Field for Congressional Race Shrinks

The field of candidates headed to the June 5 elections got smaller following Friday’s candidate filing deadline.

On Saturday, Rob Mardis, of Redlands, announced on the Occupy Redlands Facebook page that he was forced to drop out of the 31^st Congressional District race. The seat serves Loma Linda and Redlands and is being vacated by Jerry Lewis, who is retiring.

“Yesterday, I was disqualified from the congressional primary for not making it into the (Registrar of Voters) office in time,” Mardis wrote on Facebook page. “We had a window of one hour and 18 minutes to get two validated signatures, then cut a check, and to the Registrar of Voters. Two minutes separated myself from being able continue on the ballot.”

Mardis was one of 11 to pull election papers. He is one of five who were officially out of the race as of Friday.

“I am immensely sorry for not being able to continue the campaign,” Mardis wrote. “It is embarrassing for the situation to have been as close as it was, but I want to commend all of my staff members for getting us this far. They helped me do some amazing things and I feel that we could have won.”

Marlin Collins, of San Bernardino, a security guard by trade, said he dropped out because of the $1,700 cost and because he fell short on the number of signatures. He had felt he was called to run.

“I don’t have that,” Collins said. He is not ruling out a future run at public office but for now, he will now focus some of his time to writing a book, he said.

Ryan Stephens, a consultant who works with local businesses, said he decided not to file after careful consideration.

“I’m sure that in the next five or 10 years that, we’ll be going again,” he said.

Scott Brian Ferguson and Ray Culberson also pulled papers to run for the congressional seat, but neither filed, according to Registrar of Voter records.

The candidates who remain in the race are Rep. Gary Miller, Congressman (R-Diamond Bar) Redlands Mayor Pete Aguilar (D), State Senator Bob Dutton (R-Rancho Cucamonga), Community Activist Renea Wickman (D), Congressional oversight attorney Justin Kim, and Rita Ramirez Dean, of Twentynine Palms.

Mardis still plans to be active in the community.

“Now that I’m out of the race, I have the ability to work with organizations that wanted to avoid politics,” he wrote.

He has $1,728.92 in campaign funds left over and plans to run a series of charity fundraisers over the next year with the money.

“My first major event for this will take place in May and I will be doing one every month until March of 2013,” he wrote. “We are looking for 11 businesses that will donate a portion of their profit from an event we set up and promote to charity. I want pure transparency on the organization and event. People will be able to see what we can do as an example of change and growth. I hope that people will learn how to make the system better.”