League of Women Voters of California Education Fund
	San Diego County, CA June 5, 2012 Election
	Candidates Answer Questions on the Issues Member of the State Assembly; District 76

The questions were prepared by the League of Women Voters of California Education Fund and asked of all candidates for this office.     See below for questions on Budget, Government reform, Higher education, Major issues Click on a name for candidate information.   See also more information about this contest. 1. How will you prioritize the budget choices the Legislature must make to align the state’s income and spending? Answer from Sherry Hodges: Government spending in California is completely out of control and must be reigned-in if our state is to have a future. With a deficit of $16 billion dollars looming over the state, California is in serious danger. We must balance the state's budget and cut wasteful spending, but we cannot raise taxes. The only acceptable way to increase revenue is to add new jobs to the economy and that means getting government out of the way of job-creators. In addition, bond debt needs to be minimized, spending needs to stay within the revenue limits and a 3% reserve should be kept to prevent cuts in funding for basic public services such as public safety and education during difficult financial times. I will work with ALL legislators to find common ground on these and other taxpayer priorities and fight to regain control of our spending habits and to stabilize our state's finances. Answer from Farrah Douglas: Balancing the State budget is a top priority. The Legislative Analyst's office predicts by the end of 2013 California will have a $13 billion budget deficit. We can't tax our businesses and families to death to cure this deficit. At the time when many businesses are leaving our state ( in 2011 every week 5 businesses left CA) and our families have lost their jobs and their homes, increasing taxes is not an option. My solutions are: 1) Transparent budget process so our voters can understand their choices and be a part of our democracy. 2) Auditing the budget line by line to identify and eliminate waste. 3) cutting spending by attrition: reducing the size of the state government, consolidating jobs, using technology to replace redundant and outdated positions. 4) Increasing income by relaxing and reducing regulations, reducing business fees and taxes, balancing environmental concerns with the needs of the businesses, implementing methods of rewarding those who perform well and providing best service for best value. 5) Putting the business of people above ideological divides and making the legislature accountable to our voters and families for every bill they introduce and every vote they cast. 6)Education, public safety, infrastructure, job creation and reduction of wasteful spending are my other top priorities. Answer from Rocky J. Chavez: My number one priority for the State Budget is education. I know there are other demands for the budget but I feel we need to first look at expenses of government and align our limited resources to priorities. I have experience, having been an Undersecretary of a Department, to know that there are savings to be had when we look at expenses. 2. What types of changes or reforms, if any, do you think are important to make our state government function more effectively? Answer from Farrah Douglas: Here are the changes that are important to make: 1) Transparent government. 2) Educating our voters so they would elect the most qualified candidate with verifiable record of accomplishments and service. 3) voting for part time legislature 4) limiting the number of bills that legislature can introduce in one session. 5) having the members of the Assembly and Senate to verify that they have read the bills before voting on them. 6) Making sure all bills are accessible on the internet for public review and comment 72 hours prior to voting by legislature. 7) Stopping the process of Gut and Amend, in which during the last few days prior to voting the content of a bill is gutted and replaced by a completely different item and then voted on without any public scrutiny and in most cases without being reviewed by the legislature. If we make these changes then the members of the Assembly and Senate with have time enough to concentrate on the business of people rather than fighting each other with competing bills. We need elected officials who will roll up their sleeves from day one and get busy solving our issues and problems. Sacramento has become a bill producing machine and I will stop it. Answer from Sherry Hodges: We have to create a better regulatory environment for businesses who wish to start and stay in California. Bureaucratic red tape, job-crushing regulations and burdensome taxes are obstacles to a flourishing business atmosphere, reducing opportunities for job-creation and growth; ultimately chipping away at a community's quality of life. Ever-expanding state agencies should not have legislative authority. Many state departments need to be reduced in size and scope, limiting their power to over-regulate. We must not continue to hurt producers while unaccountable government departments and agencies get a free pass. For example, businesses should be fined only after 90 days warning and ample opportunity to correct issues - except in cases of life threatening neglect. In addition, fines should go to the general fund to be allocated to budgetary priorities, not to growing or preserving bureaucratic state agencies. Answer from Rocky J. Chavez: The most important change we can make in state government is how the budget process is determined. As of now, the Legislative bodies are more focused on bills and not focused on setting priorities and working on the budget. I would support a two year budget. As stated above, my priority is to fix education as the current funding cycle always puts school districts at a disadvantage in having to make financial decisions (hiring teachers/buying supplies/upgrade of needed facilities) before a budget is passed. With a two year budget we can have more stability in education. 3. Fees for public higher education have gone up dramatically and funding has been cut. Is this a priority concern, and if so, what measures would you propose to address it? Answer from Farrah Douglas: I'm a strong supporter of Education. For over 8 years I chaired Carlsbad Chamber of Commerce's education committee and raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for our public schools. In addition I've studied at MiraCosta College, Palomar College and SDSU and I'm very familiar with the cost of higher education. For the past three years I've served on the Advisory Board to the President at Cal State San Marcos. I understand the dilemma our higher education institutes are facing. Every year their budget is cut and reduced. In fact my understanding is that since 2000 Cal State San Marcos has reduced its cost and spending by 42% but still had to increase fees by 15%. Even at that the University still faces over $2 million in deficit. The first thing we have to do is to stop the Governor from cutting the education budget. It's not just outright cuts that has hurt our higher education and k-12 system. There are other cuts that people are not aware of. for example the Governor moved about $5 billion from sales tax and nearly $500 million for vehicle license fee to a Special Fund Account to provide funding source for his realignment plan and to move prisoners to local jurisdictions. The Governor projected a $1.1 billion savings because of his realignment efforts. However, because of the way the movement of the funds had been arranged, most of the state's fiscal benefit from realignment in 2011-2012 has come from proposition 98 savings (education funding). By depositing the sales tax and vehicle registration fees into a special fund for use by local governments for realignment, these funds are not available for the legislature to spend so they are not counted as the state's income. The education budget is 40% of the state revenue for K-12 and 12% is for higher education. By removing nearly $5.5 billion from the state's budget the education budget was cut. This action reduced Prop 98 funding by $2 billion in 2011-2012. We need Assembly Members and Senators who understand these details and who care about the future of our students to stop practices such as this one. I am very interested in education and I will be a strong voice advocating for good policies regarding higher and K-12 education. Answer from Sherry Hodges: All levels of education have to be a very high priority and, as I mentioned above, funding for education must be protected by responsible spending, and rainy day reserves. Public safety and education should be the first priorities of our state goverment. It's imperative that these priorities not be neglected or used as pawns in the political games Sacramento plays during the budget process. California is experiencing decreasing competitiveness at home and abroad. Our education system is one of the lowest ranked in the country. This is unacceptable. We must improve the quality of our educational system in order to be competitive in the 21st Century. We need to focus on improving our curriculum and helping students succeed in K-12 education while giving parents the choice to put their children in public, private or charter schools. Our higher educational institutions need more effective technology and vocational programs so that both young students and older workers can acquire the skills necessary to meet the demands of an increasingly technical work environment. Education has always been my passion having raised four children in California schools and having served on the San Dieguito Union High School Board. I will not play political games with our children's or our state's future. We can and must do better. Answer from Rocky J. Chavez: Fees are too high. We need to invest in our citizens so that they can be competitive in a world market. It is an investment in our future and people when we support education. 4. What other major issues do you think the Legislature must address? What are your own priorities? Answer from Rocky J. Chavez: My other priorities are jobs and Veterans. We need to make sure California welcomes small businesses and ensures we have the infrastructure to grow business (ports, roads, water). Veterans have given their lives for our freedom, they need to be allowed to enjoy the American dream for which they have fought and wanted when they returned to California. Answer from Sherry Hodges: The other issues the Legislature needs to address, and which I plan to focus on, include infrastructure, particularly transportation, and water. Californians have more cars per capita than any other state in the U.S. The dollars received from gasoline and vehicle fees needs to return to our highways for maintenance and expansion. I plan to focus on the 78 West to I-5 South interchange, an upgrade that is long over-due. In addition, water is a lingering concern for California. Water needs to be made reliably available to our residents and farmers. Agriculture is a large portion of local and state industry, providing many jobs and much of the produce to markets and restaurants. I plan to pursue the proposed desalinization plant for Camp Pendleton which could bring water to the base as well as to Northern Oceanside, Bonsall, Fallbrook and Vista. Answer from Farrah Douglas: In addition to job creation, reduction of regulations and taxes and supporting education and our schools, the following are other issues I'll be working on in Sacramento. 1) Public safety. Having a secure state is the right of every CA residents. We need to have adequate funding for Police Officers and Fire Fighters so they can keep our families safe and secure. 2) Pension reform is another top priority. We need to push for state-wide reforms which support a balanced budget while providing ample funding for our retirees. 3)infrastructure. Our state government doesn't spend nearly enough on repairing our old infrastructure. These repair will promote commerce and will help our local economy. 4) Water. Southern California is a desert and our economy, jobs and livelihood depend on having safe and secure sources of water. In Carlsbad we will proudly host the first Seawater Desalination Plant in Southern California. While this is a huge step toward water security, it is not nearly enough. We need to recycle more water and build more desalination plants and water storage facilities. I have toured the Sacramento River, Bay Delta and Colorado River, which are the sources of our water in Southern CA. There are 1100 miles of mud levies that were built in 1800s. A major earth quake will demolish them and will leave the Southern CA without adequate drinking water for about 6 months. there is no funding in the State budge for the repair of these levies. We need to address this issue immediately. Responses to questions asked of each candidate are reproduced as submitted to the League.  Candidates' statements are presented as submitted. References to opponents are not permitted. The order of the candidates is random and changes daily. Candidates who did not respond are not listed on this page.