The Issues

Victims’ rights over criminals’ rights. Stop tolerating criminal activity. Californians should feel safe in their homes, their property should be secure, and criminals be apprehended, tried, and if guilty, punished. Support, fund, and train the police to meet the needs of a civil society. Organize California law enforcement to efficiently meet the needs of a large, diverse, and culturally changing citizenry.

Counties and cities need to claw back power from Sacramento, and Sacramento needs to demand a return of power, programs, and funds from Washington. Political power and programs should be held at the lowest possible level of government. And government spending carefully audited for efficiency and effectiveness. Stop the waste.

Let the miracle of the free market work without bureaucratic regulation and rules that impede growth and hinder employment. Expand the creation of energy rather than rationing it. Let businesses offer many choices not just those favored or subsidized by tax dollars.

California should be a leader in evolving transportation solutions. The state once had the finest highway system in the nation. Transportation (fuel) taxes should again be dedicated for their intended purposes and electric vehicles need to pay their fair share. Californians should not pay the highest fuel and electricity prices in the nation -- prices that punish workers who must commute and businesses that move goods.

Eliminate the California High-Speed Rail Authority and shift all funds to the California Department of Transportation for use in repairing current transportation infrastructure and the incorporation of advanced transportation technology.

Aggregate reading and math test scores for California students continue to decline. Standards have been lowered. They need to be raised. The education bureaucracy needs to be reduced, with the number of, and standards for, teachers improved, with greater discipline in the classroom. A state educational voucher system should allow parents to shop for the best education for their children.

Much of California is desert or arid. Water is critical for state residents and businesses. Water resources must be expanded with the ability to store water in plentiful rain years, recycle water, and move it from excess to deficit regions.

People living on city streets are a sign of a declining civilization and should not be tolerated. Those who can’t house themselves or find proper shelter need tough love from government and non-government organizations. Those with chemical addictions need their access to drugs and alcohol controlled. Those with mental diseases, need treatment and/or institutionalization. There needs to be discipline for the undisciplined in order to make them productive members of society.

California has a highly diverse environment and has consistently worked to preserve habitat and improve air and water quality. The public and wildlife deserve open space, clean air and water in order to sustain life. But dictating that Californians must drive electric vehicles, use renewable energy sources, stop using natural gas appliances, and allow vast acreage for unreliable wind and solar in the name of a natural phenomenon called “climate change” is going too far. Regardless of human efforts, the climate will continue to change as it has for billions of years. California needs to prepare to accommodate the change, not believe it can be stopped.

Californians pay some of the highest taxes in the nation and Sacramento keeps looking for ways to raise taxes. Proposition 13 property tax protections must be preserved. The tax code is overly complicated, and used for social and economic engineering rather than a system to simply raise revenue. Time for a flat tax that would provide increased revenue without political favoritism.