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PLATFORM HIGHLIGHTS
Reverse the income shift from poor to rich.
- Double the minimum wage and index it to the cost of living.
- Make the wealthy pay their fair share in taxes.
- Enact a split-roll property tax so that corporations pay for the actual
value of their holdings. No property tax for primary homes under 3,000
sq. ft.
- Replace regressive sales taxes with progressive local income taxes that
are deductible from federal taxes (This will give Californians a net tax cut
of $5 billion a year).
- Institute a California basic income to end poverty and homelessness.
- Provide jobs at a living wage to all those who request one.
Protect the coastal environment.
- Make the coast a place to visit, not a transportation corridor by
discouraging through traffic within the coastal area and by subsidizing
shuttles and trolleys in the coastal areas
- Expand the coastal zone to include all of the 53rd Assembly District.
- Block new developments in the coastal zone that harm the environment
or contribute to increased traffic.
- Build a light rail system to and from the coastal area that provides easy
mobility for residents and visitors.
-End fossil fuel dependence by stimulating electric vehicle production
and shifting to mass transit.
- Require solar power on all new construction.
- Introduce legislation for California to comply with the Koyto Treaty.
- Significantly reduce LAX flights over the next 10 years by replacing
intra-state flights with a California bullet train network and by moving
many remaining international and U.S. flights to Palmdale (with bullet
train connections) and other regional airports.
- Curb flights at Santa Monica and other area airports.
- Stop Playa Vista Phase Two.
Health Care
- Legislate SB 921 - Single-payer health care, which will provide ALL
Californians with quality health care without a net increase in taxes.
- Make the state an "owner of last resort" to prevent hospital closings by
private corporations.
- Increase funding for county hospitals.
- Enforce strong patient to nursing care ratios in all hospitals.
Housing
- Repeal the bi-partisan Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing (anti-rent
control) Act which allows rents to be raised without limit when an
apartment becomes vacant.
- Establish the right to housing upon demand. Require 50 percent low
and very low income units in all new construction in the coastal zone.
- Provide tax credits for home owners who sell their residence to
persons of a racial group that is under-represented in their census track.
End segregation once and for all.
Education
- Make California public school teachers the best paid in the nation. This
is an investment in the next generation.
- Begin foreign language education in grade one. Support bilingual and
multi-cultural education.
- Free quality public education from Head Start to post-graduate. There
is no such thing as "too much education."
California State Budget
- Oppose the Schwarzenegger $15 billion bond boondoggle that will put
Californians in hock paying the interest for years.
- Raise taxes on those most able to pay, the wealthy and the
corporations. No cuts in education or social services.
- End the imbalance between what Californians pay the federal
government and what it receives back. Converting from sales tax to
income tax will cut this imbalance by half ($27 billion a year). Investigate
how to get more services from the feds.
- Support Prop. 56 to cut the percentage needed in the legislature to
pass a budget.
Privacy and Due Process
- Repeal the Patriot Act and other violations of our constitutional rights.-
Increase penalties for misuse of personal information by government,
corporations and telemarketers.
Peace
- Introduce a resolution in the Assembly for an immediate withdrawal
from Iraq, and for an end to unilateralism in U.S. policy.
- Remove all weapons of mass destruction from California. End nuclear
development. Decommission nuclear power plants.
- Create a state Department of Peace to promote non-military
employment, study non-violence, racial understanding and toleration of
ethnic diversity.
- Provide employment and/or income, at no cut in pay for all workers
displaced from military-related employment.
Crime and Punishment
- Allow police to concentrate on violent crimes by decriminalizing
"crimes without victims."
- Repeal the "Three Strike" law.
- Separate first time offenders in prison from "hardened criminals."
- Focus on rehabilitation, not punishment. Provide as much education as
prisoners request.
- Crack down on corporate crime, hate crimes and crimes against the
environment.
- End private prisons.
Campaign Reform
- Restore democracy by getting big money out of elections. Impose strict
contribution limits.
- Public funding of elections. Require media using the public's airways to
give free time to candidates.
- Adopt instant runoff for majority rule, and proportional representation
to protect the interests of miniorites.
Other issues
- Allow undocumented workers to obtain California Drivers Licenses and
auto insurance.
- Support a woman's right to choose, without government interference
- Create a democratically elected agency to produce, distribute and sell
California's energy. Promote democratically-run municipal power
authorities.
- Establish an independent special prosecutor to investigate sexual
harassment complaints against Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
- Equal treatment for Gay couples, including the right to marriage.
- Reparations for descendants of slaves.
- Abolish the death penalty.
- Defend Medical Marijuana Law.
- Put California on record to repeal NAFTA, and other anti-labor, anti-
environmental free trade agreements.
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