Joe Collins (R) is running against incumbent Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D) to represent California’s 43rd District. The district includes portions of Los Angeles and Torrance, and the entirety of Hawthorne, Lawndale, Gardena, Inglewood, and Lomita.

If he wins in November, Collins said he has a five-point plan to develop the economy, rebuild relations between law enforcement and civilians, overhaul the education program, and improve the quality of life in the 43rd District. Collins hopes to utilize the Opportunity Zone program to improve CA43's economy.

An Opportunity Zone, or QOZ, is "an economically distressed community where new investments, under certain conditions, may be eligible for preferential tax treatment," according to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). In other words, QOZs are designed to spur economic development by giving people tax incentives to invest in businesses operating within the QOZ.

“I want to incentivize businesses to come back to California, to come back to Los Angeles, and that means getting rid of a lot of red tape that we have when it comes to development and California, getting rid of the taxes that we have in California,” Collins said. ”We’re going to need a representative that’s going to challenge the state of California when it comes to things like taxes. We know our tax dollars are going to waste when we can utilize those funds for something more positive like improving education. Once we get that tax situation under control, we can easily use the low cost of building, the low cost of development to incentivize quality businesses to come back and hire people from communities and give them really good jobs.”

In order to improve education in the 43rd District, Collins said he would closely monitor the education budget, unions, and schools.

“Once we get that oversight, we can kind of see where we’re falling short on our education, we can see where we’re falling short on improving education, and we can start there by fixing these things,” he said.

Collins hasn’t always been a Republican.

“I grew up in a very Democratic household, and I became a Republican in 2004 whenever I joined the U.S. Navy,” he said. “And you know for me, a lot of my mentors said you choose your political party based on the values that matter to you, and you choose the person who you vote for by those same values, also you know what they can do for you. So joining the military, like thinking about this, looking at the history of the Republican party, knowing that the first Black people who were in political positions were Republican, that is what resonated with me.”

While Collins acknowledges that the Republican party has changed over time and is not the same as it was decades ago, he said “at the end of the day, there is no party who would have absolutely done anything to cater directly to improve the lives of the urban community, the Black community, the Latino community.”

Collins supports President Donald Trump because “he’s about action.”

“When we talk about Opportunity Zones, when we talk about the First Step Act, when we talk about these different programs that he has put in place, although we don’t see that here in the United States, as a representative I would love to use those programs to rebuild our communities,” Collins said. “Now what I don’t like is, the rhetoric sometimes, it can be off putting. The brashness of [Pres. Trump’s] message can be off putting as well. A lot of people were turned off by the way that he communicates, but at the end of the day, we didn’t vote him into office to be our Holy Saint John. We voted him into office to make action, and that’s what I appreciate about him.”

In 2018, Rep. Maxine Waters ran against Omar Navarro (R) and won. Rep. Waters got 77.7 percent of the vote, and Navarro got 22.3 percent of the vote, according to Ballotpedia. A little more than 700,000 people live in the 43rd District of California, but less than 200,000 of them voted in 2018. That means less than 30 percent of CA43 came out to vote for Waters or Navarro.

Collins sees the low voter turnout in 2018 as an advantage in his race against Rep. Waters and hopes that more people show up to the polls to vote for him in November.

“Well, Maxine Waters, she did get a lot of votes, but I think that when it comes to 70 percent of a vote, I think it’s only 70 percent of the people who came out to vote,” Collins said. “We had a lot of issues going into the primary, but we’re moving a very strong campaign right now. We look to take this win and then if we don’t, I’m going to run again because at the end of the day, I’m from South L.A., and the people deserve someone who they can identify with who was from this community, who has served in the military, and have leadership skills to take us forward in a productive and positive manner.”

Collins frequently attacks Rep. Waters on Twitter. In one video, he says, “Nobody likes you. You need to retire. You’re 82 years old. You’re entirely… we’re so sick of you. It’s ridiculous.” 

Collins believes that the number of years one serves in politics should be capped. If he wins this race, he said he'd only serve eight years maximum.

“She became an assembly woman in 1976, and she got into Congress in the ‘91, ‘92 years. And when we look at the amount of productivity that we’ve been able to gain within our community under the leadership of Maxine Waters, I mean when it came to the year 2000 and beyond, we have gotten no opportunities,” Collin said. “And the main thing that Maxine Waters that she sticks to is the issue of race. Everything is racism. Everything is racist, and she’s still taking us back to the Jim Crow era. She wants to take us back to the era where Dr. Martin Luther King was marching for freedom, and I understand because that is where the crux of her life is, but we’re moving forward.”

Collins feels the same way about Rep. Waters that he does about Democratic Presidential Nominee Joe Biden.

“One of the biggest reasons that I’m not a fan of Joe Biden is because of his age. He’s been in office for over 50 years. He has had an opportunity to correct the country in whatever manner he felt was necessary, and after 50 years, I don’t think that you are adequately connected with what we need as country, where we’re going forward in a technology age, to be able to bring us where we need to be,” Collins said. “And the same thing with President Trump. He’s old in age, but politically, he’s still young. He’s a businessman, which in my opinion, gives him a better outlook when it comes to economics and finance than Vice President Biden. But at the end of the day, term limits are absolutely necessary and getting younger people involved in politics is absolutely necessary, and I look forward to leading the charge on that.”

Collins believes he's the "fresh face" that CA43 needs.

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