Marty Schwimmer's positions

By Marty Schwimmer

The issues:

We should support Iraq's effort to form a stable government that respects peace and protects the freedom of its citizens. But we cannot and should not try to convert a 1,200-year-old Middle Eastern civilization into a Western-style democracy.

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS We must stop worrying about how other nations look at us, and instead concentrate on doing what is right. World opinion will follow. As a nation, our word must be our bond. If we make a mistake, we should own up to it.

IMMIGRATION REFORM We must speed up the immigration documentation process so that law-abiding workers who contribute to our community can obtain legal status. Our unfair quota system often forces immigrants to wait 10 years or more to obtain legal residency, even when they comply with our laws.

Employers should be permitted to hire workers who are seeking legal status. Any non-citizen who commits a serious crime against persons or property must be deported and permanently excluded from our country.

GLBT EQUALITY Marriage Rights: I will fight for the right of same-sex couples to marry. The marriage of two adults of the same sex who seek to make a lifetime commitment to one another takes nothing away from the marriages of anyone else. Marriage offers 1,138 Federal benefits and responsibilities, and hundreds more offered by every state. I adamantly oppose the FMA, or as it's sometimes called, the Federal Marriage (Discrimination) Amendment. Such an amendment is ludicrous - so much so that even its proponents recognize that the Constitution forbids such discrimination and would have to be amended. The amendment would only be vindictive, hurtful, and un-American.

Don't Ask, Don't Tell Policy: I adamantly oppose the DADT military policy. The Bush administration has used this policy in a horrifying practice of sending openly gay soldiers (those who "tell") into battle, and then dismissing the ones that survive. (Reported in Washington Blade September 23, 2005. Kim Waldron of the U.S. Army Forces Command at Fort McPherson said, "The bottom line is some people are using sexual orientation to avoid deployment. So in this case, with the Reserve and Guard forces, if a soldier 'tells,' they still have to go to war and the homosexual issue is postponed until they return to the U.S. and the unit is demobilized.")The Bush administration has also used the DADT policy to impair our war on terror. From 1994 through 2003, the first ten years of DADT, the military fired 244 gay doctors, nurses, and medical specialists. Between 1998 and 2004, the military discharged 20 Arabic and six Farsi language speakers under DADT. (Reported by the Associated Press January 23, 2006).DADT policy serves little purpose. 76% of military recruits state that eliminating DADT would have no effect on their recruitment. (UC Santa Barbara's Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military, (http://www.gaymilitary.ucsb.edu/).

CRIME AND JUSTICE Judges must have greater sentencing authority to impose harsher punishment where it is deserved, and lighter sentencing where the offender's lack of criminal history might warrant some leniency. If we fill up our prisons with nonviolent offenders, prisons will be forced to release violent criminals before their sentences have been served.

Illegal drug use is behind most crimes. We must shut down illegal drug manufacturers and suppliers, and impose lengthy prison terms on those who profit from the drug trade and the misery it causes in our community.

PRESCRIPTION DRUGS AND HEALTH The federal government doesn't use its enormous negotiating power to reduce prescription drug prices for Medicare beneficiaries. Individuals aren't allowed to purchase safe prescription drugs at lower prices from other countries. Congress should end these protections for the pharmaceutical industry.

More than 45 million Americans have no medical insurance coverage. The life-long consequences of untreated illnesses and injuries vastly exceed the cost of adequate health care. If we are to become a healthier nation, we must provide basic affordable health care to all who need it. Everyone who has a job should have access to affordable medical coverage.

SOCIAL SECURITY PRIVATIZATION I oppose the privatization of Social Security, which places public funds into private investments. This terrible idea is based on the false premise that Social Security is at immediate risk of collapse. The Congressional Budget Office, which is non-partisan, indicates Social Security can pay all benefits until 2052. We must plan now for after 2052, but we do not need to rush into ill-advised action.

EDUCATION No Child Left Behind sets high goals for education. Local school boards, parents and teachers, not the federal government, must determine how to meet those goals.

I oppose vouchers, which undermine our public schools by funneling public money into private institutions.

Teachers should be reimbursed through federal tax credits for money they pay out of their own pockets for classroom supplies. Head Start programs must be continued, and expanded where needed.

All parties to the educational process + students, teachers, parents and administrators + must bear responsibility for the success of our schools. Teachers have been unfairly criticized for the failures within our schools.

In California, teachers possess post graduate educations and meet extraordinarily high standards to become credentialed. Finger-pointing at teachers is not the solution because teachers are not the problem.

OIL PROFITS AND TAX BREAKS Once in office, I will move to repeal the multi-billion dollar tax breaks for major oil companies approved by Congress. Ordinary taxpayers should not subsidize oil companies which make record profits from high gasoline prices at our expense.