They didn’t appear before the students to debate, deliver stump speeches, or solicit votes. There wasn’t press or campaign staff present. Instead, two candidates for the Assembly seat in the 37th District met together for the educational benefit of the students in a public policy and politics class at California Lutheran University.
Jeff Gorell, an adjunct professor who teaches the class–a part of CLU’s graduate program in public policy and administration–is also a veteran and former prosecutor that’s all but guaranteed to win the Republican primary. Ferial Masry is one of the nation’s foremost Saudi-American politicians and is seeking the Democratic nomination.
The candidates met for the first time in the hallway outside of Gorell’s classroom in the Humanities building on CLU’s Thousand Oaks campus last Thursday, and then Gorell introduced Masry to the class. For the next hour-and-a-half, Masry discussed her life story, her past races (both she and Gorell have run for the 37th Assembly District before), and her thoughts on the wars in the Middle East, where her son fought in the U.S. Army.
