Abortion

The United States Supreme Court has determined that certain abortions are legal. I believe this is a federal issue and the state legislature shouldn't waste time trying to change the current law. I believe that it is a terrible situation when a woman has to decide whether or not to have an abortion. Therefore the problem the state can address is unwanted pregnancies. That means all women regardless of financial situation should have access to birth control counseling and prescriptions. This would reduce both abortions and welfare costs. My proposals under welfare reform should help make males more responsible.

Gay Issues

The voters of California approved a measure that the definition of marriage included that it was between a man and a woman. The state supreme court will soon determine whether the new law is constitutional. I don't think the state legislature should take any action to change the vote of the people.
Those who worry about the definition of marriage should realize that it has changed. In my generation you got married before you lived with a member of the opposite sex and certainly before you had children. While we await the supreme court decision we should concentrate our efforts on reducing the number of women having children they can't afford and fathers who abandon their financial and moral obligations to those children. (See discussion of Welfare)
While awaiting the supreme court decision on marriage, we should continue to make sure that gay couples have all the same rights as non gay couples such as rights of inheritance, medical decisions, adoption, protection from discrimination, tax treatment etc.
I personally believe that having children you can't support outside of marriage is a far bigger problem to the taxpayers and the children and we should concentrate our efforts in reducing that problem and let the courts decide the definition of marriage.

Gun Control

I support your constitutional right to own guns necessary to protect your home, hunt, target practice and other legal activities.
I do not believe that everyone should be allowed to carry a gun in public. I also believe that certain types of guns should be illegal. The government typically bans guns by model and then the gun manufacturers just sell a different model that does basically the same thing. I would determine which gun characteristics are necessary to protect our homes, hunt, target practice etc and then ban guns with characteristics not required for lawful activities. For example the number of shots per minute, the maximum caliber, the number of shots without reloading. It is true that when we limit guns only criminals will have guns but we will have given the police another tool to arrest criminals.
We don't let people drive, vote, smoke, or drink alcohol until they reach a certain age. I think similar rules should apply to guns.
We theoretically now have rules limiting who can purchase guns. A recent school shooting shows how broken the current system is. Not all states report the names of those who have been in mental institutions and there are loopholes in the definitions.

Campaign Finances/special interests

Special interests have too much influence on elected officials. This is because candidates feel they need to raise millions of dollars to effectively campaign and then become indebted to their contributers. Each time we pass a rule regarding campaign finance reform the elected officials find a way around the law.
The courts have ruled against real campaign finance reform based on candidates freedom of speech and their legal right to spend lots of money even if it is their own.
Most of the money spent on each campaign is spent on media ads and mailings that say very little about what a given candidate would do once in office.
The internet and e-mail have proven to be a very adequate inexpensive way to communicate with the public (you are reading this and it cost me nothing). Therefore if I was a candidate I would make my case for election via e-mail communications and blogs such as this.
Once elected I would not listen to a particular interest without requiring all those interested in an issue getting together to agree on the facts of the problem. My experience is that if all sides can agree on the facts regarding a problem the solution comes much easier. Once we all agree on the facts of the situation and where we want to go, all sides should discuss potential solutions and try and come to a compromise that they could recommend to me. This system worked well when I served on the county Hazardous Material Commission. It was slow but resulted in solutions that all could agree on with practical correct solutions not one sided political solutions. By not taking any campaign funds from special interests, once I got the facts I could vote on what I truly believe to be the best solution without regard to campaign contributions.

Homeless

No one should have to sleep outside unless they want that life. In return they should be required to contribute as they can in the form of community service in or out of the shelter. They should be required to enroll in substance abuse programs and/or career education programs to attack the reason behind their homelessness.
It is estimated that nearly half the homeless are mentally ill and incapable of holding down a full time job. Anyone coming to a shelter must be evaluated and those suffering from mental illness must be given appropriate medicine and gotten on government financial assistance programs that are available for the mentally ill. Even those should be required to do community service as they are able. We do a much better job of using mentally challenged to clean our parks and do other community service than we do in using the abilities of our mentally ill.
Those who refuse shelter housing and the requirements that go with it, should not be allowed to sleep in business and tourist areas but be given a dry place under freeways or in industrial areas where they will feel safe but not interfere with the lives of others.
Social service workers assigned to the homeless problem should have their offices at the shelters where they can provide counseling and other services directly to the homeless and get to know their clients in order to provide maximum assistance.

Healthcare

No one should have to go without adequate emergency and preventative healthcare. Those who are happy with their present system of health insurance should not have to change. i.e. we don't need for the government to take over all health insurance and have the so called universal health care socialized medicine program suggested by some. If more regulation is required for current HMO's and insurance companies then appropriate laws should be passed. Those that can afford insurance should be required to obtain it. (just like auto insurance).
The current law requires that emergency care be provided to everyone regardless of their financial situation. This is a very inefficient and expensive system and is causing some emergency rooms to close because they can't afford to treat all those who show up without insurance. Preventative care is non existent for many poor people. Individual counties need to work with the state to decide how best to provide effective/efficient healthcare for the poor. Some counties are experimenting with mobil treatment and preventative care facilities to try and head off the need to go to emergency rooms for minor problems. This experiment should be encouraged.
Next time a minimum wage increase is proposed we should study the possibility of having part of the increase go into some kind of a group health insurance plan that small businesses could use for their minimum wage employees.
Insuring children will be the least cost segment of the population to have fully covered so we should initially focus our efforts there.
When illegal immigrants show up at the hospital the law requires that they must be treated but they should be deported for any followup treatment.

Education

The Stanford evaluation of School Finance and Governance in California study concluded that the system is fundamentally flawed and California students perform far lower on tests that do students in other states. The study recommendations must be adopted now.
Responsibility for education should be primarily the job of local school boards. The state should provide a predictable consistent level of financing. Proposition 98 should provide for adequate financing of schools but elected officials seem incapable of providing stable financing. Passage of the governors proposed budget stabilization act which will require saving money during good economic times for use during less profitable economic times is essential. Using Proposition 13 as an excuse for bad schools doesn't fly when assessed value is estimated to grow 9.3 percent in 2007-08 and 7.1 percent in 2008-09. The Stanford study found no correlation between spending per pupil and academic performance and concluded that if additional dollars were inserted in the current system there is no reason to expect substantial increases in student outcomes related to state goals. Once we make the changes recommended by the Stanford "Getting down to facts" study and pass the budget stabilization act, we can decide if more changes are necessary to assure that funding per student is competitive with other states.
Within the state, schools with high proportions of students in poverty are consistently failing to meet the standards the state sets out for them. (see my proposals for Welfare reform which may do more to help education than anything else). The "no child left behind" program should not be dumped but should be improved to accomplish its goals.
In the Stanford study, both principals and superintendents ranked the inability to dismiss ineffective teachers as the most important change that could help them improve student outcomes.
The Stanford study concluded that school governance in California is characterized by a hodgepodge of restrictive rules and regulations that often hinder, rather than promote, student achievement.
Bottom line: Immediately adopt the recommendations of the Stanford study and adopt the Governors Budget Stabilization Act to provide a stable source of funds.
Local school districts must be given the authority to enforce discipline. This is especially important in schools where parental support may be lacking
The high school drop out rate is totally unacceptable. Unless you have a full time job you shouldn't be able to drop out of school until your normal year of graduation. Optional boot camp/trade school/public service options should be offered but leaving school early to hang out on the street should not be allowed.
The high school exit exam wouldn't have been necessary if schools weren't offering social promotions but it has gotten the attention of students, teachers, and parents and should not be eliminated. The fact that so many inner city students can't pass this middle school level test indicates that perhaps we need a middle school exit exam so we stop social promotions from middle school.
Any student who isn't progressing should be attending school Saturdays and year round so there is some personal penalty for not working hard in school.

Immigration

Illegal immigration is costing our nation a lot. Some think we are getting cheap labor at no extra cost but after you add in the cost of educating the children of the illegals, welfare benefits such as school lunches, and most importantly the lowering of wages for those in low paying jobs it actually isn't cheap labor.
Until we have a secure border we can't even consider most other changes to our system. We have the technology to secure our border and since we are currently trying to stimulate the economy it would be better to build the fence with American labor than send out checks so we could buy more Chinese goods (after we borrow the money to pay for the rebate program).
One thing we could do immediately is to change the constitution so that children born to illegal immigrants do not automatically become citizens just because they were born in America. The citizenship law was passed to reward the families of slaves brought to America against their will and should not apply to women sneaking across the border so their soon to be born kids could be Americans.
Once we have a secure border we can discuss how to handle current illegal immigrants but amnesty should not be an option.
Companies request permission to bring in technical workers on an H-1 visa because they "can't find qualified Americans". All these visas should have a return home date and the company should be required to educate an American to fill the job at that time. The company could do this via on the job training or through University scholarships.

Welfare

We need to give the fathers more responsibility for the cost of the children they father. Any women applying for child support needs to tell authorities who they think the father is so that he can be tested and if confirmed his future income can be attached to repay the government for paying to raise his child. (This threat might make guys more responsible in birth control).
Any physically and mentally fit woman accepting taxpayer funds to raise her children should be required to be productive outside the home at least 40 hours per week. Plenty of working Mom's do this everyday. When a woman graduates from high school and doesn't go to college she goes to work unless she has a baby and is unmarried and then she gets to stay home with the kids. This is not fair.
The first step would be to start coop baby sitting facilities where each mother could work 2 days a week. That way 3 women would each serve two days at the daycare taking care of three Mom's children and would have 4 days to be productive in other ways. Two days they should do public service work to return something to the taxpayers who are supporting the kids. Two days they should work on whatever it is that is keeping them from getting a job. That could be preparing to take the high school exit exam or learning computer skills. Under the prison section I suggested non prison punishment for law breakers who are not a threat to society. Many of these would be capable of teaching welfare mothers the skills they need to get a job and should be required to do so for an extended period instead of going to prison.
The women should be instructed in birth control and given the required prescriptions.
The state of California doesn't meet the federal welfare reform requirement that after 5 years on welfare you have to get a job. That should not be allowed and as stated above if they can't get a job they should be productive in the baby sitting/public service/education program.
Being a welfare Mom should be a tougher life than working and raising your own kids. It isn't now.

Prisons

Our prison system is extremely broken. 70% of those released from prison return to prison. 70% of those on parole have a substance abuse problem so one reason they return to prison is the need to finance the addition.
I would drug and alcohol test all prisoners on a regular basis and those testing positive would be isolated and the guards and anyone else having contact with them would be subject to drug and alcohol testing. If the prisoner continued to test positive for drugs or alcohol then all those coming in contact with them would be subject to search until we find who is bringing in the substances even if it turns out to be a guard.
All prisoners should be required to work at least 40 hours per week. Our goal should be very few prison employees other than guards. After work prisoners should be required to go to school to improve chances of employment when released.
Prisons should be reserved for those that are a threat to society. EXTENSIVE public service and fines would be punishment enough for minor offenses and those not considered a threat to society.
Rather than build more prisons or release prisoners early, lets start a second shift so half the prisoners sleep during the day and WORK at night. We could double the capacity by purchasing sleeping bags for each prisoner. We should not be required to provide better facilities for our prisoners than we do for our military.
Prison guards are paid well and shouldn't be demanding a big increase in wages and benefits.

Government Finances

Elected officials need to learn to live within the income provided by the taxpayers. The Budget Stabilization Act proposed by the governor should be passed immediately.
Social security and Medicare are way underfunded and none of the candidates seem to worry about that.
Elected officials spend so much campaigning that they need to take lots of money from lobbyists and then feel obligated to seldom turn down a request for funding of the lobbyists favorite project.
Underfunded government employee pensions are a serious problem.
Considering all the above we need a law that would prevent elected officials from increasing expenses at the state level by more than the annual increase in population and inflation. That would result in saving money during good times to finance things during bad times and prevent the every few year "cutting" of the budget.
In a perfect world I could run a no expense campaign using the internet and e-mails so lobbyist opinions could be ignored if appropriate.