Activism

In the 1990s Bennett served as the spokesman for the Voters for Alternate Sites organization which opposed the construction of a new campus by the California State University near the Robert Taylor Ranch. He also worked as one of the leaders of the Alliance for Ventura's Future which aided in the election of three candidates to the Ventura city council.^[11] He later served as president of the Alliance for Ventura's Future.^[12]

Ventura City Council

Bennett ran for one of three seats on the Ventura city council as a write-in candidate in 1991, and placed fifth out of eighteen candidates.^{[5][13][14][15]} During the campaign he had been endorsed by Patagonia, Inc. and the Ventura Sierra Club.^[16][17] Bennett won election to the Ventura city council after placing second in the 1993 election and during the campaign he spent $21,487.^[5][18][19] He served on the city council until 1997, when he announced that he would not seek reelection due to a campaign promise to only serve one term.^[4][20]

Bennett nominated Gary Tuttle, a member of the city council, to serve as mayor in 1995, and initially supported him, but after Jack Tingstrom won the position of mayor by a vote of five to two a second vote was requested by Bennett and Tuttle so that they could unanimously support Tingstrom.^[21] During the 1996 presidential election Bennett seconded a motion to allow Republican vice-presidential candidate Jack Kemp to use Ventura's city hall for a rally in the name of "bipartisanship".^[22]

Ventura County Board of Supervisors

Susan Lacey, a member of the Ventura County Board of Supervisors, retired from her position.^[5] Bennett announced that he would seek election to the seat on April 7, 1999.^[23] Bennett won the initial election against Jim Monahan and Rosa Lee Measures and then defeated Monahan in the runoff election.^[24][25] He announced on June 9, 2003, that he would seek reelection and won reelection in the 2004 election against Jeffrey Ketelsen.^[26][27] He won reelection without opposition in 2008.^[28] Bennett defeated Bob Roper, Christy Weir, and Neal Andrews in the initial election in 2012, and defeated Roper in the runoff election.^[29][30] He defeated Dave Grau in the 2016 election.^[31] Bennett was unable to seek reelection as supervisor for a sixth term due to term limits that were implemented in 2008. Matt LaVere, the mayor of Ventura, was elected to succeed Bennett.^[5]

During his tenure he served as chair of the Ventura County Board of Supervisors multiple times and Kelly Long succeeded him as chair after his last term as chair.^[32][33]

Bennett announced on November 16, 2011, that he would seek election to the United States House of Representatives from California's 26th congressional district, but he announced at the California Democratic Party's state convention that he was withdrawing from the election.^[34][35][36] Julia Brownley won the seat in the 2012 election.^[37]

California State Assembly

Bennett ran for a seat in the California State Assembly from the California's 37th State Assembly district. He placed second in the primary behind Republican Charles W. Cole and ahead of Democratic candidates Cathy Murillo, Jonathan Abboud, Jason Dominguez, Elsa Granados, and Stephen Blum. He defeated Cole in the general election.^[38][39]

During Bennett's tenure in the state house he served on the Budget, Education, Elections, Privacy and Consumer Protection, Rules, and Water, Parks, and Wildlife committees.^[40]

Bennett is a member of the California Legislative Progressive Caucus.^[41]

Campaign finance

Bennett, who had refused to accept donations above $100 during his city council campaign, proposed legislation to limit campaign contributions to $100, but the city council voted four to two against it.^[45] He requested that the campaign contribution limit be placed onto the ballot as a proposition by the city council and the placement was approved by a vote of five to two. The League of Women Voters, Common Cause, Sierra Club, and Voters Coalition of Ventura aided Bennett in the writing of the proposition. The proposition limited campaign donations to $100, but allowed it to be $200 if the candidate agreed to limit their spending to $20,000.^[46] Bennett's Measure H was passed by voters in the election.^[47][48]

The city council voted five to two, with Bennett against, in favor of repealing legislation that prevented organized groups from donating money to candidates.^[49] Bennett announced on August 25, 1997, that he would push for a ballot initiative to the 1998 ballot to prohibit organized groups from donating to candidates.^[50] However, he later stated that a proposition was unnecessary after the city council voted to require PACs to report all contributions above $25.^[51]

During his campaign for a seat on the board of supervisors in the 2000 election he limited individual campaign donations to his campaign to $500.^[52]

Ventura County had legislation passed in 1991, which limited campaign contributions to $750 during primaries and $250 during general elections and was changed following the passage of a state law in 1996, but when the state law was found unconstitutional the county's law was invalidated too. Bennett proposed legislation while serving on the board of supervisors to create an eleven-member ethics panel, with all members of the board of supervisors, the district attorney, sheriff, assessor, auditor-controller, treasurer-tax collector, and county clerk-recorder serving on the panel, to enforce the legislation. Individual donors would be limited to donating $500 per candidate and campaign spending would be limited to $75,000.^[53][54]

In 2003, he and Supervisor Kathy Long proposed legislation that would limit campaign spending for supervisors to $150,000 and limit spending for countywide officials to $500,000. Their legislation also limited donations to $600 who accepted campaign spending limits while the limit would be $300 for those who did not.^[55] The legislation was approved by the board of supervisors by a vote of four to one.^[56]

Economics

Bennett stated that "no way would I support cutting the police budget" during discussion on the city budget and he stated that he was comfortable cutting $100,000 from other areas of the budget.^[57] In 2001, Bennett gave support to and voted for increasing the minimum wage to $8 per hour with medical benefits or $10 per hour without medical benefits.^[58][59] Bennett called for the board of supervisors to pass a resolution in support of prohibiting new federal leasing for offshore oil and gas drilling.^[60]