Candidate for
State Senator; District 1

PHILOSOPHY

Government is not the enemy of the people. Government is there to assist the citizens of our state and nation. Many of the special interests and their spokes persons want to turn people away from taking part in the democratic process so they being a minority can implement their self serving agendas today as they did in the past. The brutal use of child labor was ended by legislation of the government not by the factory owners. The Pure Food and Drug Act helps to give American protection from the horrors that once were placed on the market by selfish processors. Women had to fight to gain the right to vote and finally got it through the assistance of the government because men of vision who believed in political equality were elected to office. Women will not receive equal pay for equal work until the government acts through it citizens by electing representatives who truly believe that all people, men and women should have equal treatment.

Today in this state and nation there is a health care crisis because those who control the health care industry do not want national coverage. In the United State today wealth means health even though we have the most advance medical technology in the world. Children, working families, single mothers and the retired struggle daily with this reality of no protection. If we are to be known as a compassionate society, we must take care of all the people all the time not just those who are fortunate enough to afford care. The people working together through the government can bring about universal health care if not nationally at first then in California--the 7th greatest economy on the planet.

The state government for too long has been controlled by those with limited vision and a desire for quick profits. Our infra structure has deteriorated. Our people have had to move farther and farther from the work to have a pleasant environment for their families. This growth is having an adverse impact on the First Senate District. Government must not only make sure that there are pleasant suburban communities but also there must be livable cities that will retain their population and not scatter them out into the agricultural and recreational areas of the state. Government must assist in rebuilding livable urban areas and bring rapid transit to those living the suburbs. Government is there to assist its citizens if the citizens elect representatives who believe that government is not the enemy of the people but the expression of their hopes and desires.

Government should support true family values. A family cannot be safe and secure if there is no health care, if there is no quality public education, if there are not adequate the wages for food and shelter, if there is not time to join together in family activities. The radial conservatives attack all programs that would assist families. Their view of family values is for government control to prevent individual choice and give women only second class citizenship in work, government and the family, hold down wages and make quality health care an exclusive right of the fortunate.

This exclusivity of the radical conservatives is evident by the effort to pass a school voucher initiative in California this November. They want to destroy the one of the greatest institutions ever developed by a nation. They use the type of reasoning that held the Southern states back because the only schooling before the Civil War was private for those of wealth. Women in all regions of the nation were not given equal education because they reasoned that women were not equal in ability to men. Immigrants such as the Irish in the East or the Japanese in the West were segregated by this type of reasoning. Our present public schools are not perfect and need much improvement but destruction through a voucher system will not assist the development of our educational institutions.

That is why as a person who has spent more than 30 years working to influence government and as a private citizen and a candidate I believe in such fundamental ideas as a decent wage so families can live in security. Universal health care to protect the well being of not just the individual but all society. Equal treatment for all regardless of gender or social status.

We as citizens in a democratic society must work together. The power of our government should benefit all by assisting them to live and fulfill their lives to the fullest of their abilities. We live in the greatest state in the greatest nation on the earth--California should be a Golden Land to all its citizens.

Thomas "Tom" Romero for State Senate