Q&A with Jay Obernolte: See where the incumbent candidate stands on issues before November

High Desert district representative, Jay Obernolte, will be on the ballot this November seeking reelection.

Obernolte represents California's 23rd district, which includes the High Desert, Big Bear, Lake Arrowhead, Yucca Valley, Yucaipa, Loma Linda, southern Redlands, and portions of San Bernardino and Highland.

A Republican representative in the U.S. Congress since 2021, Obernolte sits on multiple House committees, many of which are technology- and energy-geared. Core issues powering his vote and bill propositions are access to affordable yet quality healthcare, securing the southern border, growing the economy, and veteran homelessness.

The Daily Press sat down with the House of Representatives incumbent to get to the bottom of these and more pressing issues that drive his campaign for High Desert readers to stay up-to-date before election day.

His answers have been edited for length.

You believe in access to affordable and quality health care. How would you make that attainable in District 23 when the median annual salary of High Desert residents is $44,000 a year, according to a 2019 survey?

That's one of the most pressing issues facing residents of the High Desert. We're in what I call a "medical desert" where access to high-quality, affordable health care is very problematic.

One of the main problems is that the medical and Medicare reimbursement rates are so low that, in reality, only large practices are able to stay in business servicing mainly Medicare patients.

I've been a champion in my time in the state legislature and now in Congress to raise those reimbursement rates, particularly in rural areas, to reflect economic realities and provide medical care in places like the High Desert.

But in general, our healthcare system is woefully inefficient.

Some of the bills that I've recently championed focus on attracting more doctors to rural areas and attaining more flexibility to Telehealth or virtual health, which is an incredibly powerful diagnostic tool.

Where do you stand on women's health care? I read that you favored overturning Roe v Wade in 2022. Can you explain why?

We're talking about abortion? Well, Roe v. Wade, obviously, that's a Supreme Court issue. I do not sit on the Supreme Court.

I said I agreed with the decision of the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade. The reason I agree with it actually has nothing to do with abortion.

In this country, the role of our judiciary is to interpret written law. When the courts issued Roe v. Wade, they did not rely on any written law. They created that based on this fallacious idea of privacy. I didn't see any way that the court could have reached that conclusion.

So, I think that this is a state issue because we exist in a system of federalism, it's not an issue that the federal government is preempted. I think it's very appropriate that this issue is decided on a state-by-state basis, which is what the Supreme Court has said.

Another issue for you is a market-based multimodal approach to energy production. I read that you oppose California's ability to ban traditional gas-powered cars. What are some of your plans to enact the multimodal approach to energy in the High Desert?

One of the most pressing problems for the people that I represent is the cost of energy. We pay $1.50 more per gallon than the U.S. average for gasoline.

I represent more than 100,000 people who commute into and out of Los Angeles every day. Every extra dollar that we impose on them is a dollar that they're unable to use for providing necessities to their families.

I've been one of the leaders in opposing the mandate that everyone drives an electric vehicle. It’s not that I don't support electric vehicles, I think they're fine. I just support people's ability to choose for themselves the car that works best for them and their families.

District 23 pays, on average, over twice as much for residential electricity as neighboring states like Arizona and Nevada. This is a real problem. The cost of energy is driving the cost of living, which is driving people down a slippery slope into poverty.

The solution is to unleash the power of American energy production in all of its different facets like solar and wind, but without allowing the cost of green energy to fall on the backs of working-class people.

Securing the southern border and maintaining the Adelanto ICE Processing Center is high on your agenda. Why would you say that it's important to keep the center open?

We are having a problem with illegal immigration, particularly across the southern border. The Immigration and Customs authorities have told us that they are completely overwhelmed and don't have nearly enough bed space to be able to house detainees.

They don't have the court facilities to process their cases expeditiously, so they're having to release those immigrants into local communities, completely overwhelming the residents of those communities.

They just don't have the resources to deal with that kind of influx, and they're not getting those resources from the federal government.

Our Adelanto facility has a 2,000-bed capacity which only has four detainees in there right now because the Department of Justice agreed to shut the facility down to new intake during the COVID-19 era.

That restriction has been lifted in every single other processing center, except for Adelanto.

I've been pushing the Department of Justice to get that ordinance lifted. We just got some good news this past week that they’re going to engage in the lifting of the mandate in July.

It’s also a deplorable waste of taxpayer resources when you have a facility that costs $85 million a year to run and you're only using it to house four detainees.

How would you reassure High Desert residents, if at all, who are either illegal themselves or have illegal relatives already in the area?

It's important to note that we are a nation based on immigration and that we should be doing everything that we can to encourage legal immigration.

But we're also a nation based on the rule of law, which means that the people who come here need to come here with the understanding that they're agreeing to follow our laws.

It is disrespectful to the people who have followed the laws and come here legally to allow people to come to the U.S. in such large quantities illegally.

I believe that our system needs comprehensive immigration reform and we should be very encouraging of legal immigration, but we have an obligation to enforce our border security and to prevent people from coming here who break the law.

Growing the economy and bringing jobs to California's 23rd District is also one of the main concerns for High Desert residents. Do you have any plans to bring some more jobs to District 23?

First and foremost, we need to make sure that this is an affordable place to live. California has the largest number of migrations out of the state in the country.

We already have the highest poverty rate in the country because of our high cost of living. We also have the highest rate of homelessness and one of the lowest affordability of housing of any state in the country.

That's why people are fleeing California. We need to make sure that the trend is reversed.

The way we do that is by controlling the cost of living, creating more economic opportunities for the people that live here. I would like to see more jobs in all different sectors, including warehousing and more high-tech jobs. We also need a four-year university in the High Desert.

One other issue that I'd like to address that's crucial to the High Desert is homelessness. There are roughly 3,300 homeless individuals in San Bernardino County alone. Is there anything on the 2024-25 agenda that addresses that issue?

Just last week, we passed the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act out of the House. That is the annual defense bill that addresses all of the different operations of the Department of Defense.

One of the things that I have been very concerned about is the continued rise in veteran homelessness.

It's completely unacceptable for any veteran to be unhoused and it's something that I'm very dedicated to stopping.

We were able to secure an increase in funding for veteran homelessness of over $100 million this year. I'm hopeful that will get us much closer to solving the problem.

How would you persuade an on the political fence, Democrat, or independent voter to vote for you, if at all?

Persuade is an interesting word. If you focus on getting reelected every two years and you think that part of your job is campaigning, then I don't believe this is the right job for you.

I don't approach my job that way. I do the best job that I can at representing my constituents, which includes going out into their communities, talking to them, learning about their problems, and then going back to Washington and helping them solve those problems.

If I do those things successfully, then I view that as already campaigning. If I fail to do those things successfully, I think I don't deserve to be reelected.

I'm not in the persuasion business to answer your question.

However, if you're asking about why an independent voter might feel incentivized to vote for me, I would say it's because I have been ranked consistently as one of the most bipartisan members of Congress.

That's important to contrast that with my opponent.

My opponent has a very different political agenda. He's a Progressive whose policies would only align with a narrow majority of the people who live in this congressional district.

I spoke with your running mate Derek Marshall and asked what he brought to the table that you did not. One of his main concerns was your vote in the Build Back Better Infrastructure Bill that would give $3 billion of funding to the High Desert, $12 million of which was set aside for the Brightline West Bullet Train project. Can you elaborate on why you voted in opposition?

I think he's getting a little confused.

He's conflating two different bills. Build Back Better was a separate bill from the infrastructure bill. However, I voted against both of them.

The funding that you're referring to was in the infrastructure bill, and I voted against it because most of the spending in that bill, more than half of the proposed objects, was not for what I consider infrastructure.

With our extreme federal deficit, I didn't think it was responsible to spend money on things that weren't infrastructure, which is why I voted against it.

On the other hand, I've been a vocal supporter of Brightline for years but opposed the High-Speed Rail Authority in California since its inception. If you look at the economic component, the High-Speed Rail will never be able to run without an ongoing operational subsidy from taxpayers.

Taxpayers will be on the hook for paying for the operation of the system forever, as opposed to what Brightline is doing with the high-speed rail line from Rancho to Las Vegas, where they will not require an operational subsidy from taxpayers.

What is your team projecting that your odds are for the 2024 campaign?

We just had a primary in March. I think the results of that speak for themselves.

This will be the fourth time that I've run against Mr. Marshall, and I've increased my margin of victory every single time. So, we expect a similar result this year.

Lastly, what kind of community outreach are you doing from now until November? How can people volunteer for your campaign, and what does volunteering look like?

I would encourage them to go to my website and email us if interested. You can find information on how to become a campaign volunteer from there.

We're interested in people who would like to have yard signs in their yards, people who would like to phone bank for us, and walk neighborhoods for us. This is all very helpful.

McKenna Mobley is a Daily Press reporter and can be reached at mmobley@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Victorville Daily Press: Here's where Obernolte stands on issues important to you