CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS / GOVERNOR : Hayden Calls for a Tax System That Protects Environment

Continuing his attack on politics as usual, state Sen. Tom Hayden on Monday called for an overhaul of the state’s tax system so that consumption would be taxed more than income, providing incentives for Californians to conserve energy and protect the environment.

Speaking to an audience of 75 at the Commonwealth Club in downtown San Francisco, the Democratic candidate for governor proposed the tax restructuring as part of a broader “dream” for a new California based on the “unfulfilled agenda of the 1960s.”

Hayden said that in his dream, education would be the state’s top priority, diversity would be seen as an asset and economic recovery would be achieved “by restoring the environment, not degrading it.”

But that dream won’t come true, Hayden said, if voters choose state Treasurer Kathleen Brown or Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi as the Democratic nominee in the June 7 primary. Hayden said that because his opponents receive campaign contributions from special interests, they will not take the action needed to ensure effective change.

“The oil industry has spent $17 million on campaigns and lobbying in California since 1991, largely attempting to thwart any shift toward renewable resources or alternative forms of transportation,” said the 54-year-old legislator who is accepting single contributions of no more than $94. Special interests like that, he said, “are lobbying against our future.”

Hayden’s campaign is built around calling attention to the power of lobbyists in Sacramento. His 13-minute campaign advertisement, airing on cable stations around the state, claims to give voters a realistic glimpse of how special interests create what Hayden calls a “dysfunctional” government.

While Hayden has conceded that he does not expect to win the primary, he has been tireless in his attempts to use his position as candidate to prod voters into getting more involved. Monday’s speech, in which Hayden urged his listeners to “embrace a new politics of the spirit,” was no exception.

Hayden skewered Gov. Pete Wilson’s new campaign advertisement about illegal immigration that begins with a picture of people running across the border while a narrator says, “They keep coming.” Hayden accused Wilson of playing on fear and using illegal immigrants as scapegoats.

Hayden got a warm reception from the group of mostly professional people. At one point the room burst into spontaneous applause, when he described the priorities of his budget plan.

“Education first. Reduce student fees by 20%. And reduce ‘three strikes’ to violent offenders, which will reduce 70% of the cost,” Hayden said, referring to the measure that punishes three-time felony offenders with mandatory prison terms of 25 years to life. “I would not sign a budget that funded ‘three strikes’ in expanded form by closing college doors and shrinking education.”

Hayden concluded his remarks with a call for compassion.

“The final message of my dream is that we must realize that life is not about conquering other people or other frontiers but about finding meaning in our own lives,” he said. “Now that the old frontiers are being exhausted, the agenda of the inner frontier calls us to be present and focused.”

Hayden said the question before California “is that posed by Rodney King during the violence of 1992: ‘Can we all just get along?’ Our destiny depends on how well we answer that question. If we remain in the grip of old answers and old politics, we will fail.”