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About the 17th District of California
The California
coast around Monterey Bay is for many a working definition of paradise.
This is where California's government began; where Spanish and then
Mexicans governed a virtually empty land sparsely settled by Natives
known as Esalens, Coastenoans, and Ohlones, and where Californians held
their Constitutional Convention in Monterey. The regions leading
economies still make a fine living off the land and sea, as they have
for 150 years. Salinas is the county seat, where John Steinbeck lived
and described the physical and human lifestyle in his novels, such as Grapes of Wrath and Cannery Row.
What he called, "the valley of the sun" is the fertile Salinas Valley
growing over 85 specialty crops and grossing almost $3 billion in
sales. The fields around Salinas supply much of the nation's lettuce
and cauliflower. Nearby, the fields around Castroville supply almost
all of the nation's artichokes, and the vast greenhouses around
Watsonville supply a goodly portion of its cut flowers. The fishing
fleet, and 18 now-closed canneries of Monterey, was the worlds largest
sardine port. Now they have generated a new industry: Cannery Row is
refurbished with upscale shops and hotels, and the magnificent Monterey
Bay Aquarium is one of California's top tourist destinations. Monterey
Bay has become the nation's language learning capital, with the Defense
Language Institute, the AT&T Language Line, the Monterey Institute
of International Studies and Cal State's Monterey Bay Center for
Intensive Language and Culture. There are other attractions on the
Monterey peninsula: the Pebble Beach golf courses, 17 Mile Drive, and
Carmel, whose restrictive laws--no house numbers, no live
entertainment, no stop lights, no cutting trees without city council
permission--reflect an effort to maintain the atmosphere of 100 years
ago, when it really was an artists' colony.
The 17th Congressional District includes the entire coast of Monterey
County and the coast of Santa Cruz County with its world famous
University of California Santa Cruz. Also located in Santa Cruz County
is the last boardwalk amusement park on the West coast, as well as
California's first state park, Big Basin Redwoods State Park. The
district extends inland, into sunny valleys sheltered from ocean mists,
and covers some of the nation's richest farmland. Hollister is the
county seat for San Benito County, where tens of thousands of
motorcyclists assemble annually at an oval dirt racetrack for the
Independence Rally to remember Marlon Brando's movie The Wild One.
This was drawn from National Journal's Almanac of American Politics.
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The 17th District 
