Candidate for
United States Representative; District 2

Statements of political philosophy by candidates usually are strong on phrases that nearly all voters agree on like "prudent fiscal management" and "eliminating wasteful programs that don't work" + with very little in specifics not obviously tailored to whatever public opinion polls show is the prevailing political mood. My approach to politics is to focus on tangible political choices (usually key votes in Congress) and stick to principles which are demonstrably consistent over time. This section is in essence a spillover, which deals with topics not covered by the five 2012 questions from the League of Women Voters, and my three position papers. In four instances the key votes are before the time frame covered in the eight aforementioned areas, and in one case the key developments are very recent. The first issue deals with a vote by Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey's predecessor in the 6th CD, Barbara Boxer (who continues to serve as a United States Senator).

When Vice President George H W Bush was elected to succeed President Ronald Reagan in 1988, his main campaign theme was "read my lips, no new taxes." When the first President Bush abandoned this position in a 1990 budget deal, it demoralized the GOP base, whose various members feared that it was only a matter of time before THEIR taxes were raised. However, there is really no new money that is produced by taxation, most of which is performing an important function before it is commandeered by politicians in Washington or Sacramento. Relatively few persons, like professional athletes and movie stars, earn a handsome personal income directly from the consumers of the product they produce. In the two examples cited there is a huge number of "wanna be's" in the minor leagues (or college athletes who earn nothing at all) or Screen Actors Guild, so the average pay in this line of work is rather small, and many who reach the top don't stay there very long. Managers of large corporations work for stockholders who all realize that management salaries are a tiny fraction of the costs of doing business, so reducing these salaries will have very little impact on dividends, whereas a slightly better manager may create a substantial competitive advantage and capital gains for ordinary investors. There is such a thing as "interlocking directorates" where various executives sit on each other's Boards of Directors and work for their mutual benefit in salary setting, and may reward mediocre performance or outright failure (with golden parachutes). However, the best solution in such cases is transparency, which allows stockholders an opportunity to become aware of this sort of abuse and replace their self-serving leaders. The lion's share of production costs are usually materials and labor, which are passed along to consumers, so the general public usually pays back whatever income tax is taken out of business revenues, through higher prices or lower wages for the firm's workers. Thus, normal resistance to higher taxes reasserted itself in 1992, and HR 4210 was appropriately defeated (despite Barbara Boxer's votes), which would have produced a few cents per day of "middle class" tax relief; along with a top bracket income tax rate increase from 31% to 36% that mostly hurt small businesses, which generate 2/3 of new jobs.

Bill Clinton campaigned for the presidency in 1992 on a platform that abortion should be "safe, legal and rare" and the 1993 Hyde Amendment (to HR 2518), which I support, took a step in that direction soon after Clinton took office, by limiting Medicaid abortion payments to situations involving a threat to the life of the mother, forcible rape, or incest. A recurring issue in the battle over family planning aid to developing nations, is the fungibility of money, wherein any government funds received by an organization frees up the organization's own money, which would have spent for that purpose. The key case is foreign aid money going to Planned Parenthood; this organization advocates abortion rights overseas, but spends its aid money entirely on birth control devices. Lots of people (including the plaintiff in Roe versus Wade) resent government interference with their right to an abortion, but refuse to have one themselves, even in economic circumstances where another child would be a hardship. In order for money to be "freed up" that Planned Parenthood might use to facilitate abortions, their available funds plus those from the U.S. government must be sufficient to meet the full need for contraceptives. This is seldom the case, and Planned Parenthood favors contraception over abortion as a means of limiting family size. Since more available contraception reduces the number of unwanted pregnancies, the need for abortions is reduced. However, the real issue here is the symbolic significance of legalizing abortion, which does imply that the mother's wishes are more important than the unborn child's life. However, in this country, under the First Amendment, the proper antidote to advocacy of repugnant political policies is one's own advocacy of a contrary point of view, NOT SUPRESSION of the repugnant idea. I do not support a lesser standard of free speech in foreign countries, than we ourselves enjoy. I believe that the best approach in this situation is something resembling the "fairness doctrine" wherein both sides of controversial issues are presented (where there are scarce channels of communication, which are allocated by the government). Thus I support the 1996 Callahan Compromise (HR 3450) evenly allocating foreign aid funds for family planning between organizations willing to renounce abortion advocacy and those refusing to do so. This approach allows local organizations which support abortion restrictions in their nations to dispense half of family planning services, and to give family planning recipients a choice on whether they want to give even indirect support to Planned Parenthood advocacy for more freely available abortions.

The precursor for the ACA (also called ObamaCare) was the Clinton Administrations attempt to restructure health care (also called HillaryCare). The 1994 Clinton-Gepnardt plan (HR 3600) was put together in secrecy and then introduced to the House Committee on Labor and Human Services, where Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey supported the position of the Clinton Administration on nearly every vote. Along with most Americans, I opposed HillaryCare because of its "one size fits all" standard benefits package. Because of its unpopularity HillaryCare never came to a vote on the House floor. The attempt to ram through HillaryCare was a key factor in the loss of control of the House of Representatives in the 1994 elections, for the first time in 40 years.

Ever since World War II, the Democratic Party has been more opposed than Republicans to overseas military involvement. The escalation of the Vietnam War by President Nixon (who was politically weakened by the Watergate Scandal), without any congressional authorization, is the main reason for enactment of the War Powers Act in 1973. However, President Bill Clinton refused to recognize any limitation on his "inherent authority as commander in chief" by the War Powers Act, thus paving the way for action by Congress in 1994 to try to keep Clinton from waging war in Yugoslavia's Kosovo province in 1994. I am a strong supporter of constitutional checks and balances and agreed with nearly all House Republicans in supporting these measures. HR 1569 prohibited deployment of U.S. troops into Kosovo without prior congressional authorization. (Because of Russian support for the territorial integrity of Serbia in the Security Council, there was also no U.N. support for President Clinton's military intervention in Kosovo.) However, well known dove Lynn Woolsey voted to preserve a free hand for the Clinton Administration on this issue, but it passed 249-180. On a follow-up vote on SConRes 21 to authorize the President of the United States to Conduct Military Air Operations and Missile Strikes Against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro). Woolsey's vote was decisive on this issue, and she had no stomach for providing the vote needed to pass it, as it died on a tie 213-213 vote. These votes didn't stop President Clinton's massive bombing in Kosovo, but this bombing was done from very high altitude, to be sure there were no American casualties. As a result this bombing caused a lot of civilian casualties, including columns of fleeing Kosvar refugees, which were mistaken for Serbians.

The battle over top down control of medical decisions manifest itself in the battle over genetically modified organisms as well as health care. Some crop modifications involve splicing in genes from species which could never cross-breed, and provide important benefits. One is golden rice which incorporates the carrot gene which gives this vegetable its orange color and strong Vitamin A content. Golden rice has almost completely eliminated blindness in children in parts of the world where the normal diet is deficient in Vitamin A. Any technology can be abused, and the use of "drop dead" genes in improved crop seeds (to make it necessary to buy more seed, rather than use part of last years crop) is this sort of abuse. However, throwing the GMO baby out with the bath is not a proper substitute for banning only the abuses of this technology. It is very difficult for any GMO gene to "run wild" in nature, because any crops or animals contaminated with dangerous genes will simply die and not pass the gene on to future generations. Lynn Woolsey was so concerned about genetically modified crops, like corn that is digestible by humans but not by the larvae of Monarch Butterflies, that in 2002 she used her ability to submit "earmarks" to try to divert $35 million of National Science Funds into GMO research (Woolsey Amendment to HR 4664), but was unable to secure $1 million for state-of-the-art mammography equipment for Marin General Hospital. I have repeatedly criticized these backwards priorities. The battle over GMO's continued with a 2005 proposed ban in Sonoma County (Proposition M), which Woolsey favored and I opposed. My side won the Prop M battle, 58% to 42%, a rare defeat for Woolsey in her home county.

Marijuana for medicinal purposes is legal in California and 16 other states. I support medicinal use of marijuana but oppose its recreational use, since it sometimes becomes a gateway to other more dangerous mood altering substances. Even where marijuana does not produce physical damage, its use as an escape from reality can lead to neglect of underlying psychological problems. Where the source of a wish to escape from reality is some sort of social injustice, marijuana helps to reduce pressure to change these social conditions. In his novel, Brave New World, Aldous Huxley illustrates the use of a mood "harmless" mood altering substance (Soma), to protect a rigidly stratified society from change. Accordingly I opposed Proposition 19 in 2010, which tried to legalize marijuana and treat it the same as alcohol. Prop 19 was opposed by all three of the Emerald Triangle marijuana growing counties, but supported by the more populous southern two counties. I supported the 2012 Rohrabacher-McClintock Amendment to HR 5326, which would have barred use of Department of Commerce and/or Justice funds to prevent California and 16 other states from implementing their state laws that authorize cultivation and use of medical marijuana.