An early path to public service<\/strong><\/p>\nJacobs proudly says she is a third generation San Diegan, born and raised. When talking about her famous family, she focuses more on their early struggles than on their financial successes.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen my great grandparents first moved to San Diego, they lived in College Area and that was one of the few areas that Jewish families had been allowed to live. Obviously a lot has changed in San Diego and in my family since then,\u201d she said. \u201cI was always taught about how much San Diego has given us and that it was my responsibility to do everything I could to give back and make sure that every kid in San Diego has the kind of opportunities that I was able to have.\u201d<\/p>\n
Unlike many other children raised in families with extreme wealth, Jacobs attended public schools growing up.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy parents felt very strongly that they wanted us to be in public schools and getting an education that was more than just academics \u2014 that we interacted and got to have friends from all different walks of life and that was something that they felt very strongly about,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
When Jacobs entered Torrey Pines High School, she expected that she would follow in both of her her grandfathers\u2019 footsteps and become an electrical engineer. During her high school years, Jacobs was involved in community service, such as leading the youth group at her synogauge and volunteering for San Diego Youth Services to serve the homeless. In her junior year, she took part in a program bringing Israeli Jewish teens together with Israeli Arab teens that inspired her to want to work with people over working in a lab.<\/p>\n
With that as inspiration, Jacobs studied Political Science with a focus on international issues at Columbia University.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are some problems where there\u2019s a solution but we just don\u2019t have political will to do it, and there are some problems that even if we had the political will, we wouldn\u2019t know what to do,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd those are the kinds of problems I got really interested in in college. I spent a lot of time studying some of the smaller conflicts around the world that weren\u2019t getting much political attention and studying peace-building interventions and peace-keeping approaches.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jacobs earned her Master\u2019s in International Affairs from Columbia and then took \u201ca little bit of time off to celebrate\u201d before going to work at the United Nations in the Department of Peackeeping Operations, helping write policy based on research she did in grad school.<\/p>\n
After her stint at the UN, she went to work for UNICEF\u2019s innovation unit, then went to work in the State Department\u2019s Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations during the Obama administration, where she was tasked with helping the State Department better solve conflicts.<\/p>\n
In 2015, Jacobs went to work on the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign, helping the former Secretary of State draft foreign policy. For Jacobs, the Clinton campaign\u2019s loss in 2016 still stings.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m pretty much frustrated and angry every single day because I know exactly what Hillary Clinton and our team would have been doing to prevent us from getting to the position we\u2019re in with coronavirus,\u201d she said. \u201cI wrote the pandemic prevention plan and actually was working with members of Congress on setting up new funding streams for preventing and rapidly responding to pandemic threats.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\nA first run for office<\/strong><\/p>\nAlthough Jacobs\u2019 job for the Clinton campaign was more policy wonk than campaign strategist, she said she did learn some lessons about running for office from her time working for Team Hillary.<\/p>\n
\u201cI will say the thing I learned the most is that you have to find a way to let yourself be as vulnerable and authentic as possible, even when it\u2019s really hard. I think the generation of women who ran for office before us had to be so perfect because they were held to such a standard,\u201d she said. \u201cWhen I first started running for office, I actually wrote down all the mean things I though could be said about me and I made my friends read them to me over and over again to desensitize myself to it. Forcing yourself to just continue to be as open as possible even as difficult things are being said about you, I think is very important and something I learned during 2016.\u201d<\/p>\n
Those lessons were put to the test in Jacobs\u2019 first run for congress \u2014 a 2018 bid to unseat Rep. Daryll Issa in California\u2019s 49th.<\/p>\n
Jacobs said she never thought she would run for office, but circumstances changed in 2017 while running a nonprofit organization after the Clinton campaign ended.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was spending a lot of time overseas and it was kind of the perfect thing to be doing [then] because I was doing really tangible good work around the world and it had nothing to do with Donald Trump,\u201d she said. \u201cBut eventually I started feeling while the work I was doing was really important, everything I cared about was at risk here at home.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jacobs recalls returning from a work trip and landing at JFK the day the Muslim ban was announced and feeling disempowered.<\/p>\n
Also during that time, the Trump administration\u2019s stance toward the LGBT community was affecting her youngest sibling who is transgender and her middle sibling who is gender-nonconforming. That prompted Jacobs to want to do more.<\/p>\n
\u201cI looked at the races here at home and saw the 49th and reached out to Emily\u2019s List and asked if they were going to get a woman to run because I would love to support her and help her run,\u201d she said. \u201cThey eventually called me back and told me that if I wanted there to be a woman in the race I had to run, so I did \u2014 after much heartache. They say you need to ask a woman seven times to run and I think that was pretty true for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jacobs lost the primary, coming in third behind Republican Dianne Harkey and Democrat Mike Levin who would go on to win the seat.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the things I\u2019m proud of is we ran a totally positive campaign, even in the midst of a very difficult primary,\u201d she said, adding that after losing she spent the rest of the campaign season helping Mike Levin win, as well as lending support to other campaigns and other candidates at the local level.<\/p>\n
After her run for the 49th, Jacobs started another nonprofit \u2014 San Diego For Every Child \u2014 because of what she learned while campaigning around the region.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt became clear to me that here in San Diego County we have a huge issue with childhood poverty,\u201d she said, adding that even pre-COVID, 40% of San Diego kids live in poverty.<\/p>\n
Jacobs also joined the Kroc School of Peace at USD as a Scholar in Residence.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\nA second run<\/strong><\/p>\nWhen Rep. Susan Davis announced she was retiring, Jacobs said there were two reasons she decided to throw her hat in the race. One, was that the 53rd was losing 20 years of government experience with Davis leaving and that her previous work in federal and international organizations would help ease the transition.<\/p>\n
The other reason was to bring a more youthful perspective to government.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s really important that we have a new generation of leaders,\u201d Jacobs said. \u201cMy generation are the ones who are really going to be dealing with the consequences of the decisions we are making right now and so we should have a seat at the table.\u201d<\/p>\n
During her primary campaign, Jacobs focused on issues included addressing gun violence, acting with urgency to address climate change and the high cost of living in San Diego.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose are still incredibly important, but I really believe that the next congress will entirely be focused on rebuilding and recovering from the [COVID] crisis that we\u2019re in right now,\u201d she said, adding that the current legislation passed so far only amount to \u201cstabilizing bills\u201d and that more stimulus is needed to regrow the economy.<\/p>\n
Jacobs sees future legislation as a chance to make some systemic changes and shape the future for \u201cwhat we want it to look like\u201d \u2014 especially when it comes to dealing with issues of climate change and protecting workers.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a real opportunity here I think to do things differently,\u201d she said. \u201cPart of that is making sure that other priorities are imbued in any recovery and thinking about how we can make sure that we are prioritizing companies that have emissions targets in line with the Paris Agreement.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlso, as we\u2019re doing quantitative easing or bailouts, [we should be] thinking about what the unemployed sector really looks like,\u201d she continued. \u201cA lot of folks are harkening back to the programs that came out of the Great Depression which are really good models in some ways but I think we need to realize that the construction industry has become much more technical than it was then and unlike then, the vast majority of people that are out of work right now are in the service sector.\u201d<\/p>\n
And despite the enormous cost of rebuilding the economy after the COVID crisis passes, Jacobs still favors support for large government initiatives, including a Medicare for All plan.<\/p>\n
\u201cI not only believe that it will still be possible to do Medicare for All but actually it is more important than ever,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019re seeing 20-30% unemployment and people\u2019s healthcare is directly tied to their employment, which means we\u2019re going to have a de facto public option when all of the people who lose their employer-sponsored health care still need care in the middle of a pandemic. And if that\u2019s the case, we might as well do it in a strategic way.\u201d<\/p>\n
To deal with the costs of programs, Jacobs favors repealing the GOP tax bill \u201cthat didn\u2019t do anything to grow the economy,\u201d raising taxes on very wealthy people and cutting tax loopholes.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy generation will be the one that will have to deal with the consequences of this deficit down the road,\u201d she said, adding that despite its costs, the government needs to use the current zero Fed rate to keep states afloat and provide stimulus to jumpstart the economy.<\/p>\n
- Comun\u00edquese con el editor Jeff Clemetson en jeff@sdnews.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By JEFF CLEMETSON | Downtown & Uptown News<\/p>","protected":false},"author":778,"featured_media":222355,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11555","_seopress_titles_title":"Jacobs stresses readiness in campaign for congress","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11547,11551,11550,11555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-255669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-news","category-top-stories","category-uptown-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/778"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=255669"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255669\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/222355"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=255669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=255669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=255669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}