Young for the Senate

The 16th State Senate District, an absurd geographic design, stretches from Hanford in Kings County in the north, through Bakersfield to Pasadena, then all the way out to Barstow in San Bernardino County. Its voters are as varied as the terrain, which ranges from desert to farmland, and they deserve a senator who can encompass their interests. We think Jim Young fits the job.

Democrat Young is running neck and neck with Republican Assemblyman Don Rogers of Bakersfield. In his eight years in the Legislature, Rogers has proved to be a rigid ideologue often abandoned by his Republican colleagues. Rogers, a former member of the John Birch Society, has never voted in favor of a state budget and has consistently voted against aid to the poor. His support for public education has been flaccid, and his record on regulating pesticides and toxic wastes suggests a casual concern for those threats. As an assemblyman, Rogers has served principally as a spokesman for the oil industry, a concern too narrow for the 16th District, or anywhere else.

Young, a political neophyte, offers a fresh approach to the Senate. He has spent his career in education, and since 1978 has been chancellor of the Kern Community College District. Young has taught high school and college and holds a doctorate in education from the University of Southern California. Not surprisingly, Young says he’ll try to prod the state to spend more on public education, particularly on public elementary and high schools and community colleges, which have been ravaged by funding cuts. Young wants to encourage the diversification of the oil- and farm-dependent economies of King and Kern counties, open new markets for California agricultural produce and push education to combat drug abuse. Young is broad-minded and serious. He has the potential to be a fine senator for his district, and all of California. Young deserves to win.