Bill Bloomfield, an Independent, Challenges Congressman Waxman

Clarification: A print version of this article stated that Bloomfield supported Proposition 8. Bloomfield voted no on Proposition 8 (a ballot measure aiming to ban same-sex marriage). Bloomfield said he believes it “is a state’s rights issue.” Fixing Congress and putting the interest of the country before partisan divide are just a few of the key issues motivating Bill Bloomfield (I) to run against longtime incumbent Rep. Henry Waxman (D) for the newly redrawn and expanded 33rd Congressional District. Currently living in Manhattan Beach, Bloomfield, who was raised in Pacific Palisades and Santa Monica Canyon, said that he has spent most of his life inside the boundaries of the new district. Bloomfield attended Paul Revere Middle School and graduated from Palisades High in 1968. After receiving an undergraduate degree at UC Berkeley, he earned an MBA from Harvard and then went to work for his family’s business in El Segundo–the Web Service Company (now called WASH Multifamily Laundry Systems), a multi-housing laundry provider that today has 40,000 locations in nine states. He later became chairman of a real estate company and several other small firms. Bloomfield, who has been accused by Waxman of being a ‘Republican in disguise,’ said that he is running for Congress as an Independent because ‘of how partisan Congress has become.’ The coming elections are not a question of ‘how conservative or of how liberal you are,’ Bloomfield said. ‘It’s a question of are you going to put the interest of the country ahead of your personal politics. Are you going to make the tough choice and risk reelection in order to do the right thing for your country?’ As for the accusation of choosing to run as an Independent for fear of competing as a Republican in a strong Democratic district, Bloomfield said: ‘I chose to run as an Independent in March of 2011, and there is not one person on this planet who knew Manhattan Beach would be in Waxman’s district in March of 2011.’ ‘I am running because Congress is broken and I want to get it working again,’ said Bloomfield, who is the one of the co-founders of No Labels, an organization that includes Republican, Independents and Democrats. No Labels is dedicated to ending partisanship in Congress and includes Nancy Jacobson, a prominent Democratic fundraiser and former financer of Democratic National Committee, as one of its founders. Bloomfield said, ‘Yes, I was very involved with the Republican Party but I was always trying to expand the party.’ Before the open primaries this year, a candidate had only two viable party choices, said Bloomfield, who considers himself a social moderate and pro-choice. One of the wonderful things about being a non-partisan candidate is that ‘I can say it like it is. I don’t have to worry the special interests that fund both political parties,’ Bloomfield said. ‘[Waxman] can never talk about educational reform because the teachers unions are funding his party.’ Waxman, who was first elected to Congress in 1975, hasn’t had to campaign for nearly 40 years, said Bloomfield, who feels confident that Waxman’s partisanship will finally catch up with him in November. ‘Congressman Waxman has been a leader in hyper-partisanship,’ said Bloomfield, noting that over the past four years, the incumbent has averaged a voting record of more than 90 percent along his own party lines. He’s ‘uniquely not qualified to be a part of the solution’ the country needs, Bloomfield charged. On redistricting reform, election reform and things that are needed to get Congress working again, Bloomfield said, Waxman is on the other side. ‘He is steeped in the system that has created the gridlock. I am not running because he is more liberal than me; I am running because of how partisan he is.’ Bloomfield supported a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants already in the country and voted no on Proposition 8 (a ballot proposition banning same-sex marriage.) An Independent, Bloomfield is contending in a mostly Democratic yet more conservative district than Waxman’s current 30th District. According to Ballotpedia, an online encyclopedia of political data, 44 percent of the registered voters in the 33rd District are Democrats, 28 percent are Republicans. As for campaign expenditures, since May 24 Bloomfield has spent close to a $1 million while Waxman has expended about $300,000.