League of Women Voters of California Education Fund
Santa Clara County, CA November 2, 2004 Election
	Shane Patrick Connolly Answers Questions Candidate for State Senator; District 13

Read the answers from all candidates.

Questions & Answers

1. What does California need to do to address the current budget crisis?

Now that the voters of California passed the bi-partisan Economic Recovery Bond Act, Proposition 97, and the accompanying California Balanced Budget Act, Proposition 98, to put our state back on a firm financial footing, we must prioritize our expenditures, protecting essential services to the most vulnerable in society along with funding for education and police and fire protection. We must reduce or eliminate funding for low-priority expenditures on things such as the Bureau of Automotive Repair and wasteful boards and commissions.

We then must combat the waste, fraud, and abuse occurring in Sacramento, such as the hiring of over 1,000 additional prison guards without the authorization of the legislature at a cost of up to $100 million (as reported by the San Jose Mercury News).

We must elect legislators who are committed to the growth of California's economy so entrepreneurs and businesses large and small can create the jobs and income that, in turn, generates resources for our State government.

Finally, we must elect legislators that take action when they are warned of an impending fiscal crisis instead of legislators who are paralyzed by their ties to special interests.

2. What should the state's priorities be for K-12 education? For the Community College System?

It is essential that we provide a high-quality education to ALL of California's children, adequately preparing our high school graduates with the skills they need to succeed as they enter employment and/or higher education. At the same time we must ensure equality of opportunity by keeping higher education accessible to all.

In K-12 education, we must maintain high standards for students and teachers, measured through testing. At the same time, we must free local teachers, school boards, and administrators to make spending decisions for their own schools. We must get Sacramento out of the job of micro-managing our schools by consolidating various categorical grants into locally-controlled block grants, so our tax dollars can be directed based upon local needs.

Economic growth will help our State generate revenues to restore additional aid to our community colleges. Further, we could spur more funding for community colleges by developing new tax incentives for businesses to further utilize community colleges for employee training and retraining. Given the current low borrowing rates, we could also expand loan guarantees, making more student loans available to those in need.

3. What measures would you support to address California's water needs?

Once we prioritize our expenditures and get the State of California back on a firm financial footing, we must dedicate resources to strengthening our infrastructure, including our water systems. For too long the resources that were to be dedicated to infrastructure have been diverted to other purposes.

To prepare for the future of our water needs, water rate structures should reward conservation and innovation, such as the expanded use of clean "gray water" for irrigation. We must also examine the need for the expansion of our water storage systems and immediately begin rebuilding our deteriorating water delivery systems.

4. What should the Legislature be doing to address the needs of Californians without health insurance?

We must maintain our commitment to the Healthy Families program while working to lower overall health care costs through a variety of measures. Also, it would be short-sighted to reduce funding for in-home care and drug treatments that prevent undesirable and costly institutionalization and hospitalization. At the same time, we must not resort to a one-size-fits-all, "Universal Healthcare" approach that some legislators advocate. "Universal Healthcare" will reduce the quality of care we receive and erode the life-saving innovations that are the hallmark of our existing healthcare system.

As a start, we can improve upon our existing healthcare system by encouraging the formation of buying groups to get group-purchase power for drugs and routine care, expand the availability of catastrophic-care insurance policies coupled with tax-free flexible health care savings accounts, increase the use of health care vouchers for people on fixed incomes and the unemployed, and expand public-private partnerships for the training of needed health-care professionals. It is also essential that we reform the tort system to bring down the cost of medical malpractice insurance while preserving the rights of people with legitimate claims and that we have robust audits of healthcare providers that receive public funds to ensure those funds are being spent legitimately and effectively.