYI, americanprogress.org aka The Center for American Progress is a progressive public policy research and advocacy organization, aka a progressive lobbyist


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“Instrumental” meaning without Lois the legislation would not have passed, a bit of a stretch perhaps. I am one of 11,000,000 who now have Obama care. I used to have better insurance at a much lower cost, but at least most of the doctors I need are accepting my offer to pay cash at the old rate since not one of them accept Obama care. So thank you Lois for taking a bad health care situation and making it worse, but yes some people who were once uninsured now have insurance. As for the Republicans passing any meaningful legislation in the last ten years they have not been able to pass anything due to Harry Reid in the senate and now that Reid is gone as leader Obama will just veto anything they do try to get through. The democrats have been the only party capable of passing anything in the last ten years because they are the only party to control both houses and the executive branch during that time period and the only thing they passed was health care ruination. But if the republicans did have that ability I’m sure they would lower taxes for the super wealthy and tout it as an economic fix and then my insurance rates would go up even more.


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The Democrats only had a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate for just 74 days during the entire Obama administration, along with a very narrow majority in the HOR. That’s when the Affordable Care Act passed. The Republicans have been obstructionists ever since, just like they were before.

We had eight years of the war criminal w.bush previously….and the Republican Congress DID slash taxes for the rich, saying it was an economic cure-all, resulting in the Crash of 2008-2009, much as your prognostication.


The current crop of do-nothing billionaire coddlers have proposed NO jobs programs, NO infrastructure programs, NO immigration reform programs…just 60 bills to repeal Obamacare that they know will go nowhere, and countless riders for restrictions on women’s reproductive freedom.


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Becasue the Dems never use the filibuster…..


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Your first paragraph was reasonably accurate but blaming Bush and tax cutting for the 2008-2009 crash shows abysmal ignorance. The roots of that fiasco go back at least to the previous Clinton administration and were bipartisan in nature. (This is why the only way I could vote for Hillary is if she divorced Bill — or at least his economic policies.)


If you think that the Democrat power structure (including the Clintons) isn’t at least as indebted to “do-nothing billionires” as the GOP, you are (as JMO previously stated) a “true believer” who accepts what they tell you uncritically and without looking closely at what they actually do.


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Civil rights act of 1964. Senator Everett Dirksen


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Did not originate with Republicans. Was part of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s (Democrat ) “Great Society” and in the aftermath of the JFK ( Democrat ) assassination.

Yes, there were sensible moderate Republicans like Dirksen back then, and even a number of ( shudder ) LIBERAL Republicans that supported and voted for Civil Rights; but they were NOT the authors or the main proponents of the legislation. They’re all dead and gone, replaced by ignorant racists or money whores.


And BTW…all of those Southern ‘Dixiecrats’ like Strom Thurmond, Harry Byrd, and later Jesse Helms, and many others ALL switched and became Republicans !


Phony argument.


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Senator Everett Dirksen was my senator, and senate minority leader for over a decade.

He did help to write and pass the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1968, but he was also an extreme Vietnam War hawk and known as the

“Wizard of Ooze”. Dirksen gained his senate seat, in part, with the help of Red-baiting demagogue Senator Joe McCarthy.

Dirksen introduced a constitutional amendment to make school prayer law, but got only 49 votes …well short of the 67 needed.

Dirksen did try, in vain, to make the marigold the state flower of Illinois.


Not a bad man, but really, an ineffectual dummie. His votes for civil rights a crowning achievement.

He did acknowledge that Nixon was a traitor, so that’s on the plus side as well.


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That was the gerrymandered 23rd Congressional district. The one nicknamed “The Ribbon of Shame”, “The district that disappears at high tide”. It tossed Arroyo Grande into Kern County, ignored the Santa Ynez Valley and even parts of Shell Beach on the OCEAN SIDE of Hwy 101. (The Tribune never printed a map of this “ribbon of shame”.) The 24th district was redrawn by judges or a committee not involved in politics.


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The new redrawn 24th District was won both in 2012 and 2014 by Lois Capps, and 2014 was not a good election for Democrats nationwide.

The 24th could be competitive, but not if Republicans nominate extremist freaks.


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Redrawn by a state controlled by the democrats…..


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I would vote for Katcho purely for his pro-gun stance. At a minimum, it shows he has critical thinking skills!


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I might agree with you, his gun stance is good, but his blunder in Paso makes one question those same “critical thinking skills”.


I am still waiting for a more substantial candidate.


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This is welcome. While not a personal endorsement, and I probably would not vote for KA, he is not a bat-crap lunatic and anti-government zealot like so many that have recently infected the Republican party.


As with any candidate, I am eager to examine KA’s policy proposals and platform.


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Slower, I gave you a thumbs down just because you are a True Believer. Nothing personal. Go Katcho!


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No problem …I have a thick skin.

Just curious though: why do you believe that I am a ‘True Believer’, and in what ?

BTW, I did NOT give your post a thumbs down.


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