Experience Comes in Different Forms

By Bonnie Donovan

Oct 10, 2026

When voters choose a member of Congress, what kind of experience should matter?

Is it the number of years someone has held elected office? Or should voters also consider leadership, management, military service, technical knowledge and experience working inside the federal government?

That question is especially relevant in California’s 24th Congressional District.

Salud Carbajal has been an elected official since 2004.

Bob Smith has never held elected office.

But Smith is hardly inexperienced.

Two Very Different Paths

Carbajal served eight years in the Marine Corps Reserve while attending UC Santa Barbara, where he earned his bachelor’s degree. Trained as a mortarman, he was mobilized during the Gulf War to Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, but never deployed overseas. He left the Reserve as a sergeant in 1992 and later earned a master’s degree in organizational management from Fielding Graduate University.

Carbajal then worked in Santa Barbara County government, including for First District Supervisor Naomi Schwartz. In 2004, he was elected to the County Board of Supervisors, where he served 12 years before winning election to Congress in 2016.

That gives Carbajal roughly 22 years in elected office.

Smith followed a very different path.

He spent more than 26 years on active duty in the United States Navy, beginning as an enlisted AEGIS technician and eventually becoming a commissioned officer and Navy Commander. He served more than 900 days deployed and is a combat veteran.

Smith’s military career gave him unusually broad experience inside the federal executive branch. Over 26 years, he served at bases across the United States and operated in nearly 40 countries, including strategically important regions of the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and Africa. His service included Operation Iraqi Freedom, Operation Enduring Freedom, counter-piracy operations and overseas humanitarian disaster relief.

Smith also earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in engineering-related disciplines and built a career working on some of the Navy’s most sophisticated defense systems.

These Were Not Small Programs

Smith worked in four major Navy acquisition areas: the AEGIS Combat System, AEGIS Ballistic Missile Defense, Air and Missile Defense Radar program — now known as SPY-6 — and the DDG destroyer shipbuilding program.

These are major defense programs involving enormous taxpayer investment, national security, sophisticated engineering, contractors, procurement, schedules, and congressional oversight.

That experience is relevant to Congress.

Congress doesn’t simply debate and pass legislation. It authorizes programs, appropriates taxpayer dollars, and is responsible for overseeing how federal agencies spend that money.

Military and executive-branch experience like this was once a common path into federal office; today, it is increasingly overshadowed by the career-political track.
And this is where an important part of Smith’s résumé has largely gone unnoticed.

Smith Already Knows the Congressional Process

I asked Smith directly about his experience working with Congress.

His answer was detailed — and carefully qualified.

For roughly a decade during his Navy acquisition and program work, Smith worked on programs subject to continuous congressional authorization, appropriations and oversight, particularly involving the House Armed Services Committee and House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense.

His responsibilities included preparing and supporting responses to congressional Requests for Information, developing and delivering program and budget briefings, supporting authorization and appropriations actions requiring congressional notification and approval.

Smith was also formally trained through Defense Acquisition University in the Pentagon’s Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution process and legislative affairs.

But here’s something else I found noteworthy.

Smith specifically cautioned me not to say he spent ten years continuously working with Congress.

He didn’t.

Most of his day-to-day work occurred within the Navy and Pentagon as those major programs moved through the federal budget process. Direct congressional interaction occurred periodically when program, authorization, appropriation or budget issues required it.

That distinction matters.

It would have been very easy for a congressional candidate to turn “roughly a decade working on programs involving congressional oversight” into “I worked with Congress for ten years.”

Smith wouldn’t let me do it.

His Washington experience also continued after leaving the Navy. Smith says that in his post-Navy defense work, he periodically works with his company’s political team developing issues and briefing congressional staffers or congressional offices.

So yes, Smith would arrive in Congress as a freshman legislator.

But he wouldn’t arrive as a freshman to Washington, the Pentagon, federal budgeting, or congressional oversight.

And Then There Are the Awards

Smith’s record has also earned significant recognition.

In 2023, he was named U.S. Navy Engineer of the Year.

That recognition shouldn’t be reduced to another line on a campaign résumé.

It reflects a career involving engineering, acquisition, weapons systems, leadership, and responsibility within one of the largest and most complicated organizations in the federal government.

Smith’s experience with AEGIS, missile defense, SPY-6 and DDG shipbuilding raises the larger question voters should be asking:

What exactly qualifies someone to serve in Congress?

So, Why Not Debate?

There is a remarkably simple way for voters to compare these two candidates.

Put them on the same stage.

Smith formally invited Carbajal to participate in a two-hour, in-person televised debate in Santa Barbara before ballots were mailed.

The proposed rules were straightforward: both candidates remain on stage for the entire debate, a mutually acceptable moderator, no teleprompters, no electronic devices and no prewritten notes. Smith offered flexibility over the moderator, venue, format, and speaking times.

Carbajal has publicly expressed reluctance, saying:

“I’m not going to give Mr. Smith a forum where he can spew lies.”

He has said he would consider debating Smith but expressed concern that a debate would provide Smith a platform for claims Carbajal considers false.

But isn’t that exactly what a debate is supposed to resolve?

If Smith makes a false statement, Carbajal can challenge him — immediately and in front of the voters.

If Carbajal believes his nearly ten years in Congress and 12 years as a County Supervisor make him better qualified, he can make that case.

If Smith believes 26 years of active-duty Navy service, command experience, engineering, defense acquisition, and firsthand experience with the federal budget and congressional oversight process better prepare him, he can make his case.

Then voters can decide.

Twenty-Two Years Versus Zero

If we measure experience only by elected office, the comparison is easy:

Carbajal: roughly 22 years.

Smith: zero.

But those numbers don’t tell the whole story.

One candidate built his career through local government, elected office and ultimately Congress.

The other built his through 26 years of active-duty military service, leadership, engineering, defense acquisition, the Pentagon and work involving the congressional authorization and appropriations process before ever asking voters to elect him to anything.

Carbajal’s elected experience is real.

So is Smith’s real-world experience.

Carbajal has now spent nearly a decade representing this district in Congress. He has a voting record and a record of accomplishments he can defend.

Smith has a lifetime of leadership and professional experience outside elected politics that voters can examine.

So put those records side by side.

Let Carbajal defend his.

Let Smith defend his.

And let voters ask both men the questions they deserve to have answered.

After nearly ten years with the same congressman, voters shouldn’t have to rely on campaign mailers, television commercials, carefully prepared statements, or political parties, to decide who is best qualified to represent them.

They should be able to see the candidates standing next to each other, answering the same questions, defending their records and explaining what they intend to do for the 24th Congressional District.

LET THEM DEBATE!

Then let the voters decide.

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