Garamendi 2010

Background:

Goals:

Issues:

1. We must have the best education system so Californians can compete with intelligence, knowledge, skill and productivity. We must invest in our children and support our educational system beginning at the Pre-school level all the way through Graduate school. Fully funding school programs to ensure class size reduction and adequate support personnel on all school campuses is essential. We should not be closing down school libraries and eliminating computer labs. As Lieutenant Governor, I will sit on the University of California Board of Regents and a trustee of California State University System. In these positions, I will lead reforms to ensure that our institutions of learning at every level and grade are fully funded and that teachers and administrators are supported with modern equipment, books, and facilities. We must explore innovative ways to find money for schools such as bringing in businesses to adopt schools in exchange for tax credits. In addition to providing money that moves California per pupil funding from the lowest to the upper echelons, we must demand and receive effective and efficient outcomes from every school. We must also stop the tuition and fee increases at community colleges and universities, which make it impossible for many quality students to go to college and enter the teaching profession.

2. We must be healthy. Increasing numbers of Californians are being priced out of our health care system as premiums have increased by over 70% since 2000. Moreover, we are experiencing poor outcomes, a fragmented delivery system with perverse incentives regarding quality improvements, rapidly escalating administrative costs that rob health care dollars, a deteriorating safety net, and massive cost-shifting that is robbing our economy of needed dollars to create and sustain job growth. In short, middle class and working families are hurting, and are declaring bankruptcy, and losing their homes, because of medical expenses, in record numbers. We must have real reform of a system that is unfair, inefficient and too expensive. We need to commit ourselves to this fight, as I have for most of my career, well before Americans today have come to see health care as their number one domestic issue. I created a plan that artfully combined regulation and competition in 1991 that was deemed exceptional by major commentators, including the New York Times and the Washington Post, that later became the blueprint for the Clintons' plan. Their inability to bring the requisite stakeholders together to forge a consensus for true reform made new sweeping initiatives on this issue impractical for many years. The public is at a tipping point and only the most highly thought out universal health plan, championed by a leader, like myself, who has forged relationships with most of the requisite stakeholders, can create true sweeping reform. I believe that I am the only candidate who fully understands the fight ahead, and who has both the national and statewide relationships needed to implement a universal health care plan that will provide high quality and affordable health care to all Californians.

3. We must maintain the environmental quality of our Golden State. The Lieutenant Governor is a Member of the State Lands Commission and a UC Regent. I will use these positions to advance the environmental research agenda at the University of California and leverage the role of the Lands Commission to protect the California coast, rivers, lakes and state lands. In both roles, I will be motivated by the central challenge of our time--reversing global warming and climate change. To that end, I will propose policies and incentives to reduce green house gasses and to address the inevitable environmental changes already underway. I will seek the implementation of policies and incentives to encourage business and individuals to implement sound environmental practices. We need to encourage environmental education in schools so we can teach the next generation to appreciate and preserve our natural world. I would also expand our research and technological base to develop a "green economy," where California is the worldwide leader in renewable energy research and production, and make sure our industries are always on the cutting edge. When I was Senate Chairman of the Joint Science and Technology committee, I pushed the California Research Agenda. The Garamendi Funding Program has financed over $1.25 billion of research facilities on UC campuses. As Lieutenant Governor, I will be Chairman of the Commission for Economic Development as well as on the UC Board of Regents. Once again, the office of Lieutenant Governor will put me in a position to push to increase research at UC and other research universities and institutions. I will also see to it that valuable research is transferred out of the lab into industry.

Grassroots Support:

Grassroots involvement will play a large, important, and ultimately decisive role in my campaign. The hundreds of thousands of grassroots activists who were inspired by the presidential candidacy of Howard Dean, whom I supported before the Iowa Caucuses for president, have changed the landscape forever for political campaigns. These new activists are better informed about the issues through the extensive use of the Internet and by working together to register and educate voters between major campaigns, and do not respond favorably to easy sound bites and platitudes. I am known for my extensive policy work in which I bring all stakeholders to the table to work out the best public policy for those affected by my decisions. I don't rely upon sound bytes of platitudes, but upon informed supporters to work with me to advance sound public policy to safeguard California's resources, improve California's infrastructure and to enhance the quality of life of California's residents.

Because I am an independent Democrat who championed some of the first clean campaign legislation in the country (in the 1980's) and do not accept contributions from the industry I regulate, I, more than most candidates, depend upon ordinary Californians to advance my campaign. I make a practice of inviting area grassroots activists and members of local Unions to my events to better acquaint them with my positions and so that they can acquaint me with issues that they are concerned with. Several members of my campaign staff played instrumental roles in the Dean Campaign, and have integrated the use of the Internet and involvement of grassroots activists into our campaign strategy. We are looking now at the possibility of re-employing house parties to better acquaint voters throughout California with my record during the General Election.

Moreover, my campaign for Lieutenant Governor has nearly swept the endorsement race, gaining the backing of Vice President Al Gore, Bruce Babbitt (Former Secretary, U.S. Dept. of Interior), James Lee Witt (Former, Director of FEMA), and most of the unions that worked with DFA grassroots activists to defeat Governor Schwarzenegger's ballot measures in the 2005 special election, an election where I traveled throughout the state and spent my own resources to contact hundreds of thousands of voters via phone and email. So far, I have gained the backing of the California Teachers' Association (CTA), California Professional Firefighters' Association (CPF), Service Employee International Union (SEIU), Peace Officers Research Association of California (PORAC), National Latino Peace Officers Association, United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), Communications Workers of America (CWA), UNITE-HERE, The California League of Conservation Voters (CLCV), Sierra Club, Vote the Coast, Stonewall Democratic Club, New Frontier Democratic Club, San Fernando Valley Young Democrats and dozens more. The grassroots activists, many of whom became active only in the last 5 years, and the Union workers, many of whom have fought beside me for over 30 years, have become and will continue to be a formidable force that can solidly defeat whatever the national Far Right throws at us when they send a very well financed Tom McClintock into the race in June for the General Election.

DFA Values:

In addition to the progressive and fiscally responsible goals mentioned above, as Lieutenant Governor, I will work toward every Californian having universal access to affordable health care. Our health care system should value people before profit. I will support programs such as Healthy Families, First Five and Medi-cal for low income students. If a child is not healthy or living in a healthy environment, then learning can't take place. I will always fight for the equality and civil rights of every Californian. I will continue to support requirements for low income housing in new developments, and I will support the use of state pension funds and bond acts for low income housing. I support paid family leave and providing childcare for California's workforce. I support a minimum wage increase adjusted to the cost of living, including an increase from $6.75 to $7.75 over two years, because presently our minimum wage earners cannot afford California's steep cost of living. I am committed to improving the high speed rail, light rail, buses, metro systems and highways, along with water and sanitation systems, education and research facilities, communication facilities, the flood levees, and the renewable energy systems upon which we must come to rely to improve our economy and way of life. We must increase revenues to fund our education, environmental, health and infrastructure programs: our first step must be to look for the money is in the numerous tax expenditures (tax deductions and credits) that give unwarranted tax breaks. In addition to providing money that moves California per pupil funding from the lowest to the upper echelons, we must demand and receive effective and efficient outcomes from every school. In helping control California's budget, I will work to spend enough to fully fund our priorities and not a penny more.