Public Affairs Special; Candidates 33rd and 35th State Senate Races; Tape Number 44

Kao CEO election 92 specials are made possible by a grant from AARP vote with major funding for this continuing series provided by Disneyland park by the Peter and Mary move Foundation and by viewer support. Welcome to election 92 one of a series of television programs presenting candidates and the issues in the November 3rd the general election in Orange County and today's program will present the candidates in the thirty third and thirty fifth state Senate districts. This general election is especially important to voters because it will be the first one where all the state Senate and congressional districts are new ones redrawn because of reapportionment. There are now four state Senate districts fully contained within Orange County but only two of them. The

thirty third and thirty fifth are up for election this year. The thirty third state senate district covers the entire eastern portion of Orange County from the Los Angeles County Line southward to the San Diego County line. It includes all of the hybrid Placentia admission of Rancho Santa Margarita and Villa Park. It also includes most of Lake Forest and parts of Anaheim winna park Irvine Santa Ana and unincorporated areas. The thirty third state district has a total of three hundred ninety five thousand voters of whom two hundred twenty six thousand or Fifty seven percent are Republican. It has one hundred twenty one thousand Democrats or 31 percent of the total. The 30 50 states and the district covers the western portion of the county along most of its coast from the Los Angeles County line on the north to most of Laguna Beach on the south. It includes all of cypress Los Alamitos Seal Beach Rossmore Huntington Beach coastal Mesa and Newport Beach. It also includes most of Fountain Valley testin Irvine Laguna Beach and parts of other cities.

The 35 states in a district is the largest of the four in Orange County in numbers of voters with a total of four hundred thirty thousand. Of these two hundred thirty three thousand or fifty four percent are Republicans and one hundred thirty nine thousand or thirty two percent are Democrats. The pay of a member of the state Senate is the same as that of a state assemblyman now totaling fifty two thousand dollars a year plus $100 a day per Deum for every day that the legislature is in session. After going 63 days without any budget and paying its bills with IOUs the state legislature and the governor and they acted fifty seven point four billion dollar budget for the current year. It has cuts for about every state function from education and health care to welfare and services for the aged in the poor. State unemployment is now nine point four percent with one and a half million unemployed. A bleak economic outlook faces all the state legislators to be elected in November. What needs to be done. To meet the candidates. First those running in the thirty

third state Senate district. John Lewis Republican is the state senator of the thirty fifth district he was elected to the assembly in 1980 serving until 19 in 91 when he was elected to the state Senate. He served as vice chair of the Senate business and professions Committee and is on the agriculture insurance and public employment and retirement Committee. Samite Democrat of Mission Viejo who was a senior claims representative for a large insurance company. He's a 10 year resident of Mission Viejo one is a graduate of the University of California at Santa Barbara and political science. He's now on a leave of absence to conduct his campaign. Doyle guy a libertarian is a self-employed accountant residing in Yorba Linda. He previously with the assistant vice president and assistant controller over real estate syndication for the earlier was the administrator of the western Kentucky regional mental health center. And now a candidate for the thirty fifth district. Marion Berg is a Republican is the state senator of the thirty seventh district she was elected to the assembly in 1978 and to the Senate in 1984. She chairs the local

government committee and serves on the appropriations elections ethics health and natural resources and transportation committees of the Senate. Graham Garcia Democrat is a communications technician for Pacific Bell and union representative for the Communication Workers of America local ninety five 10. She is vice president of the Democratic women of Orange County and vice chair of the California Democratic caucus. Eric Sprigg libertarian operates a dry cleaning company. He's been active as a member of the Central Committee of the Libertarian Party of Orange County he was a candidate in the special election for 1901 for the thirty fifth state Senate seat. Each candidate will now have a one minute statement on his or her candidacy. After which I'll ask questions on the issues. Let's start with you Mr. Lewis. Well thank you Jim it's a real pleasure to be here today. I was elected the California State Senate last year in a special election and during my one year in the state senate and my years of service in the California State Senate Assembly I've been a tough and independent and conservative voice and vote for the people of Orange County. I

believe that the number one issue right now as you mentioned in your opening was the state of California economy. And I believe that over taxation over regulation over regulation of our citizenry has brought about the root cause of our problem. And if I'm elected to my first full term in the California State Senate I will do everything in my power and fight against over taxation and overregulation. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Wright. First of all I'd like to say thanks to you Jim and to Kaohsiung for allowing us to have this forum and I'd like to say a bit about myself before I get into the issues. I lived in Mission Viejo for the last 10 years and I'm a graduate of public schools and Orange County. I Capistrano Valley and then UC Santa Barbara up in Santa Barbara County area. I've made a study of my whole life and put political science in economics and feel that we gravely need a change in our in our direction here in Orange County and the state. Basically I believe that it's time that we look towards a long term view in our in our government in the way we conduct business up there and that we go. We emphasize

achievement and accomplishment there. Basically this year I hope to to get a lot of things done in my first session up there and look forward to winning in November. Thank you Mr. Guy. Thank you a little bit more about me my month so I'm married and three kids and I have a wonderful grandson. My professional career spanned some 19 years. I also worked with an international CPA firm earlier in my career I know something more of my candidacy. Is is based on. Getting government out of your lives. Our founding fathers when they first planted the seeds of liberty in 1776 fought long and hard and sacrificed after the battle was won. They gave us the Constitution and the Bill of Rights to ensure that future generations would never have to fight for liberty again.

Now. The legislature the executive and he did distort interpretation. Have so corrupted our original Constitution that I challenge you to name me one area of your life that does not have government intervention. Thank you. All right. Now a candidate for the thirty fifth district in Bergen. Thank you Jim. It's a pleasure to be here and I really do appreciate the opportunity. I consider myself a lifetime activists and community solutions and sometimes my community has expanded to a larger degree such as when I represented the thirty seventh Senate district which I am currently representing until the end of this year and that district offers wide diversity tremendous opportunities to solve problems. I have made a number of promises when I was elected to office when I was elected in the Assembly I promise that I would index the income tax so that bracket creep would no longer occur and people would be able to keep their hard earned salary. I accomplished that. I said I would on

stilt the upper Newport Bay. We have been able to and silty after Newport Bay the same in the Senate I made a number of promises particularly dealing with transportation issues. I authored the bill that would consolidate the transportation agencies bringing privatization to Caltrans. I have had a very successful legislative career and this being my last term under 140 I look forward to continuing my efforts. Thank you. All right thank you Brenda. Thank you Jim. I offer the voters of Orange County a new generation of leadership. I am a working mother and my son attends public school. I understand what working class Californians want and need from their representatives. The problems in Sacramento are not so tough that they cannot be solved. Our legislature suffers from too many perks too many privileges and too many career politicians. On November 3rd there's a clear choice. I am the only candidate in this race that believes in a cooperative effort between business and government

to bring back and revive our economy. And I am the only pro-choice candidate in my race. Let's be honest our governor is out of touch. Our legislature is out of control. And if we re-elect the same career politicians to Sacramento we are all out of our minds. All right thank you Eric. Liberty is the means whereby people of vastly different backgrounds and beliefs can live together in harmony without using the power of government to hurt one another. Libertarians are people of all races and professions working together to build a new political party that is free from the grasp of special interest groups. We embrace the vision of our founding fathers but we reject the Democratic social welfare state and we reject Republican compromises with it. You know that government spending and regulation are out of control. You know the Democratic Republican and Republican politicians are the

cause of it. And you know that no matter what promises they make here today they will not stop until you stop them. I invite you to join us in the fight against these two corrupt political organizations. Thank you very much. Thank you I would like to start right away with what I regard as cataclysmically important first issue and that is jobs and the economy. Ninety three thousand people out of work today in Orange County. A million and a half people out of work today in California nine and a half million people out of work today in the United States. This is every report from a group that calls itself the California industry migration study by five utilities led by Southern California Edison Company. It has a devastating number seven hundred seven manufacturing plants have left California. Knocking out one hundred seventy nine thousand manufacturing jobs. But according to the State Department finance California has lost really

all of its losses. Seven hundred fifty thousand jobs since 1990 but we can't. It seems to me we can't as the stakes are won with that kind of. Job loss and industry loss so let's start with that. Let's start with you Mr. Wright. What would you do as a legislator to address this devastating problem. I think the first thing that I would do as a legislator would be to convene a series of meetings with my constituents. Basically we need to get down to down to brass tacks with local government and local industry and prioritize on what we need to do up in Sacramento. I think one of the things that we really need to do is get a hold on workers compensation. It's it's time that that got reformed and unfortunately the the people who are up there currently Republican and Democrat are subject to both sides of the influence game with special interest and PAC money. So we sit here doing this program when we have seen a special session that was allegedly called to solve the problem neither that neither the governor and Governor Wilson plan was

adopted nor the Willie Brown plan was adopted. We have no plan adopted and that's where we stand as we do this show. Does that add to our view. Very much so and it really comes down to they're unable to work together. Both sides continually fighting and scrap and argue and they want to blame the trial lawyers the other side blames the insurance companies. It's a travesty. What do you have to say about jobs and the economy and all these studies say that workman's comp leads the list of reasons why these companies left California. Well Jim what we're seeing what we're seeing right now in California is the we're bearing the fruit of 30 years of Liberal Democrat control of both houses of the legislature and the laws that they've passed over the last several decades have brought us to this sad state that we're in today. As you mentioned we have a tremendous deterioration of our job base and companies are packing up and leaving. The reasons are are you know many amongst them are the tax policy in California. We have the most progressive

income tax in the country. We border a state Nevada for example doesn't even have a personal income tax worker's comp that you mentioned. And yet the applicant attorneys and the other special interest groups I have a stranglehold on the on the California legislature right now because of Willie Brown and his friends. But you had the chance that you were you were just up there you had a chance to do something about it. Senator Senator Ferguson I want to let your minnow in and we were supportive of the governor's proposal but once again Willie Brown and David Bertie stymied it in both houses of the legislature. If you've got a chairman of the committee that is predisposed to not coming up with a solution it really is going to make the difference is necessary. Those bills never got out of committee we didn't have an opportunity to vote on them. I had offered amendments the number of times on the floor of the Senate that incorporated the Ueberroth Commission recommendations. They were simply was not a partisan vote they were defeated. So until there is a change in the legislature where the chairmen of those committees that hear those bills are going to come out with meaningful reform or just pass another

package such as those that went to the governor and the governor vetoed. Merely a placebo to say we're doing the job and effectively it was not a job. But I'd like to point out some other things you mentioned as far as what's happening to California. One of the problems affordable housing and that's where we have to get local government to recognize that they have a responsibility I tarried a number of bills as chair of the local government committee to require that housing element simply be adhered to. They're simply not following the direction. Our our housing is woefully inadequate for the manufacturing firms that come out here and one of the reasons they say they have to leave is because their employees simply can't afford the housing that is available particularly in Orange County. So it isn't just workers comp it isn't just housing. It's the permit process that we have to go through the whole business climate the regulatory process that it takes for anyone to get a permit approved and that's because of the environmental redundancy of agencies in Los Angeles. There are thirty nine water permit agencies that you have to go through in order to get one project approved.

I had a bill again to permit streamlining bill again the Ueberroth Commission recommendations. I couldn't get it out of the of the Committee over in the Assembly we had no problem in the Senate. But when it gets to the assembly then the difficulty is is obviously a parent. All right let's start with the question of jobs and the economy. OK I have a comment on both of them. Three weeks ago we had at least 750 jobs lost in each out of only two companies. And nothing was done about it I would have contacted the CEO and asked what I could do to help. The same week the only thing that my Republican opponent addressed in the press was Murphy Brown. I want to save jobs in Orange County and she wants to talk about a TV sitcom on Worker's Comp for those of you who don't know it. In a worker's comp settlement the injured worker only gets one third of the settlement. The other two thirds goes to an attorney's insurance for EMS and the medical providers. I find it very ironic that some of Merion largest campaign contributions come

from those very same people. The medical providers the attorneys and the insurance companies I smell a rat. If I might there was an accusation made I'd carry the bill that would hurt the medical profession as a matter that was that was. A blatant accusation that I really find quite humorous. In fact you'll find that the bill that deals that I have carried have certain you know I have ever more we talk about permit if I write here and I said I was the premier regulator of Orange County she writes more regulation than anybody. She voted five out of six times to raise taxes last year. She is MS gun control California and she loves regulation She writes this stuff like she's getting paid by the page right. Your question again now let's come back the question though. Do it give you a jab we assume is Garcia but no I want to talk about the permit streamlining. Right after the budget was finished we had before the Senate a bill to cut. Bureaucracy. And she voted against it. I'm done. Thank you.

OK that's it that's fair from human to break. Thank you. Mike I want to do is a prolific regulator and as I said she she does it as though she's a big paid by the page and then she sits up here and acts like a conservative. It's just not true. The businesses are running from California they're not just packing up and kind of leaving folks they're running. And it's not just because of a few liberal Democrats in the assembly. It's because of cutthroat Republicans who will not be tax fighters and I'm afraid to tell you folks that my opponent has spent her entire life her entire career getting a public check. And it's time for her to retire. I do want to get a quick rejoinder on that we have and I'm not sure what regulations he's referring to a debt the tax increases and I did support because we were able to gain for Orange County for the first time in history a reasonable return on the dollars that we sent a second minute to realignment. And if we're ever going to change the system we have to decentralize government and get it to the locals to be

able to perform where they know how to best perform and that is being responsive to their constituents. And that is taking regulation off in fact I authored the bills that eliminated the mandates for the county in and frankly I think that's. Yes I love your furniture guy jobs and the economy jobs and the economy. The more of the primary reasons were the tax increases in 1991. That not only Democrats but Republicans voted for granted. Some Republicans didn't think in order for it to pass. Many Republicans did go up for that. How did you vote on that then to that bill I voted against each and every one of the tax increases All right so what did what would it what would you have done as a legislator had you been up there. I would vote against any tax increases and right now I would repeal all of those tax increases and start a program over five years of cutting taxes both personal and corporate by 50 percent.

But I think when we have several of these propositions that kind of crystallize opinions you have to make a decision when you walk in that booth what they're going to vote yes or whether you're going to vote no on Prop 165 Let's start with Mr. Garcia. 165 as you know is the one that would give extraordinary new powers on the budget to the governor and it would cut welfare first 10 percent and then 15 percent later on. How are you going to vote on one 65 and why I'm going to vote against 165 mainly because we need to take care of our children our elderly and the disabled. And I just can't see giving that kind of extreme power to someone like Governor Wilson. All right. Very quickly 165 What are you going to do. I'm going to go for it it's wrong to take money away from people who earn it in order to give it to those who don't. So what you're going to vote. I like I like the cutting of the welfare part I don't like the power to Wilson part but I I have to go with it because it's the only welfare cut we've

got. All right. 165 are you going to vote. I will vote for it. It doesn't do everything it should. But on balance you're going to have to unbalanced I will have to vote for Senator Baucus. I'm supporting it. The wealthier is out of sight in California we have to do something to curb its abuse we need to get people off welfare rolls into meaningful jobs. Are you worried about giving the governor extraordinary I think our first legislature to act on time and I think that's certainly something that should be respected. So there was all I'm going to support. The proposition California currently has 12 percent of the population but Twenty six percent of the costs associated with welfare. And this is something that's long overdue. Good idea or bad idea 165. A very bad idea. I can't believe I'm hearing this from potential legislators here legislators here. Part of our job there is to is to be the people's voice in Sacramento on the budget should this pass. It will be the governor's voice and that's all it will be. But I'd like to make some notes about my my opponent's ironic comments.

He just went into a tirade against the speaker Willie Brown but I'd like to remind him of his first vote in the assembly and that was to bring Mr. Mr. Brown to the speakership against Howard Berman. It's ironic that every every conservative Orange County Republican harps against Speaker Brown and yet they all voted for him. They voted him in there and they disputed speaker should bow out. It's I find it I find it strange and the second thing is I'd like to ask him if he says that he's going to get all these things done and that the reason he hasn't been able to get them done is Speaker Brown. I'd like to compare his record to Marion burgers. She is at least able to get things passed through through there against the wishes of Willie Brown and the quote unquote liberal Democrats. Unfortunately Senator Lewis has not been able to get very much past it all he had one bill if you want to respond to that of course I want to respond. Can you waltz with the Democrats if you want and I read a line of thinking to

what my opponent is referring to of course is the speakership 12 years ago between Willie Brown and Howard Berman Howard Berman is one of the most dangerous liberals in the country. That was a terrible choice that we had at that point in time and almost every Republican held their nose and voted for Willie brill. Why don't you do what you normally do which isn't staying and since that time obviously I was a strong proponent of trying to unseat Willie Brown and in fact trying to help elect a Republican majority. OK that let me talk about something that's kind of a subjective reflection I like that each of you respond to. Now the Duke told the L.A. Times that says that the California state legislature as an institution stand with 70 percent disapproval. 78 percent. Of the people of California disapprove of the job being done by the California state legislature only 11 percent approve of it. If it has if it's held in such a low as esteem What would you do to try to reestablish some credibility in the state legislature

that would let people have give it some respect. Let's start with you Mr. Garcia. That's why I'm running for this office. I had a state senator. Named Cecil Greene who was very much in favor of helping the workers of his community and the small business. And now with reapportionment if she wins Marion Burgas and would have been my state senator. And that's something that my community can do without. The people are disenfranchised in this community and no amount of promises or lists of what I've done in fact let's look at what she's done. I hope that she does run on her record because people are not happy with it. People are not happy with the prospect of having an anti-choice legislature in Sacramento. And people are very unhappy with the way that the legislature has voted the way that the budget was not finalized on time

and the dragging of heels and it's all a partisan issue. And we need to get away from that we need to work together and the legislators who are there now obviously cannot do the job. All right that's a. Make your answers a little bit more brief but let's hear from you. But the question is about there's a lack of respect for the integrity of the legislature at the institution. It's a dreadful record. The legislature has earned every bit of distain they have acquired. They have lied to us. They have raised our taxes over and over and over again despite political promises. I have there's no doubt in my mind that there is a great deal of disdain for that bush legislature. All right Mr. Guy. How to restore some kind of credibility and respect to this institution that we call the California state legislature. I think what we have to do is once elected the representative has to stay in touch with the people in his district or her district

and educate them on what's going on at Sacramento. And what the real world is really going on such as the budget process that just went through. They call it a cut in the budget. It wasn't a cut and it would go down to the ten point seven billion dollar cut. It was it wasn't a cut it was on the increase. I have a prior year that's lying to the people lying to the people. Well it's a net reduction and this is the first time in history that we actually are spending less this year. They want to be really bending last year. That's true. Figures will bear it out will provide as we get. I just like to say though that at a time when the economy was moving we were not great the state and the people are hurting they're lashing out. There is much that the legislator legislature can do to regain that stature but simply when the economy starts moving and we'll do that next year. All right. Well I think reporting reform and proposition 140 term limitation initiative which I was one of the few legislators in support was a good step in the right direction. But once again I think a lot of the problems and

anything from Sacramento is the fact of the 30 years of liberal domination that has brought about the sorry state of the economy that we're in right now and frankly we need two more liberal Democrat senators representing Orange County as much as I need more gray here. All right. Well first of all I'd say you don't have to like I can go to liberal liberal Democrat I mean if you can call me a liberal Democrat I'll tell you that's about the biggest lie I've ever heard. Second of all we need more legislators who don't miss 26 percent of their votes in a session and that is a lot more touch with everyone. Look at Lens attack. Thank you very much our time is almost up now and I want to thank our guests we're talking about the issues. Tune in Monday at this same time for another in our special election 92 series. I'm Jim Cooper. Thanks for being with us. You're. You're.

Election 92 specials are made possible by a grant from our vote with major funding for this continuing series provided by Disneyland Park. By the Peter and Mary move foundation by viewer support.