League of Women Voters of California Education Fund
Los Angeles County, CA November 2, 2010 Election
	Cindy Varela Henderson Answers Questions Candidate for State Senator; District 26

The questions were prepared by the League of Women Voters of California and asked of all candidates for this office.
Read the answers from all candidates (who have responded).

Questions & Answers

1. How will you prioritize the budget choices the Legislature must make to align the state’s income and spending, and address the need for fair revenue sources that are sufficient for state and local government services?

California's budget priorities should respond to the needs of our state's many working families: education, job development and employment security, daycare for children of parents transitioning into the workforce, childrens' medical care: all enable California's families to contribute to their communities, and should not be cut. State employees and teachers should not be furloughed or layed off.

Establishing sufficient and stable revenue for California' should be a priority. However,legislators failed once again to stabilize state revenue by failing to correct the corporate property tax loopholes in 1979's Proposition 13. They failed to ennact an oil severance tax. These two measures alone would bring between six to 8 billion dollars into the budget for schools, universities, job creation and retention and medical care.

2. What proposals, if any, do you support to fix the budget process? What other types of changes or reforms, if any, do you think are important to make our state government function more effectively?

A simple majority vote, (50% +1) would be a good start to streamlining the budget process. Transparency in state financial matters eucates the public and assists accountability in legislators: to that end, budget proceedings and other important decisions should be broadcast on a public access cable channel or streamed on the internet.

3. Many members of the Legislature say that education is a high priority for the state. Yet fees for public higher education have gone up dramatically and funding has been cut. What is your vision for California’s higher education future, and how do you propose to get there?

Access to free quality education through the university level for all is one of the points on the Peace and Freedom Party Platform, and the central reason for my campaign. Higher education was once free in California and can be again. If elected, I would work to restore California's funding for education by ending the corporate property tax loopholes in Proposition 13, enacting an oil severance tax, (used by many other states) and taxing the richest five percent of Californians at rates used in the 1990's. These three actions will realize billions in potential funds for education and other human services. I would work to reform the "Three Strikes" law, so that non-violent offenders do not clog up the costly prison system. California can once again lead the nation in education if we agree to value the future of our young people over the wealth of the few.

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Responses to questions asked of each candidate are reproduced as submitted to the League.  Candidates' responses are not edited or corrected by the League. No candidate may refer to another candidate in the response.

Read the answers from all candidates (who have responded).

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Created from information supplied by the candidate: November 1, 2010 11:14
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