Political newcomer Nathan Mintz founded the South Bay Tea Party shortly before becoming so fed up with Sacramento he decided to run for the 53rd District’s State Assembly seat.
The Republican candidate has been called a “divisive personality” by his Democratic opponent Betsy Butler. In response, Mintz has pointed to endorsements by politicians who “reach across the aisle” as being reflective of his willingness to put partisanship aside and find solutions.
Mintz, 27, ran unopposed in the June primary for the district that includes Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach, Redondo Beach, Lomita, Torrance, El Segundo, Marina del Rey and the Venice Beach region of Los Angeles. He has since raised roughly $200,000 for the upcoming Nov. 2 general election. He said he has personally knocked on 5,000 doors in the South Bay over the last several months and held 50 meet-and-greet events, including one on Oct. 17 at the home of Neil and Linda Polan in Redondo Beach.
“You find out what’s wrong by listening to people and asking questions,” said Mintz, a Redondo Beach resident.
In his Torrance office headquarters, Mintz talked this week about his top priorities: cutting “out of control” government spending, the creation of jobs and the improvement of California’s schools.
The Assembly race represents Mintz’s first political campaign. He works as a radar systems engineer for Raytheon and said he never set out to become a politician.
“I was fed up,” Mintz said. “I’ve lived in California my whole life and when you feel like the ship is sinking you grab a bucket and pour the water out. Better yet, you seal the hole.”
 “Obviously government doesn’t work out as nicely as engineering. But at the same time, there’s not much consideration in government for how to streamline the process. Systems engineering is all about taking problems and decomposing them into smaller problems. That’s the game I’ve played and what I plan to do in Sacramento.”
Mintz earned bachelor and masters degrees in material science and engineering from Stanford University, where he said he was known as “the closer” for the Stanford College Republicans.
“I was the guy they went to when they needed something and nobody else could get it done,” he said. “Whether they were trying to raise money or kick off an event, I’d pull a rabbit out of my hat and make it happen.”
Spending an entire career working and forming relationships in the public sector, as Butler said she has, isn’t a quality Mintz sees as a plus for South Bay residents.
“I’m for a citizen legislature rather than Sacramento insiders with the whisper gallery,” he said. “I’d rather see people coming from the community with community concerns.”
“You can have all the relationships in the world, but if you have no solutions to bring to the table then that doesn’t really matter.”
He also expressed concern over Butler being backed by trial lawyers.
“That draws serious questions about what type of decisions she would make in Sacramento,” he said. “It’s very disconcerting.”
Mintz blames years of multiple and overlapping jurisdictions as the culprits of wasteful government spending and for a lack of accountability. He also called for a cap on pensions that doesn’t allow government employees to spike salaries their last year of employment to increase retirement funds. He called the disability rules in the state “crazy” and proposed a graduation process that would train people on disability to do other jobs and provide for a more efficient way for them to get off of it.
“It’s turned into a poverty trap,” he said.
Mintz said that over-regulation and high taxes are burdening businesses, sending them out-of-state and eroding California’s manufacturing base. He noted that California is one of three states that charge a sales tax on capital equipment.
“We need to get the suffocating weight of Sacramento off the back of businesses,” he said. “I think we should be paying people to open businesses rather than charging them.”
Though not in favor of off-shore drilling, Mintz is opposed to an oil extraction tax, since a portion of oil companies’ expenses go toward exploration.
“If we have the tax, they’ll simply cease exploring here,” he said. “People who propose these things just look at it as a revenue source but don’t look at how businesses look at landscapes when making future investments.”
Mintz said that until reliable and cost-effective green technologies are developed, non-green companies should not be penalized. Instead, he suggested offering tax credits for businesses that reduce their oil-dependence.Â
“Some people are betting the entire economy on solutions that don’t exist yet,” he said. “When I see someone standing in line with a pink slip, I can’t see waiting on something that hasn’t been invented yet. As an engineering major, I have a leg up over people in the assembly who don’t come from industrial backgrounds.”
Mintz said that school testing should be reevaluated and implemented on a non-interference basis. He proposed that the state’s education code be revised to put one state entity in charge of schools, instead of multiple offices, and that control should be shifted toward local school boards.
“When there’s a problem with a school, you don’t get on a plane and go to Sacramento. You go to a local school board meeting.”
He is against Proposition 19, saying that the issue of marijuana is a federal, not state, problem.
“It would put California in jeopardy,” he said.
Mintz believes that illegal immigration is mostly a federal issue, but said that in the state, he would give priority to residents living here legally concerning issues such as college and university admissions.
“People who are following the rules should have priority and access for services,” he said. “But a path to citizenship is not a state issue.”
He expressed opposition to Proposition 27, which would leave redistricting with the legislature, and favors Proposition 20, which would assign redistricting powers to a 14-member commission, because he doesn’t think the people benefiting from redistricting should be drawing district lines.
Mintz said that after he is elected, he will keep the conversation going with residents so people start to feel like the government is helping them again.
“This is a real race,” he said, citing a recent flashreport.org article that stated Mintz was four points behind Butler in a poll. “Not like some others that seem to be slam dunks. It could really go either way here.” ER
