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LWV League of Women Voters of California Education Fund

Smart Voter
Los Angeles County, CA November 2, 2004 Election
Candidates Answer Questions on the Issues
State Senator; District 27


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.


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

Answer from Cesar N Castellanos:

Root out waste and fraud in present budget. Cut overlapping bureaucracies. Cut unneccessary programs. Cut budget uniformly 3%-5%.


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

Answer from Cesar N Castellanos:

Make English-only a requirement. (No bilingual education) Create incentive based system to reward good teachers. Provide trade/technical schools for students who will not be attending college.(Nursing, computer, blue collar)

Increase funding for trade/technical schools in the Community College System.


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

Answer from Cesar N Castellanos:

Make water more expensive for agriculture to waste and give tax credits to efficient users of water.

In the mean time, start to develop waterways from north to transport water to the south.


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

Answer from Cesar N Castellanos:

People don't buy health insurance because:

1. Too expensive

2. Don't want it. To address the needs of un-insured, make insurance less expensive for those who want it by controlling costs:

1. Control frivolous lawsuits and lawyers. (doctors should practice medicine without having to worry about ordering extra tests, 'just in case I'm sued.' Doctors pass on costs of this threat to patients. Health care costs rise.)

2. Reduce burdensome regulations on health care providers. (ex; Earthquake retrofitting all hospitals in California is a good idea, but unintended consequences mean that hospitals spend less on patient care, and end up closing hospitals because of lack of money to carry out the retrofitting. Health care costs rise.)

3. Consumers need to have a stake in the cost of their own healthcare costs. Costs could be kept in check if consumers shared more in the cost of medical services and products. The single-payer insurance system gives no incentive for consumers to shop for better or less costly health care. Cost is paid by the insurance company and the consumer is usually removed from this important audit.


Responses to questions asked of each candidate are reproduced as submitted to the League. 

The order of the candidates is random and changes daily.


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Created: December 15, 2004 13:39 PST
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