Doug Jenner is a fourth generation alfalfa farmer and cattle rancher in Siskiyou County’s Scott Valley. His biggest political concern is increased land and water regulation. (Lisa Morehouse: KQED)

Up in Siskiyou County on the Oregon border, people say that anyone who calls San Francisco “Northern California” has it all wrong. This is the real Northern California. It’s a sprawling county which is home to the Klamath and McCloud rivers, and the majestic Mt Shasta, but it has barely 45,000 residents. So, here, the answer to the question “What’s government for?” all comes back to people’s relationships with the land.

There’s a phrase some people use to describe what used to dominate Siskiyou County’s economy: red meat and board feet. The first stands for cattle ranching, the second for the timber industry. There are only two lumber mills left in Siskiyou County, but in the north there are still plenty of cattle, tended by people like fourth generation rancher Doug Jenner. His biggest political concern is regulation. As government agencies like Fish and Game seek to protect species like the Coho salmon, Jenner says ranchers and alfalfa farmers who depend on irrigation face more regulations around water and land.

“We live completely different than the southern state,” Judy Grenstead says. “Those in Sacramento, they think they know, but they don’t. They haven’t a clue.”

Jenner feels that many urban government workers and voters around the state don’t know the impact on ranchers. “This country was more or less based on agriculture and industry and resources from land,” Jenner says. “Things have changed to the point, now it’s a lot of technical stuff: iPads, telephones. People are so removed from the land, they just don’t understand.”

Voters hear about endangered fish and animals, he says, and — like ranchers — want to save them. “But before you vote and put your check down, you have to know what’s behind it all.” He feels outvoted by Californians who don’t work the land.

These retirees of different political affiliations gather every Wednesday for lunch. They represent an important Siskiyou County demographic: the elderly. Siskiyou County’s median age is 47. (Lisa Morehouse: KQED)

Twenty miles from Jenner’s ranch, a group of retired women meet at a Thai restaurant in Yreka. The friends gathered around the table reflect a growing share of the county: the elderly. They talk about news over lunch every Wednesday. Today’s first topic is water: all oppose removing dams on the Klamath River, a local issue that gets statewide attention.

“We live completely different than the southern state,” Judy Grenstead says. “Those in Sacramento, they think they know, but they don’t. They haven’t a clue.” While she speaks, her friends nod their heads. While they don’t all share party affiliation, they do review voter guides together every election.

Retired teacher Judy Washington starts her list of political wants and concerns by saying Siskiyou needs “some kind of an economic infusion to offer jobs to people.” A number of these women have children who have moved out of the county to find work. That demographic change means fewer kids in schools and, in turn, local districts have less money.

Maxine Hurley, another former teacher, worries about her retirement funds as ewll as her own health. “Health care, getting all the help we can for hospitals, those things are important to us at our age,” she says.

Health care is also important to Coy Wilmore, a home health care supervisor based in the town of Mt. Shasta. Twenty-five years in the field have made him a supporter of Obamacare. He’s seen budgets slashed but medical needs increase — things that are particularly problematic for folks in Siskiyou County. “It’s a large Medicare population,” Wilmore says, “very independent people who — for the majority — don’t seek health care until they’re very sick.”

Andy Aguilera and his family run the Mt. Shasta Ski Park. He sees tourism as essential to Siskiyou County’s economic future. (Lisa Morehouse: KQED)

That stubborn independence shows up across political ideologies in Siskiyou County. At the Mt. Shasta Ski Park, there’s a crew performing off-season maintenance on ski lifts while Andy Aguilera, who runs this business with his family, looks on. He’s a Republican, but he’s not waiting for politicians to boost Siskiyou’s economy. “The way I look at it is — I’m really not happy with anybody,” he says.

Much of the business in Siskiyou, tourism and traditional agriculture, is weather-dependent. “We’re a lot like farmers,” Aguilera says. “They’re dependent on the rain, and we’re dependent on the snow.” He employs about 300 seasonal workers but Aguilera hopes year-round recreation — like ropes courses and zip lines — could create more jobs in tourism. On the Economic Development Council he’s pushing for a county-wide network of mountain biking trails. “I just want to see everyone do better,” he says. “Bring industry, brings tourists. Keep our generations here. Bring new families here. That would be the ultimate.”

On the road from the ski park, Aguilera’s mountain manager, Richard Coots, clears brush. He’s a Democrat, but says Democrats here are different than in the cities. A couple days ago, he killed and skinned two deer. “Most Democrats probably don’t even own a gun,” he says. He counters statements by conservatives that Obama threatens this aspect of rural living. “He hasn’t taken my guns!”

When he votes for Obama, Coots will be in the majority statewide. But in local races, he’s consistently out-voted. “Being a Democrat in a county like this, most of us are pretty quiet,” says Coots. His politics, though, are shaped by this place. Most of Siskiyou County is federal land, and people here deal with a lot of government agencies.

Coots thinks those agencies are top-heavy, so he’s conflicted about tax initiatives. One thing he’s clear about is what matters most in Siskiyou. “It’s all about the natural resources,” he says. “It’s all about the quality of life surrounding the natural resources, the forest and the mountain. So why can’t we just work it together? Put your personal biases away and look at the big picture.”

Really, he says, regardless of political party, people here should agree on that.

“From the City to the Valley.” This transit map reflects the modern reality that “Silicon Valley” has grown to include the entire San Francisco Bay Area.Credit: Stamen Design

In downtown San Jose, the cavernous, cool ZERO1 Garage is the conceptual epicenter for a wide-ranging art exhibition. Seeking Silicon Valley is an artistic exploration that includes 100 exhibits at 45 museums, galleries, and studios across the Bay Area.

Jaime Austin is one of the curators. Forty years ago, “Silicon Valley” referred to a small clutch of high tech companies in the Santa Clara Valley. Today? “It’s a network of freeways, a network of people, a network of technology, a network of companies and a network is something fairly abstract,” Austin says. “Silicon Valley, at least to me, is really more of an idea, than it is a place.”

Austin stands in front of what looks like a Bay Area public transit map — except the transit is anything but public. It’s a map of corporate bus routes that more than 44-thousand people use to commute to Google, Apple, Facebook and the like. The map (by Stamen Design of San Francisco) is jaw-dropping for its size and complexity — and for what it says about the way Silicon Valley has grown over the last 40 years.

“You know, the idea of San Francisco and Silicon Valley being two different types of cities with two different types of industry is no longer true. The greater San Francisco Bay Area is now interconnected. Because we really are one giant ecosystem.” Austin says.

That ecosystem is also one of the nation’s biggest economic drivers. Like it or not, Silicon Valley has a relationship to cultivate with government. Internet industry analyst and author Larry Downes says some of the most intractable political issues trickle down as big business problems across the world of High Tech. Take for instance, patent law.

“The patent system is utterly and completely broken,” Downes states flatly, “and I don’t know a single person in Silicon Valley, whether they’re a beneficiary or a victim — often both — who doesn’t think otherwise.”

Immigration law is another pain point. Downes points to one example: the best and brightest come here to California to study at our universities, up to the point they’re ready to start working here.

“That’s the moment at which we say ‘You have to leave the United States and go do it in another country.’ I mean, it’s insane!” he says.

More broadly, there’s a vast cultural gulf between Silicon Valley and Washington, DC. Even now, a dozen years into the 21^st century, there are members of Congress who boast about how clueless they are.

Last year, Downes covered the debate over SOPA or the Stop Online Piracy Act, a Congressional measure stopped by an upswell of protest from people and companies concerned about its impacts on the digital realm. Many of those impacts were either unintended or not fully thought through. The bill was largely a creature of lobbyists for the entertainment industry, and many Congressmen were simply taken aback at the public response to the bill.

Downes was in the audience for the hearings. He was shocked at some of what he heard come out of the mouths of some representatives. “‘Well, I don’t really understand the Internet,’ or ‘Well, my daughter uses this device and it sounds very interesting.’” Downes pauses for effect.

“I mean, not only do they not understand these products that we build,” he says, “They don’t even feel compelled to pretend they understand the products!”

The way Downes sees it, government should just stay out of the way. “We built a government that couldn’t do things quickly, because we wanted to make sure that when government acted, it acted carefully and with due deliberation. Of course, that’s a terrible fit for businesses or for technologies that change every 12-18 months. The pace is such that everything you want government to do — even if they did it, it would be too late by the time it arrived.”

Downes recently articulated these views in a commentary for Forbes. But even he admits that what high tech companies want from government depends on what kind of high tech they do. A software developer working on a smart phone app may view government’s “help” more like interference. For companies in other tech industries — med tech, biotech, green tech, clean tech — the view may be quite different.

Priv Bradoo is co-founder of Blue Oak, a venture-capital funded start up that aims to tackle toxic e-waste by grabbing phones and laptops on their way to the landfills of Asia, then extracting the precious metals inside for sale. Sipping on a can of Red Bull in the dappled sunshine outside the company’s offices on Sandhill Road, Bradoo says “I don’t think the government’s in the business of picking winners, but it should be in the business of facilitating and improving and increasing the access to resources that aren’t easy to be funded using small private investment.”

Bradoo says her company would like to build one of their refineries in Southern California to do that extraction. The trouble is, labor, utilities and taxes are more expensive here than in other states. If state and local governments were to sweeten the deal, that might change the math.

“Absolutely. I think it all comes into what are the incentives for us to be here, versus somewhere else,” she says.

Because at some point, Bradoo’s going to have to make the case to her venture capitalists.

“From the investors perspective, that’s usually a big question,” she explains. “Is it going to take two years to put up? We’ve done as much as we can do without actually setting up a facility. Hopefully we can find places where it’s not going to be a problem, but it’s actually even the perception of a regulatory risk which can be a hinderance.”

Beyond that, Blue Oak is going to burn through its VC cash, and the firm will find itself competing for real – inside a system that essentially off-shores the human and environmental cost of e-waste to people in China and India.

Blue Oak Co-founder Bryce Goodman says it matters that the U.S. is not a signatory to the Basel Convention, an international anti-toxic waste dumping deal, and that we don’t mandate companies to take back used electronics on a nationwide basis. Without those kinds of policies, the volume isn’t there to make recycling much of a business proposition in the U.S.

“That’s one place where government can be a driver — is in providing some sort of guarantee for markets that we think are crucial and that won’t exist otherwise,” Goodman says.

Whether their business model relies on a tight relationship with government – or relies on government staying out of the way – one thing is for sure: Silicon Valley denizens don’t leave their relationships with government up to chance anymore. Big companies hire their own lobbyists. Little ones band together in collective lobbying associations, like EngineAdvocacy in San Francisco. This is, after all a democracy, and if you don’t participate, you don’t get a say in what happens.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the industry spent more than $120 million on lobbying in 2011 — twice as much as a decade ago.

Hear the radio version of this story on the California Report.

Read Rachael Myrow’s other stories about the intersection of government and Silicon Valley:

Silicon Valley Republicans: Wandering in a Political Wilderness

Not So Simple Math: Support for Silicon Valley K-8 Teachers in an Era of Budget Cuts

In the Central Coast’s 24th Congressional District, incumbent Democrat Lois Capps is challenged by Republican Abel Maldonado. Here, both candidates are at a September debate sponsored by the San Luis Obispo Times. (Photo: Scott Shafer)

For the past two decades California has been tough political terrain for Republicans, in part because the state’s growing Latino population overwhelmingly supports Democrats.

On the Central Coast, Republican Congressional candidate Abel Maldonado is hoping his Mexican heritage will help bridge that divide by appealing to Latinos and independent voters. Maldonado, a former lieutenant governor, is the kind of candidate the Republican Party covets these days.

“My father and mother came to this country with nothing,” Maldonado says.

He’s the oldest son of migrant workers — Maldonado’s father came from Mexico in 1965 as a guest worker, eventually starting his own farm and growing it into a family business.

“So just imagine me sitting next to my mother picking strawberries in the fields and becoming California’s 47th lieutentant governor,” the boyish 45-year-old says.

Maldonado lost his bid to remain Lieutenant Governor in an election against Gavin Newsom. But now he’s running in the 24^th Congressional District against incumbent Democrat Lois Capps. The newly drawn seat is much more competitive than it was before redistricting. It would seem tailor-made for a moderate Republican businessman like Maldonado.

But the “R” next to his name on the ballot could be a big liability, especially with Latinos, who make up nearly one in five voters in the district. “The Republican Party has not done a good job of communicating with the fastest growing population in America, which happens to be Hispanics,” Maldonado says. “You’re just committing political suicide. It’s just what it is.”

Maldonado’s home town of Santa Maria is 70 percent Latino. At the Center for Employment Training (CET) there, Jessie Chavarria teaches computer skills to a full classroom. Most of the students are immigrants or children of immigrants. And Chavarria says many are simply disengaged from politics.

“Because they don’t see the election and the issues being about them,” Chavarria says. “They think it’s about something else, something that doesn’t really affect them.” But, Chavarria says, the election is all about them — and their future.

“You know they need jobs,” Chavarria notes. “They need jobs to take care of themselves, take care of their families. To Improve their lot in life. Without that, what do they have?”

Chavarria sees it as a vicious cycle — young Latinos think politicians don’t speak to or care about them. So many of them don’t vote — and are consequently ignored.

Down the hall, Jennifer Moran is training her students for jobs in medical fields. Moran keeps voter registration applications in her classroom — and encourages students to use them.

“We complain a lot throughout the terms that we didn’t get this, we didn’t get that,” Moran says. “Did ya vote? ‘No.’ How can you expect to get change if you’re not putting your change into it? You put one grain of salt and that’s all you have, just a grain. Put a bunch of them and you have enough to start cooking, to start getting the pot stirred.”

The director of CET is Gabriel Morales. As a young man, Morales was a Democrat, but now he’s a registered Republican. He traces his conversion back to his faith — and a time when he and others helped build some new churches in Santa Maria.

“It seemed that the people that reached out to us building those churches happened to be Republicans,” Morales remembers. “And then what happened is a lot of the churches I was involved in were Latino churches – and someway, somehow all of us became Republicans.”

Morales will vote for Mitt Romney and probably Abel Maldonado. But he seems conflicted – uncomfortable with a GOP that doesn’t always welcome minorities like him.

That hostility toward immigrants was evidenced by one shopper at the Thursday night Farmer’s Market in downtown San Luis Obispo. Evelyn Roth, a retired haircutter from Santa Maria, was quick to express her view about immigrants who she thinks ignores the melting pot.

“I think we should have only one language,” Roth says. “They should speak English. I’m tired of ‘press two and speak English’ anymore. It’s almost that bad.” But Roth is quick to point out that her criticism does not apply to congressional candidate Abel Maldonado. “He’s fine,” Roth notes, adding “he’s an American — he’s not a Latino. You’re either an illegal or an American. That’s all there is.” 

Latinos might cringe at that characterization. But not all Hispanic voters here supporting Maldonado care so much about his Mexican heritage, either.

Standing behind a table at the market, Pablo Sanchez is describing the award-winning olive oils made on his Paso Robles farm. This fifth generation Mexican American says he’s leaning toward Abel Maldonado — mostly because he seems bipartisan.

“I think the government should stop their infighting,” Sanchez says.  “Get rid of the Republican and Democratic and all that. And become Americans for America.”

Asked if it matters to him that Maldonado is Latino, Sanchez insists it does not. “He is of our race,” Sanchez says. “If he wins, great. I hope he does a good job for us. You know? As long as they look out for America.

But standing right next to Sanchez, his cousin Lucas Hay has a very different take on politics — and Maldonado. “More Latinos that aren’t informed about what’s going on in the debates are more likely to vote for Maldonado because of his last name,” Hay says. “And so they don’t really know exactly the issues going on.”

Hay says he favors Democrats because they seem to care more about helping those with less. He’ll be voting for the incumbent in this congressional race, Democrat Lois Capps.

Polls show the race is tight. If Maldonado ekes out a win, his candidacy could provide a roadmap back to relevance for the Republican Party in California.

Read More: Scott Shafer’s blog post — Central Coasters Hungry for Substance, Sick of Campaign Negativity

Lois Capps and Abel Maldonado at a debate (Scott Shafer/KQED)

We’re hitting the road, or should I say the beach, on the Central Coast, where a hotly contested congressional race is under way. The new 24th Congressional District includes all of San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties, plus a small part of northern Ventura County. One person told me that living here is like being in a National Geographic Magazine — it’s that beautiful.

As I walk along the beach near Morro Bay, I come across two people, Gary Ubaldi and his wife Gail. They both say they’re registered Democrats, but he says they’re open-minded.

“I believe I’m very open-minded,” Ubaldi says. “I know my wife is. I mean she listens to both sides of every argument and would vote for who she felt was the best candidate, period. Regardless of party.” And what is Ubaldi looking for from Washington?

“I’d like to see them be prudent financially,” Ubaldi offers. “Government needs to protect every one of its citizens. And I’d like to see government make, for example, the tax laws equitable for everybody.”

The new district is more evenly split between Republicans and Democrats, and the desire for bipartisanship seems part of the political DNA here. At the monthly breakfast meeting of the San Luis Obispo Chamber of Commerce, Charlene Rosales, who works with the local United Way, says people are longing for stronger leadership.

“How is the economy going to improve?” Rosales asks. “How are we going to build stronger, more positive relationships with each other? And government does have a role in that. They have a role in keeping our communities healthy and viable. And we need that work to get down to our level.”

Rosales echoed another comment I heard a lot here — complaints about political gridlock in Washington.

“When people can’t come to agreement and when they can’t compromise and work things out and they take a congressional break with no important decisions made, I think people are bewildered.”

Thomas Wood, who works in the hotel business, puts it more bluntly.

“If the company I worked for performed as Congress is performing we’d be out of business,” insists Wood. “If I performed in my job the way Congress is performing, I’d be fired.”

While voters clamor for substance, Capps and Maldonado — or at least their campaigns — apparently have something else in mind. In television ads running relentlessly on the Central Coast, the candidates accuse each other of not paying their taxes.

At a standing-room-only debate recently, the negativity in this contest was clearly on voters’ minds. Charlotte Byrne of Atascadero says she might not vote at all.

“However, if between now and the election I see one ad on television that is positive, I will vote for that person,” Byrne promises.

Is she really that turned off?

“I am,” she says.

During a debate that lasts about an hour, Democrat Capps and Republican Maldonado spelled out their differences on issues ranging from safety testing for the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant here to climate change and health care. But it was this issue of partisanship and negative ads that generated the most heated exchanges.

“It is tough in a campaign when there are 12 different ads — negative ads — distorting my record,” Capps alleged. “How do you set the record straight?”

“Those ads that she started running, I didn’t recognize our local congresswoman anymore,” Maldonado countered. “Cuz those were the first ads she ran in the fall; attacking my mother, my father, my brother, my sister, my wife and myself on taxes.”

But that kind of political catfight does nothing to address the concerns voters here are having — like what to do about the economy. That’s a highly personal issue for plenty of people, including those who work in the district’s exploding wine industry. On the sprawling, 458-acre Premiere Coastal Vineyard in northern Santa Barbara County, Merrill says he and other growers are worried. Actually, very worried.

“If you go through the Santa Maria Valley right now you’ll see signs out in the fields looking for workers,” Merrill explains. “‘If you’re looking for work, come and see us, they say. Nobody can find enough workers. Not the strawberry growers, not the lettuce guys. Not vineyards. Everyone’s short, about 50 percent of what we should have.”

Merrill, who also heads up the County Farm Bureau, says growers desperately need and want one thing from the federal government: a temporary worker program.

“Time’s running out for us,” he warns. “And without those people they’re gonna go out of business.”

Merrill complains that while Congresswoman Lois Capps listens to their concerns attentively, she never takes the lead on anything. Merrill likes Abel Maldonado’s experience as a grower, but blames the Republican party for blocking immigration reform.

“The Republicans seem to get mired in this thought that we’re taking jobs away from people who are here and want the work,” Merrill says. “But that’s really not the case. And I know that from personal experience.”

The new political lines drawn by the Citizens’ Commission successfully created a district that is more politically diverse and competitive. But so far at least it hasn’t delivered what many voters here say they desperately want — a civilized and substantive campaign focused on issues, and,  ultimately, a winning candidate who goes back to Washington to put the district ahead of his or her own political party to get things done.

Boris Feldman tries to woo a potential voter. (Image Courtesy Boris Feldman)

For Election 2012 The California Report has been hitting the road to talk to voters in various parts of the state –  previously we’ve visited Riverside and Fresno. Today we turn to Silicon Valley. You might think the famously entrepreneurial business culture of Silicon Valley naturally fosters Republican sentiments, but the Republicans we talked to say they’re wandering in the political wilderness.

Riverside Foreclosure Auction/Scott Shafer

Outside the courthouse in the city of Riverside housing speculators sit in lawn chairs — protected from the mid-day sun by little blue awnings – and place their bids in the daily home foreclosure auction.

The same scene plays out every week day in San Bernardino, Chino, Fontana and other Inland Empire cities. Behind each auction is someone who reached out for the American Dream but couldn’t hold on.

On a road trip to take the political pulse of this growing region, The California Report’s Scott Shafer talked with homeowners losing their grasp and investors scooping up properties at a discount — who say they are re-energizing the area’s economy and helping it recover from the crushing effects of the recession.

But it will take a long time for the Inland Empire to bounce back from the mortgage meltdown. The region boomed in the last decade, then suffered the second highest home foreclosure rate in the country. It still struggles with 13 percent unemployment, higher than the state average.

The recession has left many in the Inland Empire feeling politically irrelevant and overlooked, in spite of the fact that the region is home to 4 million people, larger than many states.

In his reporting, Shafer found people working to create a stronger political voice for the region. And this election year could be key.

Though the Inland Empire has long been a Republican stronghold, many of the new arrivals from coastal cities are more likely to be Democrats. That means that several congressional elections here are now hotly contested. And with both parties campaigning hard, the Inland Empire could get what it’s been craving: attention from politicians.

Listen to Shafer’s story: