California Lutheran University, along with the Acorn Newspaper, will be sponsoring the Ventura County House of Representatives and California Assembly public forum in the Gilbert Sports and Fitness Center on May 10 from 3-5 p.m.

It is a two part event in which candidates for the 44th Assembly District will participate in the forum from 3-4 p.m., and three out of the four candidates from the 26th Congressional District will participate from 4-5 p.m.

“It’s really a community event,” said Herbert Gooch, political science professor and organizer of the forum. “It’s a service not just to the university, but the community at large.”

Gooch will introduce the candidates. Managing Editor of the Acorn Newspaper John Loesing and Kyle Jorrey, editor of the Thousand Oaks Acorn, will delegate asking the candidates questions. Questions that will be used were constructed with the assistance of Gooch himself.

All are welcome to attend and admission is free.  Sophomore political science major,  Ashley Lomelin, plans to take advantage of the opportunity to experience this event taking place on campus.

“We not only get to hear first-hand the proposal of the candidates, but also learn a bit more of the actual process of the district elections,” Lomelin said. “We can also give our input directly to the candidates without a messenger or third party involved.”

This is not the first time a public forum has been held on CLU’s campus. According to Gooch, there are have been multiple occasions in which political events have taken place in Gooch’s 25 years of teaching.

“This should be what the university is about,” Gooch said. “We should be the ones that help engage the public and our own students, and there is no better way to do it than to actually get these people and you can look them in the eyes.”

Many people are supportive of bringing political candidates to discuss ideas at CLU. Freshman political science and Spanish double-major, Paulina Nunez favors events like these.

“I think it is a really good thing that CLU holds events like this because it gives political science and legal studies students a chance to engage in what might become their future career,” Nunez said. “It is really different to read about it and actually see politics in real life.”

The public forum is beneficial to not only political science majors, but to everyone who is affected by politics.

“By bringing the debate to the school, we can learn about what the candidates hope to bring,” Lomelin said. “It is important to students who plan to pursue a political and government position in the future because it gives a good taste of what is to be expected. It is also a good opportunity for students of other majors because many of platforms that the candidates propose deal with goals that affect the futures of the community as a whole.”

For those who want to attend, but cannot make it, there is an opportunity to watch the forum on a live stream. It will be broadcast at ustream.tv/channel/cal-lutheran.

Alexa Datuin
Staff Writer
Published May 7, 2014