By Helen Tomlin News Review Staff Writer– A United States Senate candidate, Denice Gary-Pandol, spoke to members of the local chapter of the California Republican Assembly (CRA) at their July meeting. One of several declared candidates on the Republican ticket, Gary-Pandol seeks to fill long-time Democratic Senator Diane Feinstein’s seat. She has traveled throughout California for 20 months, “providing solutions to California’s several crises and security needs for our nation.”
Even though she grew up and now lives in Bakersfield, Gary-Pandol has lived in other California cities for her education and work. She holds an undergraduate degree in Political Science, with an advanced degree in International Relations from the University of Southern California. While in graduate school, she worked with Top Secret clearances for Analytical Assessments Corporation, where she conducted research and “wrote on matters of critical concern to the United States.” After graduate school, she worked with a team to complete “White Papers” on intelligence systems.
Besides researching, analyzing, and writing, Gary-Pandol has taught upper-level government, political science, and international relations courses at USC Irvine, Summit Bible College, the American Jewish University, and numerous community colleges. In Kern County, she served as the Community and Media Outreach Committee Chair for the county’s Human Relations Commission.
In addition to her work, Gary-Pandol also reaches out to help people in other countries. For instance, she raised funds to provide clean water to villages inside Cambodia and helped in the relief effort for orphaned and abandoned children in Romania.
While speaking to the assembled group of citizens, Gary-Pandol assured them she would “work to achieve the America first doctrine.” This doctrine outlines many politically conservative goals, such as “securing our borders, restoring our security, empowering law enforcement, and restoring voter integrity.” She believes every parent should have safe neighborhoods and their choice of school for their children. She wants to end “social justice reforms that are soft on crime” and “end California’s water crisis.” She spoke directly to one of the veterans in the audience. She told him she wanted to “end the taxation of American veterans’ military pensions” and support them however she could. Gary-Pandol ended her speech by asking the members to vote for her at California’s primary election on March 5, 2024. For more information about where she stands on many other issues, her website is DeniceGaryPandol.com.
In closing the meeting, the current president, Karen Taggart, emphasized the importance of becoming politically informed and voting in next year’s election. She said, “This is the most important election we’ve ever had because we have never been this close to a communist/socialist country than we are now.”