photo credit: Nicolette for Congress

As part of KRCB's ongoing coverage for the June 2 primary election, we're bringing you interviews with the candidates on your local ballot. Below is KRCB Radio News Reporter Noah Abrams' interview with 2nd Congressional District candidate Nicolette Hahn Niman. 

Proposition 50's redistricting is grouping new counties and communities into California's 2nd Congressional District.

It's made for a crowded ballot of candidates for a district which now includes Modoc and Marin, Redding and Point Reyes.

San Rafael Democrat Jared Huffman has represented Marin County, and the state's North Coast, in Congress since 2013.

One of the challengers for the seat this time around is themselves a recognizable name from Marin.

Nicolette Hahn Niman is a rancher, attorney, and author who lives in West Marin.

"I kind of jokingly say I got into the ranch profession in the oldest way," Hahn Niman said in a recent interview with KRCB. "Marrying in is kind of the oldest way of getting into it."

Hahn Niman's husband, Bill Niman, founded the well-known Niman Ranch meat company, and later BN Ranch in Bolinas.

Nicolette Hahn Niman practiced for multiple years as an attorney at the environmental law firm Waterkeeper Alliance, formerly headed by the current United States Health and Human Services Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

"I've been on the school board of the Bolinas-Stinson School for the last five years and I've spent a lot of my time working in the community," Hahn Niman said. "I've coached Little League and soccer and been very involved in my church from almost 20 years as well as the work I've done in the schools. And so I've just been working a lot at the community level."

Hahn-Niman said she was spurred to run for Congress, thanks in part to Proposition 50, and the way it drew more rural and conservative areas into the 2nd Congressional District.

"I'm very troubled by the sort of the partisanship and the bickering that's happening at the national level and the way that's distracted the people that are supposed to be representing all of us and our communities," Hahn Niman said. "They're spending their time trying to get attention on social media and trying to get on national news and the cable news shows, and to me, that's what's exactly wrong with politics in our country today."

A rancher herself, Hahn Niman said she also feels the local needs of ranchers and other rural residents were put in the back seat by a focus on national politics in Washington DC.

Of particular importance to her was the Point Reyes settlement which ended most of the ranching and dairy operations within the National Seashore earlier this year.

"Because here was a community of multi-generational farmers and ranchers, some of these families had been there for seven generations," Hahn Niman said. "They're some of the earliest settlers coming to this area from Europe...and so to have a community like that of multi-generational folks that have been working the land and are connected to one another, and to the geography is very rare and special."

The Niman family did not agree to exit the park as part of the settlement, and last February, Hahn Niman, and her husband sued the federal Department of the Interior in an effort to keep other farming, ranching, and dairy operations active within the National Seashore.

Hahn Niman said she's not happy to see the Point Reyes ranching families leave the seashore, and didn't hold back her criticism of current 2nd District Representative Jared Huffman, with the way the settlement ultimately worked out.

"Our congressman never appreciated that and never understood their importance to the community or to our food system and didn't care about their life stories and about their connection to our area and our history," Hahn Niman said.

Huffman has voiced support for the ranching and dairy operations during his time in Congress, including a 2018 bill which sought to continue federal support for working ranches and dairies.

Another major issue, and a current national political topic: affordability. Hahn Niman points to economic factors that have stretched thin family budgets, and pushed families out of Marin and Northern California as another major issue.

"I'm originally from Michigan and I never understood how everything in California could cost so much," Hahn Niman said. "I've lived here for 23 years and I still find it shocking how how much housing costs, how much food costs, how much gas costs. I mean I just heard...that gas is over $6 per gallon on average in California and it's $4.40 for the rest of the country. So, we're $2 over the national average. That is not acceptable."

She said rural fuel costs are a particular pain point.

"Diesel fuel is even worse and...many people in the rural areas rely on diesel," Hahn Niman said. "So, I think everything to do with affordability is really important and I would also throw healthcare and health insurance in there as well. My husband and I pay for our own healthcare premium and our premiums have increased by 40% over the last few years."

Another important topic for Hahn Niman, naturally, is food and agriculture.

"How are we supporting the people in agriculture and how are we making food, particularly food that's nutrient rich like meat, dairy and eggs, how are we making that more available to people and more affordable," Hahn Niman said. "So those are some of the things I'm particularly concerned about and would really work on."

Hahn Niman is the author of multiple food and sustainable agriculture books, including 2014's Defending Beef as well as Righteous Porkchop.

"What we really need to be doing is rebuilding the fabric of our communities and making sure that we can speak together, we can work together, we can sit down together and figure out how to solve problems," Hahn Niman said.

Nicolette Hahn Niman, who is running as an independent, has been endorsed by the Sonoma and Mendocino County Farm Bureaus.