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 Budget Crisis, Education, Water, Health Insurance

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

Answer from Gail E. Neira:

Elect a Republican Majority in the State Assembly and State Assembly so Governor Schwarzenegger can "terminate" the budget crisis!

Answer from Jonathan Scott Marvin:

The state takes a significant portion of your income and spends it on maintaining its sprawling bureaucracy. We should reign in spending by cutting all but the most essential functions of the state government.

Answer from Gail E. Neira:

Careful planning is needed for California long-term edcuational needs. This issue cannot be dealt with by reciting slogans!

I favor total immersion language education for non-English speaking students.

Answer from Jonathan Scott Marvin:

If I am elected to the Assembly, my priorities for the education system will be to:

1) Get the state out of the education business, and return control back to the counties (and the counties should in turn return control to the neighbourhoods of which they are comprised).

2) Encourage the counties to focus on teaching our K-12 students: a) critical thinking skills, so they can effectively think through the complex problems of adult life in a logical manner and b) mastery of the fundamentals (reading, writing, mathematics, and the scientifc method), which will enable them to rapidly assimilate advanced materials easily.

3) Strengthen the Community College system by providing each college with indepence from the state: relaxing requirements and regulations and developing financial independence and accountability.

Answer from Jonathan Scott Marvin:

Water (like the wind and the sun) is a public resource and must be responsibly shared by all. We must work to assure that polluters of our water and aire are held 100% accountable. Furthermore, we must decrease water consumption, not by regulation, which encourages cronyism and corruption, but by free market pricing, which rewards conservation with lower prices. A tiered system could be applied, in which the price of water increases as a function of usage. Notably, corporations and farms cannot be given a free pass or larger allotments - they are not citizens, individuals of flesh and blood are.

Answer from Gail E. Neira:

Massive planning is needed for California's future water needs. Much of California has desert-level rainfall; even much of Northern California is marginal steppe.

California is America's most productive state for agriculture, but new water sources need to be tapped - possibly from Alaska or the Yukon - in the next 20 to 30 years.

Answer from Gail E. Neira:

Give employers tax incentives, including income tax credits, to encourage them to provide health insurance for their workers!

Answer from Jonathan Scott Marvin:

Employer-sponsored health insurance is a vestige of the beginning of century when employers had to attract employees with lucrative contracts negotiated by newly formed labour unions. Today, less than 15% of the employed population has a union membership, in large part because the government has been given the responsibility of protecting the labour force. Clearly, the government is not doing its job. We can either hope that those in charge in Sacramento suddenly decide to be accountable, or as I would suggest, we can return that responsibility to the citizens. Instead of letting some bureaucrats decide how much we should earn and what our benefits should be, I propose that we eliminate the state imposed contract requirements. The first action of employers will undoubtedly be an attempt to cut wages and benefits. However, knowing that the conditions of their labour contract are solely their responsibility, workers will undoubtedly choose to re-unionize and fight for higher wages and benefits.

The order of the candidates is random and changes daily.