VALLEJO – Former Dixon Mayor Thomas Bogue and former West Sacramento Mayor, Christopher Cabaldon are both running for state Senate District 3. The winner  on Nov. 5 will replace state Sen. Bill Dodd, who is not eligible for another term. 

The district includes all of Solano County, significant portions of Sonoma, Napa and Yolo counties, as well as a sliver of Sacramento County. A portion of eastern Contra Costa County encompassing Brentwood, Oakley and Discovery Bay was added in the 2020 redistricting process. In that process the district also lost portions of Northern Contra Costa, Sonoma and Sacramento counties. 

Thomas Bogue

Dixon City Councilmember Thomas Bogue received the most votes as the Republican candidate for District 3 in the March 5 primary election. Bogue served on the Dixon City Council from 2010 to 2014, then he was elected to serve a 4-year term as mayor in 2016. After losing his reelection bid in 2020, Bogue won back his current seat on council in 2022. 

Bogue is the owner of First Choice Automotive in Dixon. He is an advocate for parental rights in schools and supports the removal of some LGBTQ materials from school libraries. Bogue supports reducing taxes on small businesses and streamlining approval processes that can slow much needed development projects such as housing. 

“We often talk about the most critical issues as being crime, homelessness, all the things that we're all very aware of, but we’re really missing the most critical point,” he said. “The most critical issue is the lack of our government doing the things that are necessary to correct it.” 

In a recent community forum, Bogue was asked, “Do you see opportunities for the state legislature to partner with local, city, county governments and federal programs to help California families achieve stable, affordable housing, defined as costing no more than 30% of a household's annual income?”

Bogue said that the income level required to qualify for affordable housing is a joke. “Affordable housing is anything less than what it costs you to buy a house in the big cities like San Francisco and Oakland,” he said. “There's no such thing as affordable housing for those who are on moderate to low incomes.”

Bogue said that the temporary housing the county provided for the unhoused is not fixing the homeless situation. “That was just a vanity for the moment, and then they’re right back out on the street,” he said. 

In another community forum question, Bogue was asked, “California's budget has been characterized by both unanticipated surpluses and deficits. How does your local government experience inform your role in budgeting at the state legislative level?”

Bogue responded, “Our economy is being bombarded with our government by over regulation on many of our industries, raising their cost of additional expenditures which we, as the citizens, the people who consume those goods, have to absorb.” 

He said that when taxes are raised on everyday, normal citizens, it has to go to a vote by the people, but that businesses can be taxed as the state pleases.

Bogue said that even after the COVID-19 pandemic, when he said that prices went up and didn’t come back down, the state continued mandating more regulations to collect more money and create more fees. 

“I, frankly, I'm tired of it, so I'm not going to give you all the pat answers,” Bogue said. “I'm just going to tell you straight how this impacts me, and those around me that I see.”

Bogue said that paying teachers more will help improve K-12 public education in districts with a high percentage of lower income families. “Teachers are some of the lowest paid people as professionals,” he said. 

Bogue also called for a fair and equitable curriculum and a return to the basics of teaching history, math and proper spelling. “Stop doing these core classes that really mean nothing to the real world that we live in, other than just to have them think alternatively,” he said. “Quit inundating and stressing them with society's ills and woes, and just let them focus on being children.”

When asked how he would address community concerns over police violence, Bogue said that although he strongly supports law enforcement, he also knows that officers can overstep their bounds. He said that accountability is the key to restore community faith in law enforcement.

“We all have Constitutional rights.” Bogue said. “If [officers] ignore the individual's Constitutional rights, then they should be held personally responsible. It all comes down to personal accountability of officers. When they overstep their boundaries, they need to be held personally accountable. And not just a slap on the wrist.” 

Bogue did not respond to the Vallejo Sun’s interview requests. 

• Fundraising: Unavailable 
• Endorsements: Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association (HJTA), Reform California, Crime Victims United, Solano, Yolo and Sonoma County GOP, California GOP, and the Contra Costa, Solano County  and Sonoma County branches of the California Rifle Pistol Association.

Christopher Cabaldon

Former West Sacramento Mayor Christopher Cabaldon has a strong foundation in politics and education. He worked for eight years in the California State Assembly as a committee staff director and then as chief of staff. He was vice chancellor of California Community Colleges from 1997 to 2003 and continued to take on roles in education policy leadership while serving as mayor of the city of West Sacramento for more than two decades, from 1998 to 2020.   

“I believe very much in building economic and educational prosperity for folks throughout our district and the state, and making the investments and supporting policies that will reduce homelessness and provide safety and security for California,” Cabaldon said. 

Cabaldon related his experience in West Sacramento to the current problems facing Vallejo. 

“West Sacramento, back then, was challenged. We were the poorest city in the entire region, both in money, in taxes and infrastructure, but also in hope and expectation that things could be better,” Cabaldon said. He said that West Sacramento is a case study in how a community can be transformed.

“We won the national award for America's most livable small city,” Cabaldon said. “So I know that government, when we get it right, we can dramatically change people's lives.” 

“We cut unsheltered homelessness in my city by half while I was mayor, and then for the last 10 years I was mayor, we kept it exactly flat, even though everybody else in the region, and most of Northern California, was going through the roof,” Cabaldon said. “It is possible to do, but that requires that full range of solutions, and it requires close attention at the local level to the unique characteristics of what your unhoused population looks like, what some of the barriers and opportunities are.”

Regarding the report that state money spent to solve homelessness was not accounted for, Cabaldon said it is not the massive scandal that his opponent’s backers make it out to be. He said there may be 50 different departments working on the problem that don’t share the same database.

“Maybe a program that's designed to improve livability and encampment, maybe that has an effect on crime, but that's not being tracked because that's a different agency that's in charge of that,” Cabaldon said. 

“But,” Cabaldon said, “we can do much better, and then we have to, because we’re nowhere.”

Cabaldon said that mechanisms of accountability, evaluation and data collection need to be put in place, followed by a willingness to make tough calls. 

“You have to be ready to be innovative and try different approaches,” Cabaldon said. “If something you're doing is working, do more of it and scale it up, and if something you're doing is not working, even though there's a whole agency and a whole set of folks that are supportive of it, you have to make the tough call and start moving the money somewhere else.”

Cabaldon said that the long run solution to affordable housing is to raise income levels through better investments in education, and not try to build a housing market all around a minimum wage economy. 

“But in the near term, there are a lot of things that we can do,” he said. “We need a state housing policy that recognizes that we have to make good, high quality projects that neighbors will embrace and support and love and appreciate. We have to make those financially viable, and the state needs to be a partner in that at the same time that it's encouraging local communities to fix their zoning.” 

Cabaldon said that the state budget is completely unlike local government budgets in fundamental ways. He said that California’s tax system is designed so that ultra billionaires pay more, but that income is erratic. 

“You can't forecast it anymore,” Cabaldon said. “We need Constitutional and legal protections to stop, not just politicians, but everyone, from going on spending sprees when our revenues are up, because the one thing we know is that they will come back down again.”

West Sacramento was incorporated in 1987 and was served by the sheriff until then. Cabaldon said that one of the motivating reasons for incorporation was outrage in parts of the city that it was a cowboy area for the county sheriffs to just go and do whatever they wanted. “And so people said, ‘we need our own department so that we can control our destiny.’”

We, over several years, built a highly professional, well respected, nation-leading police department,” Cabaldon said. “I know it can be done, and it has to be done.” 

Cabaldon said that everybody he has talked to about the Vallejo Police Department is concerned about it as a policy issue for their community, but also as a personal safety issue, both from crime and from issues with the department. 

“I will also be working closely with the Attorney General and others to make sure that accountability is also there for the for the residents and businesses of Vallejo as well, in order to help that journey forward, so that so it can be a department that that the community is deservedly proud of,” Cabaldon said.

• Fundraising: As of early October, Cabaldon’s campaign had raised $617,403. His top contributors include the California Dental Association PAC, Katie Villegas Campaign, LGBT Caucus Leadership Fund, Pechanga Band of Indian, Viejas Band of Kumeyaay Indians, Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation, Faculty for Our University's Future a Committee, California Association of Health Plans PAC, and the Personal Insurance Federation of California Agents & Employees PAC.
• Endorsements: California Democratic Party, Planned Parenthood Northern California Action Fund, Sierra Club, California Medical Association, California Asian American & Pacific Islander Legislative Caucus, California Legislative LGBTQ Caucus, U.S. Reps. Mike Thompson and John Garamendi, Solano Community College Trustee Quinten Voyce. Vallejo Mayor Robert McConnell,  formerVallejo Mayor Terry Curtola, Vallejo City Councilmember Cristina Arriola, State Senator Bill Dodd, the Northern Solano Democratic Club, SEIU California, California Professional Firefighters, Faculty Association of California Community Colleges and Sacramento Sheriff Jim Cooper.