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The questions were prepared by the League of Women Voters of California Education Fund and asked of all candidates for this office.
See below for questions on
Fiscal Choices,
Water,
Education,
Your Priorities
Click on a name for candidate information. See also more information about this contest.
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1. How would you prioritize the fiscal choices the Legislature must make to align the state’s income and spending?
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Answer from David Carlos Salaverry:
I support Gov. Brown's rainy day fund. We need fiscal sanity in California, neither massive tax increases nor massive tax cuts. California also needs -- over time-- to move away from volatile, boom-bust tax streams towards stable revenue sources. Solving huge imbalances like state worker pensions will be difficult, but we can't kick the can down the road forever.
Answer from David Campos:
I am running for office because I believe that government has a role to play in making people's lives better, particularly the lives of low income, working and middle class people. It is for this reason that I believe that it is important for the person who represents San Francisco's 17th assembly district in the state, be a champion for regular people. While fiscal responsibility and avoiding government waste can be important, California and other states have consistently ignored additional revenue sources, like Prop 13. If California is serious about educating our children, providing a safety net to our communities and having world class transportation, civic spaces and other critical infrastructure we must take seriously the need to generate additional revenues.
Answer from David Chiu:
As Board President and as a member of the Budget Committee, I have been at the center of helping to balance consecutive years of major budget deficits - with budgets that ensure that our city lives within its means and protects vital services for our most vulnerable residents. I also championed landmark budget reform legislation to ensure that we're focused on long-term fiscal trends, and passed ethics legislation to ensure transparency in lobbying. I want to bring my experience with community-based budgeting, community-based planning, and community-based policing to Sacramento.
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2. Given our current drought condition, concern for water rights and usage is an important issue. What solutions would you support to address our water problems?
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Answer from David Carlos Salaverry:
We need a balanced, state-wide water bill negotiated between all stakeholders. Conservation is key, but not the only issue on the table. Ag is an important stakeholder, the Central Valley suffering massive working class unemployment that hurts minorities most. San Francisco's dedicated Hetch Hetchy water supply makes us immune and sometimes detached from the equity issues.
Answer from David Campos:
I support the co-equal goals of protecting the ecosystem and water supply reliability. I also support the principle that those who will benefit from the infrastructure improvements planned for the state should be willing to pay for those improvements. Regarding BDCP, it is important to me that the water supply amounts to the Central Valley and Southern California remain the same as they are today, with increased reliability. It is also important that the water rights and water supply for Hetch Hetchy are preserved, to protect the 2.6 million people in 7 Bay Area counties that rely on water from the Hetch Hetchy system. I would encourage diversification of water resources across the state by supporting efforts such as recycled water, groundwater programs, and conservation.
It is also important that we take immediate steps to address climate change in order to prevent more frequent and severe droughts in the future.
Answer from David Chiu:
I would prioritize greater water use efficiencies, including better uses of rainwater, graywater, and blackwater, focus on recycling and conservation, better capture urban storm water, and encourage more local self-reliance on water. In an era of climate change, the only answer can't be just to build larger pipes, because abundant water may not be available in the coming decades. We need to rethink our relationship with water. As President of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, I am proud to have successfully championed groundbreaking legislation that advances on-site water reuse in new developments, to allow for the on-site collection, treatment and reuse of water. This program has saved millions of gallons of water, resulted in significant savings, and reduced sewer flows and building footprints.
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3. California high school students rank lower than many states in student performance. What do you see as the ongoing role of the Legislature in addressing this problem?
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Answer from David Chiu:
As an Assemblymember, I would prioritize California's highest-need schools and students and closing our unacceptable achievement gap. I would support policies like the Local Control Funding Formula that, besides offering local districts greater control and flexibility in spending state funds, allocates increased funding to districts with higher percentages of low-income, foster youth and English learner students. I would also advocate for increased state assistance to our most challenged public schools, and not support policies that exacerbate over testing and teaching to the tests.
As President of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, I have been an outspoken proponent of the DREAM act, and I twice led the fight to allow immigrant parents to vote in School Board elections. I also passed San Francisco's Language Access Ordinance to require City departments to improve access to city services for limited-English-speaking individuals, including funding for translation services. In Sacramento, I would continue to work to ensure all Californians have access to a high quality of education regardless of background or immigration status. I would support immigration reform packages that provide greater access to free education for immigrant families. I would also advocate to strengthen language acquisition in our schools, whether through increasing resources for specialized classroom materials for English Learners, expanded bilingual programming, or greater funding for professional development opportunities for teachers with limited English students.
Answer from David Carlos Salaverry:
Education is a complex issue, critically important to the future of California. Interest group politics are a huge problem. Ideological battles and partisanship are also a huge problem. Solutions must be negotiated, but the legislature needs to get off its collective rear end. One important safety valve is our Community Colleges. I support CCSF passionately and will work hard to insure its survival.
Answer from David Campos:
California should be consistently ranked the top public education system in the country, and it is not. It was once, however, and I think that we need to look at what worked for us in the past. The most specific proposal that I would support would be to simply increase funding to the levels at which we funded public schools in California back in the 1960's, when our public schools, both K through 12 and higher education systems, were the envy of the world. Proposition 30 last year has stopped the slide into the abyss. However, we need to reverse that and one way to do that is to reform Proposition 13 and de-couple commercial from residential properties. Remember, our schools took their biggest funding blow from the loss of property tax revenue. Reforming Proposition 13 could go a long way
toward restoring that funding.
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4. What other major issues do you think the Legislature must address? What are your own priorities?
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Answer from David Carlos Salaverry:
The shrinking Middle Class is a reality many Republicans don't want to address. I do. The American Middle Class is the bulwark of democracy and liberty and must be preserved.
Hyper-partisanship and mindless ideological warfare are toxic to democracy. I am an Independent Republican who will always think deeply about issues, vote for balanced solutions and never sell my vote.
Answer from David Chiu:
My priorities are creating jobs, developing more affordable housing, protecting our environment, improving public education, fixing public transit, keeping the public healthy and safe, and increasing government transparency.
Answer from David Campos:
Many of my top priorities will be around issues of affordability- in education, in housing, and in healthcare. San Francisco's greatness is being hindered by its prohibitive cost, and many of our most valuable and deserving residents are unable to live and grow here with dignity and comfort. I want to work to ensure that the opportunities I had as a young person immigrating here are still available for young people today. That means prioritizing legislation that makes education, housing, and healthcare more accessible to those who need it. I will also continue to advocate for and advance the rights of immigrants, Latinos, LGBT people, workers, and women. These are communities who are still being disenfranchised and unfairly treated in our political system and I remain committed to fighting for a more just society in these areas.
I have the most legislative policy experience in education, transportation, and immigration. As a former General Counsel for SFUD, and a lifelong advocate for making good education accessible to all, I have a firm grasp on the needs of our current education system. As a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors I have focused a lot of my time and energy on transportation issues as well. I have served as the chair of San Francisco County Transportation Authority and represent San Francisco as a member of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC). As mentioned before, throughout my life and public service I have worked hard to advocate for immigrants and their communities. The result of that advocacy is that I am an experienced policy maker on immigration issues with many achievements and victories under my belt.
Responses to questions asked of each candidate
are reproduced as submitted to the League.
Candidates' statements are presented as
submitted. References to opponents are not permitted.
The order of the candidates is random and changes daily. Candidates who did not respond are not listed on this page.
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League of Women Voters of California Education Fund
