Michele Weslander Quaid calls for limited government, end to overspending, respect for liberties
Michele Weslander Quaid said she’s running for Congress to preserve America’s liberty.
Editor’s note: This is part of a series on candidates in advance of the June 7 primary.
By DAVE MASON
NEWS-PRESS MANAGING EDITOR
Michele Weslander Quaid said she is finding a lot of support from people across the political spectrum as she campaigns for the preservation of American liberties.
“Overall, people still value the U.S. constitution and individual liberty, and they’re concerned about that being threatened right now,” Ms. Weslander Quaid, a candidate for the 24th Congressional District, told the News-Press.
The Santa Barbara resident is running in the June 7 primary as an independent against U.S. Rep. Salud Carbajal, D-Santa Barbara; Republican candidate Brad Allen of Summerland and independent candidate Jeff Frankenfield of Santa Barbara. If elected, she plans to caucus with the Republicans in the House.
Since announcing her candidacy in March, Ms. Weslander Quaid, 52, has been critical of COVID-19 restrictions and other limitations that the government has put on individual liberty.
“If you’re a parent who shows up at a school board meeting, concerned about what your children are being taught, you’re labeled a domestic terrorist,” Ms. Weslander Quaid said. “We’ve gone from political correctness to cancel culture to labeling people as terrorists if parents dare to speak up or if citizens dare to hold their government accountable.”
And Ms. Weslander Quaid pointed out the pandemic’s lockdowns and their impact on local businesses.
“The pandemic crushed the middle class,” she said. “Businesses that were there for decades didn’t reopen. People had to move out of the area.”
Ms. Weslander Quaid also criticized the federal government for overspending, which she noted is increasing the national debt and damaging the economy.
“We are spending more than our gross national product,” Ms. Weslander Quaid. “That’s a national security problem. Who owns our debt?
“It’s also a moral problem because we’re saddling future generations with a debt they can never repay,” she said. “The government is printing money and devaluing the dollar.”
She noted inflation is now at a 40-year high.
“People think of gas prices,” she said. “That impacts far more than gas. It impacts the entire supply chain. It impacts every aspect of our life.”
Michele Weslander Quaid announces her candidacy for Congress in March before supporters at South Coast Church in Goleta.
Ms. Weslander Quaid, who favors lower taxes and limited government, is endorsed by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayer Association Political Action Committee.
When asked about an issue in the news — the expected overturning of Roe v. Wade — Ms. Weslander Quaid said the issue of abortion should be left to the states. She said the U.S. Constitution doesn’t give the federal government the power to decide on abortion matters.
“The founders wanted the federal government to be extremely limited,” she said.
Ms. Weslander Quaid also stressed the importance of the U.S. becoming energy independent again and called for restarting efforts to build the Keystone Pipeline.
And she stressed that the U.S. should focus on the national security and humanitarian problems resulting from the open southern border.
“Because of the open border, we have an increase in crime, homelessness and human trafficking,” Ms. Weslander Quaid said. “The only people benefitting from an open border are the criminals, drug lords and human traffickers.”
Ms. Weslander Quaid, who was born in Los Angeles, grew up in Santa Barbara and left with her mother, a single parent, before high school to Seattle. She went on to earn her bachelor’s in physics and engineering science in 1991 at Seattle Pacific University and master’s in optics in 1994 at the University of Rochester in New York.
After the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, Ms. Weslander Quaid became a senior executive in defense intelligence. She worked on the integration of the intelligence community and worked to change the mindset among agencies from the “need to know” to the “need to share.”
When the Office of the Director of National Intelligence was created, Ms. Weslander Quaid served as the first intelligence community deputy chief information officer, working with 17 organizations. She went on to other intelligence roles, including chief technology officer for the National Reconnaissance Office.
Later, Ms. Weslander Quaid worked for Google as its chief technology officer for the public sector, and in 2015, she founded her own company, Sunesis Nexus.
She is the widow of retired Air Force Lt. Col. Christopher Quaid, who died from brain cancer. Their daughter, Sophia Quaid,
is 13.
“Memorial Day is very personal to me and our daughter, Sophia, who was 9 years old at the time of her father’s death,” Ms. Weslander Quaid told the News-Press. “We understand service, sacrifice, and loss, and we love the United States of America as much as our beloved husband and father did.”
Ms. Weslander Quaid remarried to a widower, Michael English.
email: dmason@newspress.com
