Presidential candidate Gov. Jay Inslee brings campaign to Malibu Hills mobile home park hit by Woolsey fire

AGOURA HILLS — Washington Gov. Jay Inslee will take his nascent campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination to the Malibu Hills Monday to meet with residents of a Malibu Hills mobile home park devastated in the Woolsey fire.

Inslee, who earlier this month launched a campaign overwhelmingly focused on climate change, is set to tour the Seminole Springs Mobile Home Park, where nearly 100 homes were destroyed in November, his campaign announced.

California is the fourth state on what the Inslee campaign has dubbed the “Climate Mission Tour,” following Iowa, Nevada and Texas.

Inslee was in Austin, Texas on Sunday, appearing on the CNN talk show “State of the Union” and fielding questions at the South by Southwest conference, reiterating how he is making the fight against climate change the centerpiece of his presidential campaign.

During his appearance at the conference, Inslee asked his rivals in the race for the Democratic presidential to join him in calling for the Senate to eliminate the filibuster.

“I call on every candidate to join me in ending the filibuster so we can deal with climate change,” Inslee said during an on-stage interview with Jane Coaston, senior politics reporter with the news and opinion website Vox.

“We’re not going to get anywhere as long as Mitch McConnell has the keys to the car,” Inslee said, referring to the Senate majority leader, a Kentucky Republican.

Inslee was in Las Vegas Saturday, meeting with members of the Nevada Conservation League and educators during his trip.

The tour — focusing on the need to create millions of clean energy jobs across the nation while defeating climate change — began four days after Inslee announced his candidacy Tuesday in Iowa, site of the nation’s first caucuses to elect delegates to the Democratic National Convention.

When he announced his candidacy March 1 at a solar installation company in Seattle, Inslee said he was running “because this is our moment, our moment to solve America’s most daunting challenge and make it the first, foremost, and paramount duty of the United States — defeating climate change.”

Inslee is calling for “a just, innovative and inclusive clean energy economy.”

The promises of Inslee’s “Climate Mission” according to his campaign are to:

— “Accelerate the transition to 100 percent clean energy and net-zero greenhouse gas pollution through targeted strategies for all sectors of our economy”

— “Create millions of good-paying jobs over the next 10 years, benefiting every community, through major new investments in American industries and manufacturing, modernized infrastructure, skilled labor and clean technology innovation”

— Fight “for environmental justice and economic inclusion” pledging to “work with front-line, low-income, and indigenous communities and communities of color to build opportunity, resilience, energy democracy and ensure pollution-free communities”

— End “billions in fossil fuel subsidies and handouts, and hold polluters accountable for the health impacts and environmental harm in American communities”

To Republican National Committee communications director Michael Ahrens, Inslee’s “campaign will only force Democrats into embracing more extreme policies, like a carbon tax, which would kill jobs, raise energy prices and disproportionately hurt working-class Americans.”

The 68-year-old Inslee was born and raised in Seattle, received a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Washington and a law degree from the Willamette University School of Law.

Inslee began his legal career by practicing in the Central Washington city of Selah for 10 years. He first became politically active in 1985 while advocating for the construction of a new high school.

Inslee was elected to the first of two terms in the Washington state House of Representatives in 1988. He was elected to U.S. House of Representatives in 1992, was defeated in a bid for re-election in 1994, unsuccessfully ran for governor in 1996, then was a regional director for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Inslee returned to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1999, was re-elected six times before resigning in 2012 to focus on his ultimately successful campaign for governor. He was re-elected in 2016.

Inslee is among three active or potential candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination set to visit the Los Angeles area in a six-day span. New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand conducted fundraisers in Beverly Hills and Hancock Park Saturday and Sunday. South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg is scheduled to speak in West Hollywood Thursday.

Both Gillibrand and Buttigieg have announced the formation of exploratory committees but have not declared their candidacies.