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.

Answer from Ralph Denney:

New and higher taxes are not the answer. Californians already pay among the highest taxes in the nation, while they receive the lowest services. First and foremost, we must break the hold of the special interest groups who are bankrupting our state for their own financial gains.

We must accept nothing less than long term solutions instead of the short term `fixes' our legislature has so far burdened us with. We must bring about true reform not only in the budget itself, but especially in the costly duplication of confusing and convoluted regulations which waste precious resources while failing to do what they are intended to do... protect Californians while allowing businesses to complete in an ever more competitive world market.

We can no longer accept less than band-aides on the problem of workman's compensation where our employers received on average less than three percent reductions in premiums which in the last two years have grown by more than 300%. Again, California businesses pay the highest premiums in the nation while California workers receive the third lowest benefits...

We must regain control of the state agencies which have become convinced their primary function is to justify and expand their own budgets instead of serving the public and completing the mandate set by our elected officials.

We must return our government back to it's core responsibilities... Public Education... Public Safety... and Public Health... We must understand that all other programs are doomed to failure as long as these core areas remain neglected.

Answer from Jim f Galley:

Cut Spending, And Balance Budget, Greater Accountability, And Spend road and gas taxes for road. Spend Property taxes for police ,fire and the inferstructure as they were designed for.

Answer from Ralph Denney:

Public education has too long been treated as the orphaned step-child of a neglectful state government. We must understand that we cannot hope to win the war against drugs or gang violence... interrupt the cycle of poverty and institutionalized welfare... or bring about the end of intolerance and hatred until we bring about true reform in Public Education and safeguard its future funding.

We can no longer afford to spend less on per student instructional expenses than other states... most industrialized nations... even less than the Northern Marianas Islands... We also must insure our educational dollars are spent where they are needed... in the schools. We cannot allow 39 cents out of every educational dollar be spent on non-instructional expenses. We must put reasonable caps on so-called administrative expenses which deny our teachers the tools they need to teach their charges the skills they will need to succeed in our increasingly complex society.

Although we certainly need to improve student scores in basic reading and math skills, we cannot fall into the trap of not providing the well-rounded education every child will need as he or she enters the real world.

Answer from Jim f Galley:

Get back to basic education, And to improve math and reading skills, The current system, which has a 35% passing rate on the exit exams, proves the current system does not work.

I would add Skill trade programs to the Community College System, So students would be able to go in to a trade and start making a future for themselfs.

Answer from Jim f Galley:

Water reclaimation, Desaliznation, and Stop the federal government from imposing water reductions that penalizes the citzens of California.

Answer from Ralph Denney:

First, we must understand that California does not have a water shortage problem... Southern California does... and Southern Californians must do their part to solve the problem instead of demanding solutions from Sacramento and Washington. We must conserve water where we can. Develop inexpensive desalination and recycling technologies while Sacramento encourages conservation by + among other things + planting native water saving foliage along our freeways and byways. We must end the wasteful practice of flood irrigation while finding ways to encourage alternative... and more effective methods of irrigating the farms and ranches of the Imperial/Coachella and Central valleys. It is a complex and difficult problem... again, we must work for long-term solutions and no longer accept short-term `fixes'.

Answer from Jim f Galley:

Work to bring back good paying jobs to California, And provide a Business friendly state, so Business Owners will be able to provide health insurance instead of paying thru the nose for business fee's, taxes and other ways the government has choosen to bleed a company dry.

Answer from Ralph Denney:

First, we must address the NATIONAL need for affordable health care. No one state can afford to solve this problem, and we need to demand of our elected Federal officials to finally come to grips with the need for a national health care program.

In the mean time, again we must look to long-term solutions and reform in our public health delivery system. We must stop trying to save money in the short-term by eliminating important well-baby and child heath care which ultimately only defers... and magnifies the eventual costs. We must re-establish a system of less expensive public heath clinics to provide basic health care and treatment instead of forcing our underprivileged and working poor to inundate far more expensive emergency rooms.

As I stated in my answer to the first question, we must attack the root causes forcing our employers to abandon health coverage for their employees and their families, or abandoning our state entirely. We can best do this by reducing the myriad confusing and convoluted regulations which hamstring our health system, and as with workman's compensation, we must eliminate the dirge of baseless and outrageous lawsuits, which together drive up the costs of providing such coverage. We must have real tort reform...

Finally... by returning to the core responsibilities of Public Education... Public Safety... and Public Health. By understanding that a well educated society is by its nature a safer society, and that a safe society puts a far less strain on our public health system...

The order of the candidates is random and changes daily.