Ray Lutz 

Congressional

Exploratory

Committee

With the retirement of Rep. Susan Davis, California’s 53rd Congressional District is an open seat. Ray has therefore decided to open a committee to explore the possibility of running for this seat and representing his home district in Washington D.C. An exploratory committee can raise and spend money to investigate his popularity and name recognition through polls and also look into campaign professionals to properly staff his campaign.

A Good Opportunity

California’s 53rd Congresional District stretches from Santee and El Cajon to I-5, including Mission Valley to the north, and south to include the eastern portion of  Chula Vista. The district is a “safe” Democratic seat. Ray, and many other Democrats in the district have been dissatisfied with Susan Davis’s weak positions on many key progressive issues. For example she did not support single-payer heathcare reform, did not support the Green New Deal, and would not seriously help on any activist issues like San Onofre. Ray is a strong progressive who if he decides to run, will be the best candidate for this district.

Challenged Duncan D. Hunter in 2010

Ray, with a Master’s degree in Electronics Engineeing, a couple of patents, and novel under his belt, challenged Duncan D. Hunter in 2010 for what was then called the 52nd Congressional District (now re-districted and called the 50th), and did quite well despite most voters still being confused the difference between 28-year member of Congress, Duncan Lee Hunter, the father, and Duncan Duane Hunter (31), his son. With the same name, same website, letterhead and email address, most voters didn’t know who they were voting for, and continued to vote for the familiar name on the ballot, Duncan Hunter. Nevertheless, Ray did quite well in the general election and is well known as a result. But Ray may be better known for the work he did for the community.

Helped to Stop Blackwater in East County

Ray has been extremely active in the community. He helped stop Blackwater from setting up shop in Potrero, working with the local community and many other volunteers and activists. It was his first official project as part of the newly founded Citizens’ Oversight Projects (COPs). This was a huge success, and now, the valley is being turned into a industrial hemp farm to provide local jobs while respecting the environment. 

Saved ECPAC

Another recent success story is the reopening of the East County Performing Arts Center (ECPAC), now renamed “Magnolia Theater” and run by LiveNation. The El Cajon City council almost tore it down and then wanted Rock Church to turn it into a church. Ray’s work to review the theater and make a case for reopening it was critical in saving this great asset for East County.

Worked to Stop San Onofre Restart and

Unfair Bailout

Ray worked with the community to stop the restart of San Onofre nuclear plant, after the failed engineering design resulted in the steam generators rattling themselves to failure. Ray led the battle to redo the corrupt $3.3 billion bailout deal at the CPUC, and Citizens Oversight became the plaintiff in a federal case against both the CPUC and San Onofre even before it was revealed that former CPUC President Micheal Peevey improperly met with Edison execs to craft the initial settlement in Warsaw, Poland. After 6 years of work, the deal was renegotiated to win back $775 million for the ratepayers.

Formulated HELMS Criteria for safe nuclear

waste storage

With the shutdown deal turned around, Ray set his sights on the nuclear waste problem at San Onofre, where Edison foolishly decided to store 3.6 million pounds of high-level and extremely toxic nuclear waste only 100 feet from the sea wall. Ray designed the HELMS criteria, which stands for Hardened, Extended-life Local Monitored Surface storage, which pushes for dual-wall cask design with 1,000 year life. This was filed with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in 2018 and is still in process, and would impact NRC regulations that apply to all nuclear plants nationwide.

Sued to Stop the Ridiculous Waste Dump on

the Beach

Citizens Oversight, with Ray at the helm, sued the California Coastal Commission to try to block the installation of the facility, and this resulted in a settlement deal where Edison would take commercially reasonable steps to relocate the waste, including hiring a team of six experts to formulate a strategic plan and transportation plan. Thus far, Edison has not come through on their end of the bargain, and this is disappointing, but the pressure is still on through the court.

The Pendleton Option

Ray has concluded that it may be all but impossible to move the waste to New Mexico or Yucca Mountain. But we need to move it inland to higher ground, away from the recently discovered fault line (only 4.5 miles offshore) and probably about 5 miles inland into the protected area of Camp Pendleton. Since this waste may be there for a very long time, it should be above 210 feet elevation to avoid sea level rise, which is now believed to be unstoppable.

Election Integrity

Since the recall election of the Potrero Planning group that originally approved the Blackwater deal, Ray has been intensely involved with Election Integrity. He conducted a thorough review of the San Diego Registrar of Voters procedures and designed the process to carefully watch the batch comparison audits being used in California.

Took San Diego County to Court for 2016

Primary and won

In 2016, he sued the Registrar in San Diego, Michael Vu, for disregarding about 40% of the ballots in the election audit. This would have cost perhaps an additional $3200 to hand-count the missing 8 batches which were required, but instead of cooperating, the County decided to go to court, and then lost. When the appeal appeared to also be going against their wishes to shortcut the audit, the election officials modified a bill late in the cycle, AB-840, so they could ignore statistics and continue to ignore those ballots in the audit.

Expanded Audit Oversight

Ray, with a team of volunteers, has extended the oversight of audits from San Diego to the top 24 counties in California, and has trained volunteers to provide oversight in Florida, Michigan, and wherever audits are being performed. He has been working with experts at MIT and Berkeley in the deployment of risk limiting audits for consequential elections and ballot image audits for local elections.

Earth Summit Series

Ray and Citizens Oversight have founded a new series of events, called “Earth Summit Series” on environmental and climate concerns. These are held generally the first Monday of each month at the Balboa Park Club.

Will you support Ray?

Now is our chance to bring Ray to Washington and make a difference at a federal level. Please sign up to volunteer, contribute, and if you are a campaign professional who can make his campaign a success, please contact the committee to explore his candidacy. Next Sign up Donate More Info