Q&A; Candidates Views on the Issues. One in a series : Senate: 23rd District

Questionnaires were distributed to candidates in March. Answers have been edited to fit the available space.

Business Environment

Q:. Do you believe businesses are leaving California due to a hostile business environment? If yes, how would you make California more attractive to business?

Hayden: There are not as many businesses leaving as the special-interest lobbyists claim. The big reasons we’ve lost 500,000 jobs are a national economic recession and inevitable defense cuts. The old days of “recovery” by overdevelopment are over. We must improve the public quality of life for private enterprise by improving education, transit and the environment.

Isaacson: No.

O’Neill: Need to simplify permits. Eliminate fraud in workers’ compensation and make more competitive with other states. Need to develop incentives to stimulate new industry.

Rosenthal: Yes. There are many reasons why some businesses have left the state and the blame cannot be pinned entirely on a hostile business environment. However, there are actions government should take to improve the business climate. Permitting and regulatory programs can be streamlined without lowering environmental protection or worker and public safety standards.

Weilburg: Yes. I would work to lower state income and business taxes and to deregulate our over-regulated businesses.

Government Contracts

Q:. Do you think state government contracts should be awarded on a “Buy American” basis, with winning bidders being those who promise to use specific percentages of American workers to produce goods and services?

Hayden: “Buy American” is an over-simplified slogan in this new international economy. Tax incentives should encourage investment here. We should “buy the best,” and that means improving the quality of our education, our workplace and our products.

Isaacson: No.

O’Neill: California must try to spend more of its tax dollars in California and must support industry from anywhere in the world willing to invest here and develop new industries. Bidders need not be American companies. Twenty-eight other states have laws which encourage spending tax dollars in their states.

Rosenthal: Yes. State government can play a role in encouraging more jobs for Californians by establishing a 10% bid preference for those companies that employ our work force to manufacture goods or provide services--including public works projects.

Weilburg: No. California as well as American taxpayers should have the best their money can buy. This means the best in quality as well as price. If other states or countries build better products, then the consumer should be able to purchase it.

Employee Insurance

Q: Do you support requiring California businesses to provide health insurance to employees or contribute to a fund to provide health care for the uninsured? Hayden: Yes. Many California businesses are being crushed by health costs now. We need a universal system with cost containment and prevention emphasized.

Isaacson: Yes. Everyone has a right to health insurance.

O’Neill: No. Health care must be extended, but it is not solely the responsibility of business to underwrite all of it. We need to be careful to ensure that we do not excessively burden marginal businesses--and recognize that this is a problem faced by society as a whole.

Rosenthal: Yes. This approach must include cost-containment provisions to control the skyrocketing price of health services and should be linked to insurance underwriting reforms to protect small businesses from the huge premium increases or denial of coverage.

Weilburg: No. Required health insurance would further harm California’s already over-regulated businesses. If taxes were lower, then people could afford their own health insurance.

Health Care

Q: Do you support state Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi’s proposed $34-billion plan, financed by a state payroll tax, for health care for California workers, people with pre-existing medical conditions and the unemployed? Hayden: Yes, as a start for debate.

Isaacson: Yes.

O’Neill: The Garamendi proposal is a very good base and as it moves through the Legislature will be amended to ensure that funding onus does not cripple businesses.

Rosenthal: Yes. It appears to combine several of the positive features of the “pay or play” and “single-payer” proposals, and includes cost-containment reforms.

Weilburg: No.

National Health System

Q: Do you support a national health-care system in which the federal government would establish fees, pay all the bills and collect taxes to cover the cost? Hayden: Yes. I support a Canadian-style plan with a California twist; much greater emphasis on preventive measures like dietary change, early immunization and cleaning up our air.

Isaacson: Yes. Sounds like “socialized medicine,” so we like it.

O’Neill: Yes. People should also be allowed to personally underwrite expanded health insurance, which would enable them to continue with private care.

Rosenthal: Yes. The state equivalent, SB 36 by Sen. Nicholas C. Petris (D-Oakland), the single-payer system, was the most comprehensive reform in terms of the number of people served, and the scope of the benefits (long-term care and prescriptions for the elderly). It failed passage. The “pay or play” Garamendi plan would be a vast improvement over the existing system, which leaves 6 million Californians with virtually no access to medical care.

Weilburg: No. Socialism is a failure.

Air Quality

Q: Should state and federal air quality rules be eased to reduce the financial burdens on California industry?

Hayden: No. Tougher air standards are crucial to our health and an incentive to manufacturers of electric and national gas-driven cars.

Isaacson: No.

O’Neill: No. However, innovative programs like market permits should be given a fair test.

Rosenthal: No.

Weilburg: Yes, if property rights can be redefined so polluters pay.

Education Support

Q: Do you support giving state money to parents to allow them to enroll their children in schools of their choice, public or private? Hayden: No.

Isaacson: No. I support public school education for all children. This drain on state tax money would destroy public education.

O’Neill: No. However, we need to give people in public schools more choice to go to better schools . . . and bring more innovation and change to public education.

Rosenthal: No.

Weilburg: Yes. I support returning taxpayers’ money so people have a choice.

College Tuition

Q: Should tuition at state universities and colleges be increased to help offset state budget deficits? Hayden: No. Student fees have increased 250% to 300% this decade, and our students are in greater debt per capita than the people of the former Soviet Union. We need more college graduates, not fewer. Reduce the tax deduction for business lunches and country club dues and you offset the need for $300 million in student fee increases.

Isaacson: No. Tuition should be reduced. All students, including those who have little or no money, should have access to higher education.

O’Neill: Income should be a factor. Students who cannot afford fee increases should be given two options: loan with payroll deduction after graduation or opportunity to volunteer for California “service corps,” working in child-care centers, etc.

Rosenthal: No. Additional student fees threaten to prohibit students from low-income families from admittance--an unacceptable outcome. I support a general belt-tightening to encourage greater administrative efficiencies and a shift in priorities away from research and back to classroom teaching.

Weilburg: No. Plenty of government waste can be eliminated to balance the state budget.

L. A. School District

Q: Do you support the breakup of the Los Angeles school district into smaller districts? Hayden: Yes. To improve education, we need more parent and community involvement. The overpaid, over-centralized downtown bureaucracy can never be made fully accountable to communities.

Isaacson: No. This is an attempt to weaken United Teachers-Los Angeles and to reduce the per-dollar amount to Latino and black students. It would create segregated, unequal education.

O’Neill: Yes. Too large, remote and unwieldy now and bureaucracy too removed from schools.

Rosenthal: No position.

Weilburg: Yes. Much bureaucracy would be eliminated.

School Bonds

Q: Do you support reducing the votes needed to pass a school construction bond issue from two-thirds to a simple majority? Hayden: Yes. I co-authored the bill to bring this about.

Isaacson: Yes. Per-student expenditure is low in California now. It is below U. S. average and is getting lower.

O’Neill: Local municipalities and school districts should decide if they want to reduce requirements, but much more aggressive leasing of existing empty buildings must be done to relieve classroom shortages.

Rosenthal: Yes.

Weilburg: No.

Death Penalty

Q: Do you support capital punishment for any crimes? If so, which ones?

Hayden: Yes. The top priority should be on stopping burglary and drug-dealing through neighborhood policing. But the death penalty should be kept on the books for the most heinous crimes. Our current homicide laws are appropriate.

Isaacson: No. Abolish capital punishment. It results in killing the poor and people of color disproportionately.

O’Neill: I support long prison sentences and much more aggressive action to keep young marauders off the streets and put away where they cannot cause mayhem in our neighborhoods.

Rosenthal: No.

Weilburg: No.

Police Intervention

Q: Do you support making it a crime for a police officer to fail to intervene if he or she witnesses a fellow officer using excessive force? Hayden: Yes, though a challenge to enforce. We all pay for the Rodney King beating through deeper citizen disaffection and worldwide disgrace. We need more community-based policing and better training in how to deal with hate crimes in a multiracial society.

Isaacson: Yes. There needs to be consequences if police don’t prevent brutality when they can.

O’Neill: No. I believe it should be required police procedure with risk of censure or dismissal for not reasonably trying to reduce excessive force, and failure to report it afterward.

Rosenthal: Yes. I voted for legislation in 1991 that would have created a new crime for failure by a police officer to report the excessive use of force by another officer.

Weilburg: No. I feel this would interrupt the chain of command in the police force. Who is to determine excessive force? If civil rights are abused, then charges should be pressed and it should go to trial.

Campaign Funding

Q: Should political campaigns be taxpayer-funded to reduce the importance of special-interest money? Hayden: Yes. My main message is that Sacramento is controlled by a special-interest state that blocks progress on the environment, education, health care and tax justice. I supported Proposition 131 for public financing and 12-year term limits. The top 10 special interests spend $20 million a year on electing and lobbying politicians, a travesty that must be ended by public finance.

Isaacson: Yes.

O’Neill: Candidates, like incumbents, should have access to all taxpayer-funded information collected about district voters. There should be severe limits on special-interest giving and matching funds available to candidates demonstrating broad community support.

Rosenthal: No. I don’t think most Americans want their tax dollars given to extremist candidates like David Duke or Lyndon La Roche--or even mainstream candidates they don’t support.

Weilburg: No. Any person or group should be free to back any candidate or party.

Personal Finances

Q: Are you willing to make public your state and federal income tax returns for the last five years at least two weeks before the June 2 primary election? Hayden: Yes.

Isaacson: No.

O’Neill: Economic disclosure form shows no investment on my part that would pose any potential conflict of interest.

Rosenthal: Yes.

Weilburg: I feel it is a private matter, but in our current political climate, I don’t have much choice but to be willing if asked.

Affirmative Action

Q: In general, do you think affirmative action in employment of women and members of minority groups has not gone far enough, or has gone too far, or is about right? Hayden: We need more emphasis on promoting qualified women and minorities, especially in executive boardrooms. This will mean more emphasis on new job creation in the technologies of tomorrow.

Isaacson: Has not gone far enough. Blacks, Latinos, women are still much poorer than society at large.

O’Neill: We need to ensure that women and minorities are being paid for the comparable value at the work they are doing and that promotions to senior management are not being unfairly blocked.

Rosenthal: Although current law clearly prohibits discrimination against women and minorities in the workplace, there is a need to strengthen enforcement of the law. Strict fines should be imposed on businesses that discriminate so that violators are sufficiently penalized and ultimately deterred.

Weilburg: Affirmative action laws should be repealed. An employer is a consumer when he/she purchases labor and, therefore, should be allowed to hire or not hire any person for any reason he or she wants.

Abortion Rights

Q: Do you support a woman’s unrestricted right to an abortion within the first three months of pregnancy? Hayden: Yes.

Isaacson: Yes.

O’Neill: Yes.

Rosenthal: Yes.

Weilburg: Yes.

Abortion Funding

Q: Do you support state funding of abortions for women who cannot afford them? Hayden: Yes.

Isaacson: Yes.

O’Neill: Yes.

Rosenthal: Yes.

Weilburg: No.

Parental Consent

Q: Do you support requiring minors to notify their parents or a judge before having an abortion? Hayden: No. Unfortunately, there are many families that do not promote a supportive environment in which to have such a discussion. Requiring a young woman to weave through the judicial system, when the labyrinthine courts vex us all, is just another way to deny choice.

Isaacson: No. Children whose parents will understand do tell their parents. Those whose parents will punish, or reject them, should not be required to notify their parents.

O’Neill: No. Hopefully, they would do so voluntarily, but with difference in families, it should not be required.

Rosenthal: No. Pregnant teens who are unable to discuss problems with a parent may very well seek “back alley” abortions from unlicensed practitioners in unsafe and unsanitary conditions..

Weilburg: No.

Illegal Immigration

Q: Do you support the adoption of new measures such as increased border patrols and physical barriers to try to stem the flow of illegal immigration from the south? Hayden: Yes, especially where it involves the flow of drugs into the U. S. But a stronger U. S.-Mexico partnership in investment, energy and trade is also needed.

Isaacson: No.

O’Neill: Yes. We need to enforce immigration laws and legally allow reasonable immigration.

Rosenthal: Yes. While I support these efforts, real long-term solutions will only come from an alliance for progress with Mexico.

Weilburg: No.

Humane Death

Q: Do you support the so-called “right-to-die” initiative on the November ballot that would allow doctors to end the lives of people who are terminally ill in a “painless, humane and dignified” manner? Hayden: I do not believe in transferring this ultimate “decision to die” to a medical elite and hope this complicated matter is resolved without an initiative. I believe in the right to legally prerecord one’s wishes in the event of having a diagnosed terminal condition while on a life-support system.

Isaacson: No. It can be abused.

O’Neill: Yes, if they have signed living wills or at request of closest family.

Rosenthal: No position.

Weilburg: Yes.

Welfare Benefits

Q: Do you support Gov. Pete Wilson’s proposal to reduce welfare benefits for a family of three by 10% immediately, to $597 a month, and by another 15% for families with able-bodied adults who were not working?

Hayden: No. I have supported every workfare program in the ‘80s and am disappointed that there are so few jobs available for those who go through the program. The proposal to cut welfare while preserving so many perks of the bureaucrats is unfair.

Isaacson: No. I support cutting the income and assets of millionaires 10% immediately, and by an additional 15% next year.

O’Neill: No. We need to aggressively require work as an element of welfare, probably in the public sector in cleaning hospitals, schools and parks. Expanded child care must be put into place to accomplish this. We must not punish children, which the Wilson proposal does.

Rosenthal: No. Sixty percent of Aid to Families With Dependent Children recipients are children. They will be the innocent victims of Wilson’s Draconian cuts.

Weilburg: Yes.

Child Care

Q: Should businesses be required to subsidize child care for employees? Hayden: Yes.

Isaacson: Yes.

O’Neill: No. This is a public policy issue, not one for businesses to be forced to solve. The state should license more small-scale, home-based child care.

Rosenthal: Yes. It is essential that we create a link between child care and the workplace, but I would prefer a system that rewards businesses (i.e., tax credits) rather than a strict requirement that may not allow enough flexibility for firms that are operating on a narrow profit margin.

Weilburg: No.

Proposition 13

Q: Do you support any change in the laws enacted by voters in 1978 as Proposition 13? Hayden: Yes. The $50-billion windfall of taxpayers’ money to the corporate special interests means that homeowners are shouldering more of the cost of schools and police and fire protection. Why should the owner of a 100,000-acre Imperial Valley farm get the same property break as a hard-pressed San Fernando Valley homeowner?

Isaacson: Yes. Repeal Proposition 13. It has only favored commercial landlords and has destroyed the state’s ability to provide social services and education.

O’Neill: The U. S. Supreme Court will decide if it is constitutional. At some point, Proposition 13 will be so discriminatory against people under 40 that some adjustment might have to be considered.

Rosenthal: Yes. I would like to see the loophole closed that allows large corporations to pay at a lower tax rate than a first-time home buyer.

Weilburg: Undecided.

B-2 Bomber

Q: President Bush has urged that production of the B-2 bomber--which is assembled at a Palmdale plant--be cut from 75 to 25. Do you support this reduction? Hayden: Yes. We need to make bullet trains instead of B-2 bombers. There is $150 billion already available for developing a transportation alternative in Los Angeles, if we can pry it loose from the special interests. Statewide, we should convert the Livermore nuclear weapons lab into civilian research and redevelopment, transferring peacetime technology to California firms.

Isaacson: Yes. Cut production to zero.

O’Neill: Yes. We need to move ahead with investing in new industries, and California lawmakers of both parties should insist that a greater portion of the “peace dividend” be invested in development of new commercial industries in California, advanced commercial aviation for example.

Rosenthal: Yes.

Weilburg: No. The B-2 should be canceled, not reduced.

Personal Automobile

Q: What make and model car(s) do you drive? Hayden: Two Ford Escorts, one of them electric-powered.

Isaacson: 1977 Oldsmobile Cutlass.

O’Neill: 1988 Ford Taurus. Family also owns a 1984 Oldsmobile Cutlass and leases two additional cars--a 1991 Nissan Sentra made in Tennessee and a 1991 Nissan Stanza made overseas.

Rosenthal: 1990 Buick and a 1979 Pontiac.

Weilburg: 1984 Cadillac Cimarron. It is a piece of junk and I hate it.

Thomas or Hill?

Q: Who do you think more likely told the truth, Anita Hill or Clarence Thomas? Hayden: Anita Hill. Those Senate hearings were the biggest case of official investigative failure since the Warren Commission. Anita Hill not only was more truthful on the specifics, but told a larger truth about sexual harassment to the whole nation.

Isaacson: Anita Hill. Her treatment by the senators on the panel was sexual harassment.

O’Neill: Anita Hill.

Rosenthal: I opposed the nomination of Judge Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court. Whether I believed Prof. Hill or Judge Thomas is academic. The Senate hearings were a travesty.

Weilburg: Both stretched the truth.

Personal Scrutiny

Q: Would you be comfortable opening your life history to the kind of scrutiny now regularly given to presidential candidates? Hayden: Yes. All candidates should expect full scrutiny in a democracy. The media should be wary, however, of defining pure negativity as news, thus encouraging amoral political consultants to stage such “media opportunities.” We need more forums such as this.

Isaacson: No. Candidates are judged by their politics.

O’Neill: No. I do not believe personal, private matters are indicators of the kind of President someone would make--and this deflects from the central public policy questions that should be covered in the press.

Rosenthal: Yes. I am proud of all aspects of my personal and public life.

Weilburg: No. I want to know a candidate is going to fix the country not whom he/she slept with in 1968.

California Life

Q: What single change would most improve life in Southern California? Hayden: We need a miracle that confounds the “experts” like the miracle-makers who ended segregation 25 years ago, the miracle-makers who ended communism and apartheid. The miracle will be ending the insufferable corruption and myopia of government so that we can make democracy work again.

Isaacson: Greatly lower residential rents.

O’Neill: Reduced fear of crime, expansion of economic and job base.

Rosenthal: Local and state government must come to grips with the fact that our quality of life issues--crime, clean air, overdevelopment, traffic problems, etc.--are linked and must be addressed in one common framework. For every problem solved in a vacuum, three more are either created or exacerbated.

Weilburg: The election of Libertarian party candidates to federal, state and local offices.

Public Figure

Q: What public figure do you most admire? Hayden: The president of Czechoslovakia, Vaclev Havel, a playwright who suffered, a conciliatory democrat who believes in saving the planet by a politics of “living in the truth.”

Isaacson: No answer.

O’Neill: Sen. Bill Bradley has many public positions with which I strongly agree, including water use and the development of systems to move the disenfranchised into the social system.

Rosenthal: Ralph Nader.

Weilburg: I respect many and admire none. The people I admire are all dead.

Literary Influence

Q: What, if any, book have you recently read that influenced your view of public policy? Hayden: “The Dream of the Earth” by Father Thomas Berry, which combines spirituality, science and ecology in a new vision of the human potential.

Isaacson: No answer.

O’Neill: William Grudor’s new book, “Who Will Tell the People,” documents the corrosive influence special interests play in politics.

Rosenthal: “The Other America” by Michael Harrington.

Weilburg: “The Economic Time Bomb” by Harry Browne.

CONTENDERS Tom Hayden, 52, of Santa Monica now represents the 44th Assembly District. A Democrat, he was elected to the Assembly in 1982. Hayden is chairman of the Assembly Higher Education Committee and the author of seven books.

Shirley Rachel Isaacson, 61, of Los Angeles is a psychologist with the Los Angeles Unified School District. A member of the Peace and Freedom Party, she has never held public office and plans to spend “very little” in the race.

Catherine O’Neill, 49, of Pacific Palisades is a businesswoman. A Democrat and a veteran activist, she is seeking to make a political comeback 20 years after narrowly losing a state Senate race on the Westside.

Herschel Rosenthal, 74, of West Los Angeles was elected to the state Senate in 1982 after serving eight years in the Assembly. A Democrat, he has represented much of the newly drawn district during his political career.

R. William Weilburg, 25, of Hollywood is a businessman who works for a claims adjusting company. A Libertarian, he is seeking public office for the first time. Weilburg, a native of Houston, attended Southwest Texas State University, where he majored in philosophy with a minor in history.