The future Donald Trump administration looked to Santa Barbara County for a cabinet pick. President-elect Trump reportedly met with former California Lt. Gov. and Santa Maria Mayor Abel Maldonado in Palm Beach, Fla., on Dec. 28 to discuss the possibility of Maldonado’s leading the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).
A local farmer, Maldonado is one of five people currently being considered for the job.
Like anyone nominated for a cabinet pick and subject to Senate confirmation, Maldonado will be vetted to determine whether he has the ability to head a key government post.
If appointed, Maldonado would lead a department composed of 29 agencies that enforce the federal government’s policies on food, farming, forestry, and agriculture. The Sun was unable to reach Maldonado before press time.
According to Andy Caldwell, executive director of the Coalition of Labor, Agriculture, and Business (COLAB)—a local nonprofit that advocates for agricultural, labor, and business interests—Maldonado’s appointment would boost the Central Coast’s agricultural economy.
Caldwell also said that he believes Maldonado could help bring in more funding for water access to the drought-stricken county—for both farmers and residents. Santa Barbara County is one of many counties that rely on water imported from other areas of the state, according to Caldwell. The Agriculture and Food Research Initiative doled out $10.7 million in USDA grant money in 2016 to improve sustainability for water quality and resources for farmers, ranchers, and other land managers.
USDA programs for community access also include the Emergency Community Water Assistance Grant Program, which awarded Guadalupe $347,000 in 2015 to fix a secondary well pump that went bad two years prior.
As agriculture secretary, Caldwell thinks Maldonado will also bring more federal attention to areas like Santa Barbara County that grow a variety of crops, rather than the soy- or corn-dominant Midwest, which Caldwell said gets most of the pull in Washington, D.C.
“We grow 25 percent of the nation’s food supply, and we have literally hundreds of specialty crops that are grown in California and no where else,” Caldwell told the Sun, adding that Santa Barbara County grows more than 60 crops alone. “Sometimes we don’t get any of the love or the attention from the federal government that we should be getting.”
Unlike those other areas where the crops are mostly machine planted and harvested, Caldwell added, Santa Barbara County is unique because many of the crops here are handpicked, which requires vast amounts of labor resources—the majority from migrant laborers.
Maldonado is the son of an immigrant farmer who came to California from Mexico in the early 1960s through the Bracero Program. The program was a series of agreements between the U.S. and Mexico initiated during World War II that brought hundreds of guest workers to the state. Caldwell hopes a modern, similar program could be instituted if Maldonado is appointed.
But all isn’t well with Maldonado when it comes to farm labor. As co-owners of the multimillion dollar Agro-Jal Farming Enterprises, he and his brother Frank Maldonado are accused of violating several California labor laws regulating wages and working conditions going back decades, according to a class-action lawsuit former employees filed in San Luis Obispo County Superior Court on July 15, 2015. Currently the case is in the discovery phase, according to the plaintiffs’ attorney, Allen Hutkin.
As head of the USDA, which includes the Forest Service, Maldonado could play a hand in determining whether oil drilling and fracking is allowed in the Los Padres National Forest. There are “several degrees of separation” between the Secretary of Agriculture and the Los Padres National Forest, explained Los Padres ForestWatch Executive Director Jeff Kuyper in an email to the Sun, who also noted that the position does set “overall policies and priorities” for national forests. Decisions made by the Secretary of Agriculture “could guide the direction of our local forest for years to come.”
“We hope that the Secretary of Agriculture—as the chief steward of our national forests—will strengthen protections for these public lands, not open them up for more development,” Kuyper wrote.
In the past, Maldonado accepted nearly $60,000 in campaign contributions from members of the California Foundation on the Environment and the Economy as a state assemblyman between the years of 1999 and 2004, according to a 2005 New Times article, “Is Abel too friendly with the energy biz?” The foundation, according to its website, is a “non-partisan coalition of business, labor, environmental, and community leaders in California.” The money came from several sources, including the “state’s largest energy companies: Southern California Edison, Sempra Energy, PG&E,” according to the New Times story.
Maldonado, a Republican, was among several Hispanic business leaders in California who stood against Trump when the President-elect called some undocumented Mexican immigrants “rapists” and “criminals.”
“We will never support you, your candidacy, or your enterprises,” Maldonado wrote in an open letter last July following Trump’s remarks.
Caldwell said that despite Maldonado’s early opposition to Trump, he would be a better pick because of his first-hand knowledge of farming.
Maldonado would be the first Latino on Trump’s team if appointed.
Staff Writer David Minsky can be reached at dminsky@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Jan 5-12, 2017.