Alex Balekian: Why I’m running for Schiff’s House seat

The criminal hellscape of San Francisco descended into my hometown of Glendale with the recent broad-daylight robbery of the Americana. Twenty years of Democratic policies have turned the California Dream into a waking nightmare, and the GOP facilitated the Democratic supermajority because it alienated immigrants and middle-class voters. With my campaign for California’s 30th Congressional District, I hereby reclaim this state and repair this dysfunctional Republican Party for the immigrants and disappearing middle class who once defined the American Dream.

My Armenian immigrant parents gravitated toward the GOP because its tenets embodied the immigrant experience: hard work, assimilation and self-made success; you did not rely on the government to manage your life. I came of age under Gov. George Deukmejian, an Armenian whose tough-on-crime, small business-friendly policies virtually guaranteed that all California Armenians would join the GOP. The Republican Party of the 2000s failed us by embracing corporate lobbyists, abandoning small businesses and adopting deficit spending. Supporting the Democratic Party, with its tax-and-spend budgets and its apologist policies both domestically and internationally, was never an option. We just girded ourselves for the Washington gridlock and tried to survive.

And then the smash-and-grab mob came to our neighborhood.

I am a practicing physician in the community, and because I share the collective exasperation of this congressional district, I am stepping up to be the only law-and-order candidate to run against the compassion-for-criminals policies of the Democratic field. Immigrant communities, like Armenians, often align closely with conservative values, as demonstrated during recent school protests. This alignment, however, often goes unnoticed and unappreciated. Unfortunately, the left has labeled this community — my community — “White nationalists,” simply because they demand that their children not be subjected to ideological indoctrination. This is where the Big Tent GOP can offer a welcome alternative, an open embrace instead of unjust labels, and a political home that appreciates their values and respects their concerns.

Democratic policies have degraded California into unfettered homelessness, unpunished criminals neglected educational standards and a suffocating regulatory environment for small businesses. Poorly executed liberal Democratic environmental regulations have resulted in a financial windfall for well-connected corporations that throw obscene amounts of lobbying money at corrupt Sacramento politicians while saddling us with higher cost of living for housing, utility bills, insurance premiums and gas. But the Democrats could not have streamlined their misguided liberal policies had the Republicans not defined themselves (and alienated others) as the party of old White men aligned with greedy special interests. No more.

I draw inspiration from my favorite president — Theodore Roosevelt — to stand as the candidate for fiscal responsibility, limited government, individual freedoms and a robust defense against the trampling of our constitutional rights by self-serving members of both political parties. Together, we can redefine what it means to be a Republican, drawing strength from our shared principles and acknowledging our rich diversity. I am living proof that the GOP is a broad coalition, capable of representing the rich diversity of our nation. As a gay Armenian man, I embody the inclusive future of our party, showing that conservatism is not limited by race, ethnicity or sexual orientation. We will no longer tolerate our children remaining uneducated and scoring dead last in national rankings; we can no longer double-down on failed Democratic efforts to address homelessness, crime and higher cost of living.

Because two times zero is still zero.

Alex Balekian is running for Congress.