SAN DIEGO — Tuesday evening, voters had a chance to hear from the two candidates vying to lead the 51st Congressional District at a forum at Temple Emanu-El in Del Cerro.
The 51st District is an area that has more than 760.000 residents, and includes central and eastern San Diego, as well as the cities of La Mesa, Lemon Grove and El Cajon.
Representative Sara Jacobs, a Democrat, is asking voters to elect her to a third term in Congress. She is going up against Republican Bill Wells, who has served as the mayor of El Cajon since 2013
On the economy and cost of living, Wells said at Tuesday's forum, "We need to import natural gas, we need to look again at nuclear power, we need to look at making ourselves competitive, we have to bring our jobs back."
"For every one dollar that we invest in high-quality early childhood programs, we actually save the federal government six dollars," Jacobs said. "That to me is an excellent ROI and exactly the kind of investment we should be making in the future of our economy."
On the issue of immigration and border policy, Jacobs said, "The way to get a more orderly and humane process at the border is to expand the legal pathways that we have. We haven't had real immigration reform since before I was born, and I am young, but I am not that young."
"We need to go back to policies where if you want to come from another country, you go to the country next door to you, you apply for asylum, get a court date and you go through the process," Wells said. "That way the United States of America gets to decide who gets to come in, gets to look at your background and gets to decide if you're a good fit for America."
Asked before the forum what made him the better candidate, Wells told CBS 8, " I think her policies are policies that are a failed experiment that have basically failed miserably, and it's time to get away from that and get back to some common sense ideas."
When asked the same question, Jacobs said, "I've been able to find ways to deliver for our community, passing bipartisan legislation on food security, on housing, on providing for our military service members and their families. It would be my real honor to continue doing that in Congress."
Jacobs is one of the youngest members of Congress, and currently sits on the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the Armed Services Committee during her time in office, She has focused on federal legislation to address homelessness and housing affordability here in San Diego, as well as helping parents struggling to afford raising their children, currently working to expand the Child Tax Credit and to make it permanent, and to make child care more accessible and affordable.
She has also pointed to immigration reform as one of her other top priorities, helping to secure $150 million for local nonprofits to care for migrants seeking asylum here in the U.S.
Her opponent, Bill Wells, has claimed that Jacobs, along with the Biden administration, has failed in her duty when it comes to immigration policy. He has said that, if elected to Congress, he would work to secure the border by redirecting the border patrol.
He has also touted his policies as mayor of El Cajon in combating homelessness, vowing to withhold federal grants to the state if elected to Congress unless California does more to get homeless people off the streets. Wells has also pointed to increasing public safety and addressing the nation's economic crisis and inflation as his other top priorities.
In the primary earlier this year, Sara Jacobs secured 57 percent of the vote and Wells secured about 39 percent, while the two other candidates shared less than four percent.
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Candidates
Rep. Sara Jacobs is in her second term representing California's 51st Congressional District. Jacobs was elected to the House of Representatives in 2020 and is a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and House Armed Services Committee.
Mayor Bill Wells has served the City of El Cajon since he was elected to the city council in 2008. Wells was elected Mayor of El Cajon in 2013. Prior to entering elected office, Wells spent decades working as a Doctor of Clinical Psychology and registered nurse.
CA-51 represents the cities of El Cajon, La Mesa, Lemon Grove, and the unincorporated communities of Spring Valley and La Presa.