League of Women Voters of California Education Fund
Los Angeles County, CA June 3, 2014 Election
	Zein E. Obagi, Jr. Answers Questions Candidate for United States Representative; District 33

The questions were prepared by the League of Women Voters of California Education Fund and asked of all candidates for this office.
Read the answers from all candidates (who have responded).

Questions & Answers

1. In this time of high unemployment and budget deficits, what are the most important steps that should be taken to improve our nation’s economy and sustain job creation?

To improve our nation's economy, we need to immediately focus on the lower and middle class. We must increase the federal minimum wage to get more people earning closer to a living wage. We need to increase the categories of people who are classified as "non-exempt" employees, so more Americans get wages that account for all of the work that they do. We need to invest in local rail infrastructure, which will create jobs and economic activity around rail stops, and otherwise stimulate depressed areas.

We need to invest in the infrastructure that is going to bring us water, now. The costs of desalinization have dropped by 50% in the last few years. We need to start intelligently planning our water facility investments.

To cut our deficits, we need to continue to crack down on Medicare and Medicaid fraud. We must keep our healthcare and social security promise to seniors and simultaneously ensure that our seniors hold their healthcare providers accountable for the charges passed through to Medicare. We can save a lot by educating and calling upon our seniors to exercise a more scrupulous eye when they got to the doctor.

2. What, if any, changes should be made to federal health care policies or programs?

The Affordable Care Act is hallmark healthcare legislation, but like most legislation it has its fair share of problems. We need to ensure that Covered California operates the right way + I keep hearing horror stories about people were erroneously dropped from insurance; that there is a way to ensure healthcare is provided where a mistake by the government has been made. We need to increase education to seniors about their health, Medicare and Medicare abuses so that seniors take an active role in helping us keep down the costs of Medicare.

3. What are your priorities with respect to our nation’s energy policy?

We need a responsible long-term energy plan. Businesses will not invest into America's renewable energy sector unless they have firm assurances that the regulatory framework will remain unchanged for a period long enough to allow them to recoup their investments. Our permitting processes for all energy projects needs to be streamlined and centralized to give companies prompt decisions - yay or nay - on projects. Businesses need to see the U.S. as the most friendly place to develop renewable energy.

While natural gas is our cleanest fossil fuel, we cannot frack our way to energy independence and the in the interim cause ourselves potential health catastrophes from contaminated drinking water. We need to ensure that any decision to frack in California independently undergoes a California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) review. We must bolster our alliance with Canada as an energy trade partner, and ensure that our neighbor to the north extracts its resources in an environmentally sound manner.

Our purchase of foreign oil sends billions of hard-earned dollars to the Middle East. Americans pay increased gas prices when the volatile governments make threats to disrupt the peace. We simply cannot afford to become reliant on oil from the various unstable regimes in the Middle East. Instead, we need to increase our domestic sources of clean energy by establishing a continuous and long term commitment to responsible energy sources.

4. What, if any, changes should be made with respect to our nation’s security, including our national defense or anti-terrorism measures?

We need the energy of a fresh representative to tackle one of America's most serious national security threats. There is presently no limit to the public and private information that hackers can steal. In 2011, foreign persons invaded Defense files taking details about U.S. fighter jets, missile systems and unmanned drones. Cyber-terrorists also attacked the websites of the U.S. Senate, the CIA and the FBI. Just recently, in May 2014, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Pennsylvania issued its first-ever indictment of Chinese Army officials for cyber-espionage. The companies spied upon cut across the American economy: SolarWorld, United Steel Workers Union, Allegheny Technologies Inc. and Alcoa Aluminum. I am the only candidate who has called for bolstering U.S. cyber-security since 2012. We need to bring tax dollars back to the 33rd Congressional District to commission tech companies like Yahoo and Google in Santa Monica and defense firms in El Segundo with research and development. We can create local jobs, bolster our economy and serve our national interests through this mission alone. What is clear from the Snowden and Bradley Manning fiascos is that the status quo is not working to protect private or public data integral to our national security or economic prosperity.

5. What is your position on the issue of immigration reform? What, if any, changes to legislation or policy would you support?

We need a pathway to citizenship for the undocumented immigrants who are here and working to ensure that they have a pathway to the American dream. That means that the children of undocumented workers, like all Americans, need universal access to pre-K through 12th grade education, and access to federal financial assistance for college or trade school. Of course, the DREAM is most accessible when we send back those who have broken the law while they have been here, and when we ensure that our undocumented workers do not get a faster path to citizenship than our documented workers.

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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.

Read the answers from all candidates (who have responded).

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Created from information supplied by the candidate: May 22, 2014 19:49
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