LEGISLATIVE INTERVIEW WITH ASSEMBLYMAN JOHN LAIRD
On February 25, our Government Director and a LWVMP member met with our assemblyman to discuss the LWVC questions for 2005. The following is a summary of Mr. Laird's responses.
Q: How do you think California will balance revenue and expenses in the 2005-06 Budget? Do you see a need for increasing revenues? Do you support annual review of tax expenditures as a way of improving tax equity and avoiding more difficult cuts in spending? If you think that there should be cuts, what three areas do you think would provide the most suitable source of savings in state spending?
This question is most appropriate as Mr. Laird is the Chair of the Assembly Budget Committee. He believes that the Legislative Analyst's Office has provided a good roadmap. A combination of increased revenue and cuts in spending will be necessary.
The governor has over-budgeted $250 million ($65 million just for prisons). Taking this into account, the choices are cuts in education and social services and closing loopholes (tax expenditures). The discussion of the impact of such cuts should make increasing revenues an obvious part of the solution.
The most popular choice is to raise the top-bracket income tax rates, reinstating the 10 and 11 percent rates that were in effect in the early 1990s, which would raise $2-3 billion per year. Assembly member Wilma Chan (who received the LWVC Making Democracy Work Leadership Award for Outstanding Accomplishment and Effectiveness in the California State Assembly) has recently introduced such a bill.
Q: What should the legislature do to ensure that all Californians have access to health care?
Mr. Laird supports and is co-author of the single payer method of universal health care S.B. 921 (the Health Care for All Californians Act) with State Senator Sheila Kuehl. It has been reintroduced, and they will continue efforts to move it through the Legislature. The LWVC believes that a basic level of quality health care should be available to everyone and supports this "single payer" method of universal health care.
Mr. Laird mentioned that Santa Cruz County is now providing health insurance for all uninsured children under 18 years old.
Q: Do you think that reform of any of the following is desirable? If not, why not? If yes, what should the legislature do?
- Redistricting
- Term limits
- Financing of campaigns
- Proposition 13 provisions concerning reassessment of commercial property
Mr. Laird supports reforming term limits because it takes time to build experience and relationships necessary to be effective in reaching common ground with other legislators. Every session brings many new legislators and this process must start again. He mentioned increasing the limits to a maximum of 14 years, which could be served in either the Senate or the Assembly or a combination of the two. He suggests tying this reform to redistricting. He strongly feels that we need a truly diverse commission for redistricting rather than the retired judges proposed by the Governor.
The LWVC position on redistricting states:
"Responsibility for redistricting preferably should be vested in a bipartisan special commission, with membership that includes citizens at large, representatives of public interest groups, and minority group interests."Mr. Laird does not support mid-term redistricting, seeing it as a potential power grab as has been the case in other states such as Texas. Redistricting should occur following the new census.
Mr. Laird co-authored the Clean Money Initiative Bill last year and believes it may earn more support in the Legislature this year. The League is working with the California Clean Money Campaign and other groups to bring the "Clean Money option" to California. He mentioned that the cost of this bill (around $70 million) in the current deficit situation makes it more difficult and it may be that success will be achieved only through the initiative process.
Mr. Laird supports the reform of Proposition 13 - "splitting the roll" on the assessment of residential and commercial property. He does not think it can be successful in the Legislature, as it requires a two-thirds vote in each house. It will require an initiative that he would support.
Q: What are the major issues that you see the legislature must deal with in 2005? What are your personal priorities?
Mr. Laird says it is hard to imagine any issue more dominant than the budget in 2005. His personal priorities include authorship of four water bills: disaster planning in the Delta; maintenance of levies; Colorado River water shortage (tamarisk plant control); and closer to home, a consensus bill regarding proposed water projects which would commit the first 750 acre feet of any water project to affordable housing.
He is also author of a civil rights bill that addresses sexual orientation, family status, marital status, and gender identity. Other priorities include bills that would automatically enroll food stamp recipient children into the free lunch program; transfer Hatton Canyon from the state to the County Park District and reinstatement of double-fine districts for Carmel Valley Road and Highway 101 in Prunedale.
--Bev Bean
