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LWV League of Women Voters of California Education Fund

Smart Voter
Los Angeles County, CA November 2, 2004 Election
Candidates Answer Questions on the Issues
Member of the State Assembly; District 45


The questions were prepared by the League of Women Voters of California and asked of all candidates for this office.

See below for questions on Budget Crisis, Education, Water, Health Insurance

Click on a name for other candidate information.   See also more information about this contest.


1. What does California need to do to address the current budget crisis?

Answer from Oscar A. Gutierrez:

I have a plan to cut 10% from the overall budget over two years. That's 9.6 billion dollars or 4.3 billion dollars each year at a 5% cut per year. We need to build a surplus for future fiscal problems. We also need to find out what is happening to the taxes collected from gasoline. Where is the money going? It is not going to building new freeways in California. Vote NO! on Prop. 55, Prop. 56, Prop. 57 & 58 !!!!


2. What should the state's priorities be for K-12 education? For the Community College System?

Answer from Oscar A. Gutierrez:

At this point I have no answer. Our Schools are so poorly managed. Before Governor Schwarzenegger invoked emergency powers and declared a fiscal crisis last year on December 18th our state was mandated by law to spend 40% of the yearly budget on education in California regardless of any deficit that was left by the former Gray Davis administration. That is approximately 39.4 billion dollars. My first question is where is all the money going to? And can we account for every dollar we spend on education? This would be a good question to ask Assemblywoman Jackie Goldberg since she is the chair of the education committee in the state assembly. Until we can get a handle on this budget I will Vote NO on Prop. 55. Another 12 billion dollars in bonds will not solve the problems our state has with funding education. Vote NO on Prop 55!


3. What measures would you support to address California's water needs?

Answer from Oscar A. Gutierrez:

We need to protect our water supply from being deregulated like they did to electricity. I do not support deregulation on this issue.


4. What should the Legislature be doing to address the needs of Californians without health insurance?

Answer from Oscar A. Gutierrez:

This should be a private sector problem. I do not support SB-2. We need to mandate that the state insurance commissioner John Garamendi investigate health insurance and workmans comp fraud.


Responses to questions asked of each candidate are reproduced as submitted to the League. 

The order of the candidates is random and changes daily.


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Created: December 15, 2004 13:39 PST
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