Endorsement: Elect Suzette Martinez Valladares in 23rd Senate District

Voters in the redrawn 23rd California Senate District have an open seat to fill. The district spans Santa Clarita in Los Angeles County on the west out toward Hesperia in San Bernardino County in the east and north beyond Lancaster.

Running to represent the district are former Assemblymember Suzette Martinez Valladares, who narrowly lost re-election two years ago to Pilar Schiavo, and local attorney Michael Kipp Mueller.

There are things to appreciate about both candidates. Valladares is a moderate Republican with a background that includes serving as executive director of Southern California Autism Speaks. While in the Legislature, she was a member of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus and successfully promoted legislation on practical issues like expanding preschool access for dual-language learners. She also amassed a stellar voting record in defense of taxpayer interests.

Her opponent, Mueller, initially presents as a moderate Democrat. His public posture has been one of a former criminal prosecutor who will fight for this “forgotten district.”

But then this facade quickly falls apart.

While he has repeatedly, for years, described himself as a “criminal prosecutor,” a “former prosecutor” who served in the Obama-era Department of Justice and in the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office, it’s been revealed that Mueller has been exaggerating his actual experience.

This sort of resume inflation is hardly new, but it’s hard to take a candidate seriously when they do this.

Beyond this, though, Mueller didn’t exactly impress us with his advocacy of the high-speed rail boondoggle and his fuzzy views on healthcare and criminal justice issues.

Valladares, by contrast, has a clear record to run on and a common sense approach to government. Unlike Mueller, she hasn’t felt the need to fudge the truth about who she is or what she’s done.

This is an easy call.

Elect Suzette Martinez Valladares to the California Senate.