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LWV League of Women Voters of California Education Fund

Smart Voter
Riverside County, CA March 2, 2004 Election
Candidates Answer Questions on the Issues
United States Representative; District 45; Democratic Party


The questions were prepared by the League of Women Voters of California and asked of all candidates for this office.

See below for questions on Federal Resources, Foreign Policy, Federal Budget

Click on a name for other candidate information.   See also more information about this contest.


1. What can be done to ensure that California gets its fair share of federal resources?

Answer from Dennis Lockhart:

We need an aggressive and coordinated effort by California's federal incumbents to pursue any and all federal resources available to California. The lack of such an effort, for example, was the main reason that an earthquake study institute was awarded not to California but, of all places, upstate New York. It is unconscionable that this happened, but, unfortunately, not surprising. I would make certain California's needs are always in the forefront.


2. What are your foreign policy priorities for the United States?

Answer from Dennis Lockhart:

It was Woodrow Wilson, I believe, who said that the United States needed to make the world "safe for democracy". That was a different time, and the world--Wilson undoubtedly meant Europe when he said "world"--is now a different place. My main foreign policy priority would be, first, to the make the world safe for America; second, to make the world safe for everyone else; and, thirdly, to make the world safe for democracy. To be blunt, if America is not safe, the world is not safe. Only then can democracy, which cannot exist in a vacuum, be introduced to parts of the world where the culture and the mindset are totalitarian both in spirit and practice.


3. What are your priorities for the federal budget?

Answer from Dennis Lockhart:

Above all, the federal budget must be fair. It must put people first. What does not strive to help peoples' lives must be corrected. People are more important than numbers. Numbers can be manipulated, but people must never be treated as a commodity. What is true in the houses of America is also true in the House of Congress: the budget serves the people, the people do not serve the budget. Money is a means to an end, in your house and in our House. And that end is to help the people. And it was ever thus.


Responses to questions asked of each candidate are reproduced as submitted to the League. 

The order of the candidates is random and changes daily.


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Created: May 4, 2004 14:48 PDT
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