THE PARTICIPANTS

DEMOCRATS

Al Checchi:

Making his first run for public office, the multimillionaire businessman, 49, claimed he had the most detailed plan to meet the state’s needs.

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Gray Davis:

The 55-year-old lieutenant governor stressed his years of public service, saying he would fix public schools, keep Californians safe and bring diverse people together.

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Jane Harman

The three-term congresswoman from Torrance, 52, said the main difference in the contest is her approach to the issues.

REPUBLICAN

Dan Lungren

The 51-year-old state attorney general is his party’s presumptive nominee in November.

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Following is a transcript of the gubernatorial forum featuring the four major candidates for governor:

Good morning. My name is Mark Willes, and I’m publisher of the Los Angeles Times. And it is my privilege to welcome you to this On the Record forum.

California is a state with significant challenges and marvelous opportunities. The next governor of the state will have an opportunity to exercise leadership to help each of us and all of us meet those challenges and take advantage of those opportunities.

Those of you watching or listening will be able to see and hear exactly what they believe on the key issues facing our state. In addition, tomorrow morning we will have in our paper a verbatim transcript in English and Spanish which we will make available free of charge to our 3 million readers and anyone else who is interested.

Good government requires outstanding leaders who are elected by an informed public.

Since California now has an open primary, we have, and are grateful to have with us today, the four leading candidates for the position of governor of the state of California. And to introduce them to you, it is my pleasure to introduce to you Michael Parks, editor of the Los Angeles Times.

Mr. Parks: Thank you, Mark. Let me just say before we introduce the candidates and the moderators that our program today is modeled on the meetings that our editorial board holds with candidates for public office before each election. The questions are designed to maximize, even provoke discussion of the issues and to minimize personal debate.

I should also mention that some of the questions that we will be asking today were submitted by you in the audience here at The Times. And you include a broad cross-section of political leaders, civic leaders, education leaders and social activists.

The candidates here with us today, in alphabetical order, are Al Checchi, a business man and a candidate for the Democratic party’s nomination.

Gray Davis, lieutenant governor of California and a candidate for the Democratic nomination.

Jane Harman, a member of Congress and a candidate for the Democratic nomination.

And Dan Lungren, the attorney general of California, and a candidate for the Republican nomination.

One more note, as Mark said, we will be publishing tomorrow in The Times a complete transcript of the discussion today in both English and Spanish. And we’ll be listing all 17 candidates for the nominations for governor.

And now here are the moderators. George Skelton, a political columnist in the Sacramento bureau of The Times and Janet Clayton, the editor of the editorial pages of The Times. Thank you.

Clayton: Good morning. We will use an alphabetical rotation for opening statements, candidates’ answers to questions and for closing statements. For example, Mr. Checchi will be first for opening and closing statements. For questions, we will rotate alphabetically, left to right, on who answers first.

The opening statements will be two minutes. Closing statements will be a minute and a half. During the question-and-answer portion of the forum, we request that each of the candidates keep answers concise and on point. We may ask follow-up questions. Please allow each speaker to respond to questions without interruption. And now for the opening two-minute segments, Mr. Checchi.

Checchi: This year the people of California will choose the last governor of the 20th Century and the first governor of the 21st. We have it in our power to make this new century a time of our greatest promise and prosperity when this state will once again lead the nation and the world.

For 18 months I’ve traveled California and listened to its people. They’re ready to join again in great and common purpose. But through their eyes I’ve also seen that our people are concerned about their future and dissatisfied with politicians who say that things are pretty good right now and that we don’t need a plan for the years ahead.

For Californians, the enemy of our future is complacency. We have to prepare this state for a new era and a new economy. And we can’t prosper and lead in an era by drifting and doing the same old things.

It’s time to make choices, to set our course and to achieve our greatest potential. So in this campaign I’ve proposed a plan for our future. It begins with education. I’m the grandson of immigrants and the education was the key to my life.

The plan I’ve offered cuts state bureaucracies 10% and puts the savings into the classroom. It calls for real competency tests for teachers and 21st century trade schools. And I’m the only candidate with a commitment to raise our support for education to the national average.

This plan will also make our streets safer by hiring 10,000 more police. It will provide tax breaks for families, buying a home, sending a child to college or caring for an aging parent. And it sets out a new economic strategy to create high-wage jobs. This plan is specific and every voter can read it. And we can pay for it without raising taxes.

I reject the old politics that says that we have to be content with things as they are. I know from my own career what can be achieved if we work together. To people who say we can’t do all these things for California, I say to the people of this state, with your help, we can. Thank you.

Clayton: Thank you. Mr. Davis.

Davis: First I want to thank the Los Angeles Times for sponsoring this forum.

The next governor faces three major challenges. First to fix our public schools, second to keep Californians safe, and third to bring our diverse peoples together.

I believe I have the experience and the vision to accomplish these goals and to take California to a higher place.

On education, I would raise standards. And as governor, I will take a high expectation approach to learning. I am convinced that if we challenge our young kids, they will rise to meet our expectations.

As governor, I will do my very best to keep all Californians safe. Law enforcement has always been a very high priority to me, and I’m very proud to have the support of virtually every major law enforcement association in this state.

Third, and equally important, I will work hard to bring this state together. I will try very hard to end these divisive wedge-issue campaigns that we see year after year. As governor, I will highlight the strengths of our people, not the weaknesses, and I will remind people of what we can accomplish together.

Frankly, I would hope to spend the entire campaign discussing these and other crucial issues, but unfortunately--unfortunately, Mr. Checchi’s advertising and his attacks on the rest of us on this stage made that very difficult to do.

The news media have judged many of his attacks to be false and misleading, but make no mistake, these attacks have taken the campaign down a path that none of the rest of us wanted to go.

Al, there are only 20 days left in this campaign. You could do a great service to the people of California to finish on a high note by focusing on your merits as a candidate rather than the alleged deficiencies of the rest of us.

For my part, I would be delighted to focus on my experience, my vision and my 23 years of public service. This would enable the campaign to finish on a high note and do justice to the great people of this state.

Thank you.

Clayton: Thank you.

Jane Harman.

Harman: I, too, want to thank the Los Angeles Times for sponsoring this debate, and I’m especially glad it’s being broadcast on the Internet.

As a Democrat, a business attorney, a mother and a member of Congress, I have always believed that the main purpose of government is to help people. Too many politicians use elective office to divide people, trashing those who disagree with them and putting stalemate ahead of statesmanship.

I’m running for governor because I’m fed up with divisive leadership. I’ve watched firsthand as Newt Gingrich and Pete Wilson, two of the most skilled practitioners of leadership by division, shut down the government and put petty politics and personal grudges ahead of education, health care, transportation, everything that matters to working families.

I watched in horror as Michael Huffington smeared Dianne Feinstein, and in disappointment when Sen. Feinstein decided not to run for governor because she feared it would happen again. Except this time, sadly, the personal attacks would come from a Democrat.

So many problems remain unsolved because of leadership by division. California’s public schools need reform. Our people need HMOs that put people first. Our kids need us to get assault weapons and Saturday Night Specials off the street. Our humanity requires us to share California’s prosperity with all its people. But these things haven’t happened because too many macho politicians say, “Do it my way or not at all. And if you disagree with me, I’ll tell the press something naughty you did when you were 12.”

The kind of campaign a person runs tells you a lot about the kind of leader he or she will be. If a candidate breaks his promises during the campaign, you can be sure he’s going to break his promises if he’s elected. If he runs a divisive and negative campaign, expect a divisive and negative leader.

I’m running for governor as a leader who has worked with Republicans and Democrats to create jobs, help transform our state’s economy, put cops on the street and protect human rights. Unlike the other candidates, I believe good leaders bring people together. They don’t tear them apart.

I pledge to bring this state together as your governor.

Thank you.

Clayton: Mr. Lungren.

Lungren: Thank you very much.

I wonder if I ought to get into this intramural battle here. This is a little unusual, being the only Republican of three Democrats, but I went to Notre Dame and three to one were pretty good odds, so we’ll be happy to do that.

I’m running for governor because I felt that I was blessed to be born here in California and to live my whole life here in California. I had great schools, I had a wonderful family. I had a feeling about this state that there was nowhere else that I wanted to be. I felt it gave me every vista, every chance, every opportunity to do what God gave me the talents to do.

And I’ve noticed that there are too many kids in California who don’t have that same feeling today. There are too many kids who still have to worry about what clothes they wear, what territory they walk through, whether they’ll get assaulted on the way to school or at school.

There are too many kids for whom the school system unfortunately doesn’t give them that opportunity to be the best they can be. And it occurred to me that being governor of the state of California gives you an opportunity to do something about that, to try and make a difference.

We have two gentlemen in the audience here, Tom Bradley and George Deukmejian. They engaged in tough fights in the past, but each one of them gave of themselves, each one gave of themselves to try and make California a better place.

How can you denigrate their public service? How can you say to them, “You should have spent your time making money instead of actually trying to make a difference in people’s lives?” I don’t understand that.

I would hope we wouldn’t be divisive. I would hope we’d be engaged in debate. That’s why I thank the Los Angeles Times for doing this.

I’ve been asking for this, and I hope that my opponents would agree, whoever wins on the Democratic side, that we’ll engage in a series of debates in the general election.

Let’s start the second full week after the primary. Let’s start engaging in ideas early, not late. Let’s set a new trend for America. Not say, “This is what’s bad from California,” “This is what’s good from California.” Let’s say issues matter. Let’s say different ideas have different consequences. Let’s work together to make a difference with California.

I thank the L.A. Times for starting us on this journey. Let’s complete it.

Clayton: Thank you.

And our first question to Mr. Checchi. Everyone will answer this question, please.

Many of the state’s public schools are in trouble. If a school fails to perform year after year, do you believe that principals and teachers should be fired? Conversely, should outstanding principals and teachers earn more pay?

Mr. Checchi?

Checchi: Well, I believe one of the problems with our education, in fact, system, indeed our government system, is there’s a lack of accountability. There’s a lack of accountability for elected leaders. There’s a lack of accountability for teachers and for students. So the starting point for repairing the system is to make people accountable. And that’s why I’ve said that I would have competency tests for teachers at the end of five years, and to end all forms of social promotion for students.

And, clearly, we have to decentralize these schools. You can’t sit in Sacramento and make decisions equally applicable to Santa Ana and San Jose. So that these--I’ve called for unlimited numbers of charter schools, which is to decentralize these schools and allow the public schools to function much more like private schools where there’s local control and there’s the control of parents, there’s the control of community leaders and, yes, then these people could be replaced.

Clayton: And should [they]

Checchi: And should be.

Clayton: Make more pay also if they’re outstanding?

Checchi: Yes. What I have proposed is that we have a system whereby we--teachers who make progress toward national board certification are getting higher pay. And the same should apply to administrators who are successful.

Davis: I think a failing school is no less of a--no less of a problem than a national disaster and it requires immediate and urgent action. I like the Chicago model and I believe if a school, for example, finished in the bottom 3% or 4% academically, let’s say, three years in a row, that we ought to change the governance of that school, allow the mayor to reconstitute the school board, give the mayor control over the governance of that school because mayors care about schools. Otherwise, people leave their jurisdiction for better schools.

I believe we ought to reward people who make outstanding contributions. I, too, agree that national board certification warrants a major bonus.

I think the governor’s on the right track by suggesting today a $10,000 bonus.

As some of you know, I served in Vietnam, and there’s a process they use in the Army that I think would--would well serve us to use as education.

Every five years, if people sign another contract to continue teaching for three to five additional years, give them a $5,000 or $10,000 bonus. Why? Because as you know, Janet, we lose about half of our teachers the first five years.

It’s a difficult process. They’re in the classroom alone, it’s sometimes frightening and alienating, and knowing that they have a mentor to help them--and I would pay mentors more money--and a bonus if they stay another three to five years would encourage the very best teachers to stay.

Clayton: But you would not fire principals or teachers under any circumstances?

Davis: I would give an annual--yes, I would. If teachers--I would give the school board the authority to make whatever decisions they thought were appropriate. If they wanted to fire principals or teachers because of consistent poor performance, that would be within their charter to do.

Clayton: Jane Harman.

Harman: I believe I’m the only candidate on this podium who was educated in California’s public schools, when they were great, under Gov. Pat Brown. I received an excellent education and a great start in life and I had one of those childhoods like Dan Lungren’s that brings back very fond memories, and that is the challenge for us to provide for children all over this state.

I think there are two parts of our public education system we have to keep our eye on. It must be excellent, and those who teach and those who administer must be accountable.

Your question is about accountability. I would provide merit pay for teachers who perform well, who mentor other teachers, and who pledge to stay in our school system for another five years.

I would provide scholarships to recruit the best teachers and I would reach all over California for those teachers and urge them to teach in our inner-city schools. I also would fire teachers and administrators who do not perform adequately, but that is after providing the resources so that they can become better teachers, and that is after letting school boards interact with this material in making sure that in their own school districts the standards that they set are met.

Clayton: Mr. Lungren.

Lungren: I think the--that’s an easy question, should you allow the school district, the school board, the principal, to have hiring and firing decisions. I think we all agree on that.

The more important one is the question of governance. The more important one is how do you get accountability truly built into the school system? You try and give as much freedom as you can within the system. You give greater local control, greater school site control.

But I think you also do something that the governor has just started us on the road to and that is greater freedom within the system through charter schools. I would go so far as to say we ought to have vouchers or scholarships, not to destroy the public schools but to make them better. I truly think they can compete and through competition will become more accountable.

So yes on merit pay, yes on decisions based on performance, yes on the ability to fire someone who’s not doing the job. Those are in many ways the essence of the charter school revision that we just got through the Legislature and which I pushed very hard, and the leader of that said we would not have gotten it if I hadn’t done that.

The other things you do is this. You raise the expectations of teachers and then you give them respect. We don’t respect our teachers well enough today. We have to have them as role models today.

Today is Teacher Appreciation Day. We’re to reflect back if we can think of a teacher who meant something to us in our lifetime. And I have one of my teachers here, the one who taught me public speaking. He was a religious brother at the time. Then he served for 25 years, great service, in the Compton Unified School District.

We need more role models, we need accountability, we need merit pay, we need the ability to hire and fire.

Skelton: Some of you have answered this already, but a lot of people in our audience have submitted questions about how do you attract good teachers in the first place and keep them?

As somebody mentioned, we’ve got 40% of all new teachers are leaving the profession within five years. Anybody have an idea about how to attract good dedicated people to low-paying jobs in lousy working conditions?

Checchi: Mr. Checchi--well, I’ve already--all right.

Davis: The--it’s very clear that this society depends on teachers. If you give up on teachers, you give up on democracy. And we have short-changed teachers in many ways. We’ve not provided the training they need. We’ve made it difficult to finance a career that does not provide much in the way of compensation. I think we have to put our money where our mouth is.

Let’s just make scholarships for everyone who wants to teach. Let’s say teaching is so important that we will pay for your college education. If you want a master’s, we will pay for it. We will assist you in becoming national board certification. By the way, we have less than 80 people in this state, less than 600 in the nation that have passed the national board certification.

As I said before, if you agree to teach an additional five years, we’ll give you a substantial bonus in the $10,000 to $15,000 range. Let’s not only honor teachers with awards and cash and plaques as some private foundations do, but let’s make this an attractive profession both financially, and as my former boss used to say, psychically.

Clayton: Mrs. Harman.

Harman: I won’t touch that one. But let me say that Gov. Pat Brown developed the master plan for our higher education system in this state. It still serves as the model for the world. And part of that system includes the state university system which is the training ground for most of our teachers and for many teachers around the country.

Our state university system needs support. Tuitions must be affordable and we have to provide scholarships and loans to those who can’t afford tuitions. And as I said before, I would forgive loans and I would provide various kinds of aggressive recruitment techniques to get our best graduates out of the state university system and into our schools.

I would improve teacher pay. We can do that within budget constraints. The governor has just talked about today, I read it in your newspaper, adding more funds for our schools. And some of those funds should go to improve the pay for teachers so we can recruit better teachers and they can live on their salaries.

Mr. Lungren used the word “respect.” He’s right. I had great teachers in California’s public schools and I learned to respect myself and to respect those schools because of what I was taught.

But let me conclude that teachers can’t do it all, no matter how much we nourish them. Involved parents are absolutely critical to kids learning. And it is important that we make some initiatives with charter schools in other ways to invest in creative public schooling. I’m against private school vouchers, because they will starve kids in public schools but that we also involve parents and teachers and students in determining what our schools do and how they are nourished and fed.

Skelton: Mr. Lungren.

Lungren: One of my sisters is an outstanding principal of a public school in Long Beach. Two or three years ago she was recognized by President Clinton as one of the 10 outstanding teachers in America. And I’ve spent much time talking with her about what makes a good teacher. It’s not anything that’s magic or science. It’s dedication. It’s discipline. It’s sacrifice. It’s respect. It’s self esteem. It’s accomplishment.

Skelton: Mr. Lungren, how do you get them to go into the business when they start at $27,000 a year?

Lungren: In the very first place, you create a sense of respect for that position. Money is important but it’s not the most important thing in my judgment. That is, teachers need to know they’re respected, No. 1.

No. 2, you have to make the school site safe. When I came in as attorney general that was one of the first things I said and I had some who opposed me and said why should we be worried about that? We made changes in the law in Sacramento sponsored by my office which now gives greater protection to teachers. We have training now as part of certification as to what you do with impending danger, how you head it off. And protections against attacks on teachers, as well.

But the other thing we have to do is we have to understand that teachers should have more control of what they do in the classroom. In my judgment, they ought to be given far greater control. School sites ought to have far greater control so long as you have national standards that are rigorously enforced and are measured by testing performance.

It is that balance that works together. Yes, money’s important. But in my judgment, it is not the most important thing.

Clayton: OK. Thank you. Mr. Checchi.

Checchi: We have to attract 300,000 teachers in the next 10 years. And that’s why I proposed--Dan, I got to disagree with you. Money is important. $27,000 a year is not attracting the people that we need. That’s why I propose that we raise starting teachers’ salaries by 20%.

And, Gray, I agree with you that we should compensate them as they make progress in continuing education toward national board certification. It gives them the kind of respect Jane is talking about. We should be forgiving them college loans at the end of five years, and I proposed that.

But people go into this profession because they want to teach children. And if you want to attract people to this profession, you have to give them schools that a kid can learn in. I mean you saw in the L.A. Times today. I’ve gone to these schools. Many of ‘em are dungeons. I can’t believe the signal that we’re sending our children. We’re basically telling them you don’t matter. And that’s why I made the commitment that Delaine Eastin asked for to get our schools up to the national average in spending within the next five years.

You know, I come from a world where you do not get something for free. All these platitudes about what we’re going to do. Well, you have to invest in education. We are 43rd in spending. 49th in computers per child. We’re in the last decile of testing and we’re supposed to be a high-tech society. What are we talking about?

Now, we have to give--provide the right resources. We also have to provide the right curriculum. We are now moving into the 21st century. 49th in computers per child. We need a high-tech curriculum for these children. We need a commitment to after-school enrichment. Our society has changed.

Dan, you’re a crime-fighter. Most of the crime is committed by youth between 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. when we used to have programs after school.

Clayton: Thank you. We can move along to the next question now and start this time with congresswoman Harman.

Do you want to continue bilingual education, and do you believe it’s been proven effective in teaching children to master English as quickly as possible? And if so, what is your evidence one way or the other?

Harman: I think our bilingual program has failed and needs to be changed. The goal is and the goal was to make every student proficient in English. This matters because without proficiency in English, those students will not qualify for one of these high-tech 21st century jobs.

The right way to fix it is not to impose on one-size-fits-all policy as Proposition 227 would do, and I oppose Proposition 227, but to do what Sen. Dede Alpert has proposed, which is to set a timetable of three years and then let communities find their own strategies for achieving English proficiency for each kid.

Let me say a word about diversity. Our diversity makes us strong. I support bilingualism and, in fact, I think a kid is better qualified for a job if that kid can speak many languages as children do in Europe and in Asia, our trading partners.

I have a daughter who speaks fluent French and Italian. I think that makes her more qualified in the work force. I have another daughter who speaks fluent Spanish, and she’ll be a great worker in California’s new economy.

Clayton: Thank you.

Mr. Lungren.

Lungren: I think by and large the bilingual programs in California have failed. That’s why I have been working to get rid of the statewide mandate.

I represented the State Board of Education in the lawsuit to make a determination as to the validity of the continuance of the statewide mandate. The court decision was it no longer exists. That grants, I believe, flexibility to local school districts to make their decision. That’s what I would like to do.

I was supporting in the last couple of years the joint effort by Dede Alpert and Brooks Firestone. It was a bipartisan effort to try and get things moved. The Democratic Legislature refused to move it at all.

That’s why I say Ron Unz has done us a great service by raising this issue by way of an initiative that forced the Legislature to act. I agree with one part of his initiative which gets rid of the bilingual mandate, but that’s now been done by a court.

I have very strong difficulty, and find that even though I give him great credit for bringing this forward, that I can’t support that initiative, because it goes against what I’ve been talking about throughout California for the last number of years.

Local control. So long as you have statewide standards, local control, local decision making which will adapt to the particular students that you have is the best direction we can take to successfully educate our children. Put children first. That’s what we ought to be doing in all of this.

Clayton: Thank you.

Mr. Checchi.

Checchi: Well, I don’t think Ron Unz has done us a service. We’re the most diverse place on Earth. We are what the rest of the country is going to look like 75 years from now. We’re what the rest of the world is going to look like 150 years from now. And a central challenge to leadership is to bring us together, and yet our politics have been synonymous with the word “wedges”.

Yes, bilingual education is not working, but 25% of our children entering school are limited English-speaking. And that’s why I propose an alternative that will work.

We’re going to have to spend some money, Dan, but you have to--I want to take these children at the age of 4 and 5, two years early, and totally immerse them in language. The average child captured early can learn the language in two years, but for those who don’t, then a maximum of two years of bilingual.

We have to prepare our children for the 21st century. And the fact of the matter is we are a global economy and our diversity gives us a comparative advantage in that kind of economy and also the structure of this economy is changed.

We’re no longer producing goods. We’re producing brain power. And that gives us a great advantage to have such a diverse population.

So instead of treating it as a problem, we should understand what it is. It is our comparative advantage here in California. Once again, we’re on the cutting edge.

Clayton: Thank you.

Mr. Davis.

Davis: There’s no question that bilingual program is broken and it needs to be fixed. I sat with Jerry Brown as chief of staff when he signed a funding authorization bill in the mid-’70s, late ‘70s, and we were promised that the conversion from any language to English would take no longer than three years. It frequently takes six to seven years.

We have a perverse funding mechanism that encourages schools to take longer making that conversion.

I am against the Unz initiative because it’s a one-size-fits-all solution, but I would reform bilingual education, and here’s what I would do.

A parent would decide how their child is educated. If they want English immersion, if they want bilingual, it is their choice. But if they choose bilingual, they have no longer--the school has no longer than three years to make the conversion. And I would reward the school with a big bonus if it did it in two years rather than three and a bigger bonus if it did it in one year.

Now, having said that, I agree with your earlier comments that it’s good to be multilingual. And I hope by the time I finish my first term as governor we can have a standard that every high school requires two languages to graduate.

I was on the plane not too long ago to New York sitting next to a lady whose son speaks five languages. He’s 38, he’s in a law firm in New York, and he’s the highest paid member of that law firm.

So language is the ticket to success and to prosperity. And we should first insist people learn English, but then we should encourage another language.

Clayton: OK.

Skelton: Next question goes to Mr. Lungren first.

In Sacramento right now the state has a $4-billion surplus. What would you do with the money? Give it back to the people as a tax cut or spend it?

Lungren: Before I completely answer that question, let me just say to Mr. Checchi, Al, I said I’m not supporting the Unz initiative, but I think Ron Unz has done us a service, and at least Ron Unz takes the time to vote.

No, there’s a serious question here, folks, about whether it’s important for us to do our civic responsibility. Average citizens, no matter what they make, whether they think it’s important to vote in local elections, vote in school board elections. If we’re going to have local control, you ought to take the time to vote in your local elections.

But the question about the--the question about the surplus is I think a very, very important one. The governor is giving the outlines of how he believes it ought to be spent, and I agree with--with many of the emphases that he has established.

But I think as a fundamental proposition we had better give some of that money back to the people. Remember what happened 20 years ago, 1978. We had a governor--and you’ll remember this, Gray, you were there--we had a governor and a Legislature that refused to give money back to the people despite the fact that we had a large surplus. In response to that the people rose up and gave us Proposition 13, an imperfect solution, but a solution nonetheless, one that we live with today.

And the people are not going to change. If we as elected officials working together can’t come up with a return of some of that money to the people, we’ll see a repeat of Proposition 13. And then the same people are saying “We can’t afford a tax cut” are going to be saying, “Well, jeez, we shouldn’t have passed that particular resolution that the people brought forward to us.”

I never understand . . .

Skelton: Mr. Lungren, how much is some? Out of $4 billion, how much would you give back?

Lungren: Well, I would tell you, I’ve already talked about a major proposal, and that is get rid of the car tax.

Skelton: This is a $4-billion proposal.

Lungren: That’s $4 billion, but that’s over a five-year period of time as incorporated in the Tom McClintock proposal. That’s what I support. It makes sense.

Skelton: But that would take up most of the money?

Lungren: Pardon me?

Skelton: That would take up most of the money.

Lungren: No, it would be phased in over the next five years. It wouldn’t take--the $4 billion we’re talking about is one year. We have increased revenues over there. It would take about--I think it’s 0.9% of revenues is what we’re talking about.

Skelton: In the fifth year it would cost $4 billion.

Lungren: That’s true. That’s true. And I would not take it away from local governments. I would have a backfill by guaranteeing a portion of the statewide sales tax to local government.

And you know the reason why I’d do this? I believe people are willing to pay for the government they get so long as they can understand it.

And this car tax has nothing to do with cars, it has nothing to do with highways, it has nothing to do with transportation. It’s the last vestige of a decades-old property tax and personal property tax.

Skelton: All right. Mr. Checchi.

Checchi: For those of you who don’t know it, the car tax got a Republican elected governor in Virginia.

Dan, your description of these economics sounds like the loaves and the fishes, that suddenly we’re going to be backfilling and all this other business.

Folks, California is at a crossroads. Look what’s happening in the--happened in the last 25 years. We’ve gone from having the premier education system to having one that is in the bottom 10%.

Crime. We’re doing everything we can to fight it. We keep investing, we keep building these prisons, we keep raising penalties. We have the third highest violent crime rate in the United States. I think we ought to start investing in prevention. I think we have to invest in these schools.

Look at the incomes, what’s happened in California. 50% of the people in the last 25 years have had a real decline in their income of 16%. We used to be the richest people in the United States, and now we are the 13th and we have the third greatest disparity between rich and poor.

What about investing in economic development? There is no state in the union that invests less per capita than California in economic development.

So you want to talk about what to do with the surplus? Invest in the future. There are going to be 18 million more people here in the next 25 years. We’re going to grow an entire New York State. Where are they going to get the water? How are they going to go to school? How are we going to transport them? That’s what we should be talking about, not a car tax.

Clayton: OK. Mr. Davis.

Davis: Will you repeat the question. I’ve lost track of the question with all these different answers.

Skelton: Would you cut taxes or spend the money?

Davis: Surplus, we’re talking about?

Skelton: Right.

Davis: I would spend most of the money improving K through 12 education. It’s the most important thing the state does. It represents 42% of every tax dollar and education, including college, it represents over half of the money we spend.

We survive by our wits in this state. And it is, I agree with Al, that it is appalling when you go on some of these campuses and see how dilapidated the schools are.

By the way, Al, it would have been nice if you had voted in 1996, because it was a $3-billion issue to improve those structures on campus. But be that as it may, most of the money would be well spent improving the quality of education both at K through 12 and through the university.

But I agree with Dan. We govern with the consent of the governed. And last year we had a surplus. We gave a billion dollars worth of corporate tax relief, a billion dollars worth of personal income tax relief. My legislation I fought 3 years to get passed, which lowers tuition 5% at every public college in this state starting in September. We had money to do that. If we had $4 billion we have to find some portion of it that gets returned to the taxpayers, whether it’s in the form of a partial reduction in the vehicle license fee to where it was before it got raised in 1991 or some other form of relief or we will experience what I saw in 1978, which is the voters will take matters into their own hands.

So governing, Al, is a process of coalition building. You can’t always do what you want. You have to do what the taxpayers want and whatever coalitions you can forge to put together to allow you to do.

Clayton: Thank you. Mrs. Harman.

Harman: In the answers by Dan and Al, we have the classic split between the parties. We have the cut-and-run approach and we have the tax- and-spend approach. I think they’re both old politics and we need to think about the surplus in another way.

First of all, it’s a one-time surplus, or part of it is. Part of it comes from the capital gains, the tax on capital gains that’s being paid as a result of the decrease in the capital gains cut rate that I voted for last year in Congress, and I’m proud to have voted for it.

But that means next year, George, we may not have $4 billion. We may only have $2 billion or slightly less than that, even if we continue economic growth. So I’m not going to promise something that we can’t pay for and then have to raise taxes or cut spending next year and be hard on middle income Californians.

My proposal is to spend $1 billion of this surplus this year on education, more textbooks, computers, quality teachers and facilities. We’ve discussed all that.

To invest $1 billion in infrastructure by capping the raid on local property taxes up to the state. That’s something you’ve asked me about many times. I want to stop it, and I want to return that money to the cities over time.

And by capitalizing the infrastructure bank that already exists, but which can be used by local communities to borrow funds to fix roads, levies and parks and improve public safety facilities and pay for earthquake retrofits.

Then I would return $1.8 billion to our working families. I would roll back Pete Wilson’s tax increases by restoring the renters tax credit and cutting the car tax to exempt the first $5,000 of the car, of the value of the car so that one-third of individual car users would pay no tax whatsoever. And that working families, students and seniors would get some relief.

I would fund a child-care credit and allow a health insurance deduction for those buying their own insurance.

Clayton: Mrs. Harman, we need to wrap up.

Harman: Thank you.

Clayton: A diversity question. Starting with Mr. Checchi. California in the next four years will be a state where the majority of people are Latino, Asian or African-American.

Post Proposition 209, what as governor would you do to ensure diversity from the top down in the state’s institutions and universities?

Checchi: Well, I would start even higher than that. The governor has the responsibility to make up to 2,400 appointments. One of the problems with this government is that people have lost confidence in it because they don’t see themselves reflected in it. I will make 2,400 appointments reflective of the diversity of this society.

I’ve spent a year and a half traveling. We don’t have any shortage of qualified ethnic people. We just haven’t gone out and made any kind of effort to advance them into the government.

Secondly, the governor gets to appoint regents on a rotating basis. I’ll appoint regents who agree with what I do, that the quality of education is a function of the diversity of the student body.

And, you know, Gray, you talk about voting. You are a regent. It’s one of the few responsibilities you have as lieutenant governor. You missed 28 out of the first 48 votes.

Davis: That’s not true.

Checchi: Thank you.

Clayton: Mr. Davis.

Davis: The question again was on diversity?

Clayton: Yeah, it was about diversity and what you would do to ensure it.

Davis: First of all, I am very proud that when I came into government as chief of staff to Jerry Brown back in 1975, we inherited the Reagan administration. There were six department heads, 59 white male, one white woman. I have nothing against white males, but that didn’t reflect the face of California in 1975. And I’m very happy when I left office 6 1/2 years later, 4 1/2-- 41% of all the appointments were either women or minority.

And in the beginning, people didn’t believe that we were serious when we reached out to communities and said, no, we really want you to consider being deputy director of motor vehicles or director of motor vehicles as Herman Sillas. We really want you to sit on the Supreme Court as we said to Cruz Reynoso or Wiley Manuel, deputy attorney general. So I would continue to build on that tradition.

As governor of California, I don’t need a law to tell me to look in every community to find talented people who find their place in my judiciary and in my cabinet and administration.

But I will say this. I think you can fight to change any position the voters are about to vote on, but once they make a decision, you have to follow their mandate or you have to find some other business to go to.

Under the context of 209, I think I’ve made a constructive suggestion to take the top 10% of students in every high school, and admit them to the university. If they’re in the top 10%, they’re obviously qualified kids. The university is changing that slightly to make the top 4%. I think that’s a good step forward to provide diversity and still not be race or gender based.

Clayton: Mrs. Harman.

Harman: I’m the only member of California’s diversity on this panel and I’m proud to be a woman and a working mother. And this issue is a critical one for me as governor.

I voted no on Proposition 209, but as Gray Davis says, it is the law in California and I will work to make it irrelevant.

And I believe I can do that by making the state appointments that Al Checchi talks about, by reaching for the top 4% in every high school for admission to the UCs. That would work out within the 12.5% of our student population that is to be accepted under the master plan. But I would do more than that.

It is critical to help every single kid in California get an excellent public education. That’s why I don’t want to take our limited public education funds and spend one dime on private schools. I’m for competition among the schools, but I think it is a mistake to leave kids behind in our public schools.

And let me finally say that the best affirmative action policy is a decent public education for every single child. That will happen in the Harman administration within budget constraints.

Clayton: Thank you. Mr. Lungren.

Lungren: As someone who supported 209 and believes it was the proper thing to do, because I do not think we ought to have racial and gender quotas and set-asides, I’ve said that that is not the total answer. We have to go beyond that. And the question that you’ve asked, I believe, was what are we going to do about perhaps the lack of minority representation in our colleges and universities in the public institutions?

I think all of us agree we need to reform K through 12. If we reform K through 12 so every child in California had an opportunity to get a quality education, I have no doubts that all, I don’t care what their racial background is, would have the capacity to rise to the top. And we would see a solution to the problem.

But while we go through that transition, what do we do with those kids who didn’t have the benefit of reformed schools, better schools? That’s why I’m the only one I think that has talked about putting a greater emphasis on the community colleges.

106 campuses in California. 1.3 million students. We ought to say to someone at our community college, look, if you didn’t get an education, the kind you wanted to have K through 12 or you didn’t take the opportunity, it’s not all up for you. You can do whatever remedial work you need to do there and then if you get a B or better average in core curriculum, we’ll guarantee you a place at UC or the top levels of our Cal State University system.

I had a discussion with Dr. Atkinson on this, the head of the UC system, about two months ago. A month later he met with the head of the board of trustees for the community colleges and they made an agreement to set aside more positions.

We have not given enough attention and appreciation to our community colleges. It is one of the greatest second chance educational opportunity facilities in the history of the world. And we ought to put better emphasis on it. And I will as governor.

Clayton: Thank you. We’re now going to the candidate-specific questions. First for Mr. Checchi.

Skelton: Mr. Checchi, you promised to run a positive campaign, but you were the first to run negative ads.

One of your positive ads says you marched with Martin Luther King for civil rights, yet all you did was go with your parents to hear King speak. Another ad says you were a leader for President Clinton, but you just gave him a few bucks, as you also did his opponent, Bob Dole.

How can people believe that as governor you’ll do what you say you’ll do?

Checchi: Well, I was at a--the largest civil rights march in history. There were probably a half a million people there, and we needed a verb: now, was I marching with them, participating with them or standing with them? I think everybody there thought they were marching. And Dr. King has said that having all those people there is what made the difference.

As far as the advertising goes, you know, politics is . . .

Skelton: Let me ask you about that. Doesn’t it bother you that you’re trying to equate attending a speech with marching for civil rights as truly heroic civil rights activists did, some of whom died?

Checchi: I was not equating what I was doing. I was just saying that I was marching and 500,000 people who attended the largest civil rights march in history, they all thought they were marching too, George.

But, you know, politics is funny. California’s at a crossroads, and two and a half years ago I began a process. I designed a plan for the future of this state and then I went public a year and a half ago and I traveled and talked about the issues. And since then I’ve been attacked for spending my own money by people who take money from others. I’ve been attacked for my experience in business, where I achieved a great deal by a lot of people who have not achieved a great deal in government. I’ve been attacked for emphasizing the issues. I was told this was government-by-position paper. And I’ve been attacked for my voting record even by people whose voting record is spotty. But I’ve responded . . .

Skelton: But you are the only one who promised to run a positive campaign.

Checchi: I have responded as I promised that I would by comparing the sources of money of my opponents with myself, by comparing their performance in office with my performance in the private sector, by comparing their positions on issues when they ever took one with my positions on issues and by comparing their voting records with my own.

Now, this election is about comparisons. And the things that I have talked about are factual and they’re not personal.

Skelton: Most people would say they’re negative ads, nevertheless.

Checchi: They are comparative, they’re factual and they are response--they are response to the guff I’ve gotten for a year and a half now from basically all their handlers and their spin doctors and whatever that you’ve printed in the newspapers, and I chose to respond on television and not take out an ad.

Clayton: Next question for Mr. Davis.

Mr. Davis, speaking of money, you’ve long received lots of money and endorsements in various unions and education. How then can you ever be free to demand that unions make the kinds of changes they loathe, such as trading job protections for performance-based pay?

Davis: Because my allegiance is to the people of this state. I’ve spent my entire--just about my entire life here. I came here in 1954. My opponents came here--well, Jane was born here, went away for a while and came back. Al came here about ten years ago. I am--I am dedicated to making this a better place for all citizens, including children, and . . .

Clayton: But have you ever taken a position against anything that the teachers union didn’t want . . .

Davis: Well, I’ll give you one. The unions--the unions . . .

Clayton: . . . ever?

Davis: I’m about to answer that question. First time I’ve been badgered in answering a question I’ve been trying to answer, but . . .

I vigorously opposed efforts by unions to put on the ballot this time or at any future time an initiative that would take away every tax exemption that business had been granted over the years because I think it’s very important to have a healthy business climate, to encourage people to succeed, to prosper.

My mom told me that every dream begins with a job, and I understand fully as the former controller of this state for eight years that we have to make this an attractive place to do business.

In response to the 226 initiative, labor, headed by the teachers, were organizing a campaign to take away every tax exemption that business had in the state, and I told them privately and publicly that was a mistake.

Clayton: I see.

Mrs. Harman, I have a question for you. You’ve avoided laying off specific proposals. Instead you’ve said it’s important that voters find out who you are as a human being.

How do you answer your critics who say that your real message is forget the issues, just vote for me because I’m a woman?

Harman: Well, I dispute the premise of your question. I haven’t laid off addressing issues. I was just talking specifically about how I would spend our perhaps one-time surplus with dollar numbers. I don’t think anyone else offered those up here.

I have a program that I’ve discussed in detail about public education within budget constraints to invest in textbooks and computers and credential teachers and longer school year and competency testing and so forth.

I’ve talked about specifically what we have to do to fix HMOs. We have to put people first and let women have gynecologists as their primary care provider and let chronic patients be able to keep their specialists when they change plans.

I’ve talked specifically about public safety. I’m tough on punishment, but I also support investments in prevention, and I would ban assault weapons and Saturday night specials. Those are programs.

I don’t know why it is that some writers for your newspaper choose to ignore that, but I all around this state am getting very detailed coverage on my programs and am proud of that.

Let me just say one thing to Mr. Checchi about his answer to Mr. Skelton.

Your ads, Al, have been negative. They haven’t been comparative. Your charges against me have been called a cheap shot by Leon Panetta and despicable by Sen. Feinstein. I resent the distortion of my record. It’s false, and voters know that, and it cheapens your own campaign.

Why don’t you tell voters where you stand and keep defending your policies, which, by the way, would cost 15 billion additional dollars which we can’t afford in our state budget.

Clayton: Mr. Lungren.

Skelton: Mr. Lungren, each Democrat . . .

Lungren: Can I start my answer with “by the way”?

Skelton: Each Democratic candidate here favors a woman’s right to choose for herself whether to have an abortion. You oppose abortion rights. How as governor would you try to restrict abortion in any way?

Lungren: Look, the question of abortion is a difficult one for anybody to address. People don’t like to talk about it, they don’t like it to be brought into public debate, but it is there, nonetheless.

I come from my position, quite frankly, as a practicing Catholic. I was taught and I believe in the sanctity of life and, therefore, I believe in the protection of innocent life.

As someone who is pro life, I’ve always recognized the exception for protection of the life of the mother, rape and incest, although sometimes in the Congress, because of procedural matters, we had to vote for it one way, get it over to the Senate with the exceptions so we could vote it back in.

Skelton: OK. How would you try to restrict abortions as governor?

Lungren: But as governor--as governor there’s only three things that any governor is going to be able to do in the area of abortion.

One, the area of parental consent. I think the California Supreme Court made a huge mistake when they said that a parent does not have a right to know if their 13- or 14- or 15-year-old daughter is pregnant and considering an abortion. I think as a parent I have that right. I would work to reinstate that in the California Constitution. Limited to that.

Secondly, you have the question of partial-birth abortion, which even the AMA has said is not a proper procedure. I would support banning that with the exception of it ever being used to save the life of a mother. And that’s the position that pro-choice people such as Daniel Patrick Moynihan have said they take.

Skelton: OK. We’re about out of time.

Lungren: And then the third one is the area of taxpayer funding of abortion. I would be very, very restrictive on that. I would support the position that George Deukmejian took. And while I came to all three of those positions because of my own beliefs, I’m in the mainstream on those positions, that’s where most Californians and Americans are. And on those three areas, the only areas that I can find that a governor would have any ability to act, I find that I’m with all or most of California.

Skelton: All right. Thank you.

Clayton: We will ask an assault weapons question.

Skelton: Guns. Guns. Does anyone see any justification for being able to buy a firearm with a capacity of more than ten rounds, and where would you draw the line on gun control? Would you ban so-called Saturday night specials, ban all handguns, limit the number of guns people can buy? How far would you go?

Mr. Checchi.

Checchi: We lose more people to gunfire than we do to auto accidents in California. So, yes, I would ban Saturday night specials. I would have signed the legislation that the governor refused to sign. I would ban assault weapons. I would ban cop-killer bullets and I would eliminate the middleman that we have now who can buy up to 100 handguns, then go and resell them.

Anyone who bought more than 10 handguns in a year, I don’t know what you do with ten handguns in a year, would have to be treated as a dealer. And I would push for national computerization of statistics so that we can trace firearms.

For some reason, and this is very interesting, for some reason the NRA has stopped computerization nationally so that we can trace firearms. I can’t understand that. So, yes. And not only that, I would make sure that every weapon that is sold has a trigger lock. It costs about ten bucks and it could save a lot of children’s lives.

Clayton: Mr. Davis.

Davis: Well, first of all, before I went to Vietnam I was trained in the use of military assault weapons. They have no place on our streets. I would ban them from any use on our streets or in our communities.

I do believe that other forms of--I would have signed the legislation that Gov. Wilson vetoed banning Saturday night specials with one amendment I’m sure the author would have taken allowing the police to buy any weapon they want for a second weapon that they normally conceal on their person.

I do believe that all people who buy guns ought to be sufficiently trained, the guns ought to be safe. Safety locks is a good idea. I’m not for outright ban of handguns. I do believe in the 2nd Amendment, and I think people have a right to use a handgun for self-protection or if they choose for sporting purposes.

Skelton: Ms. Harman.

Harman: I, too, support the 2nd Amendment. But it starts with these words: “In order to form a militia.” The 2nd Amendment is not absolute. I support gun ownership by law-abiding citizens for self-defense and for use in recreation, but assault weapons and Saturday night specials have no place in our homes or on our streets. And law enforcement agrees with me that we ought to ban both types of weapons.

And I’m interested to hear, Gray, that you had a position on the Saturday night special bill before Gov. Wilson vetoed it.

My understanding is you took no public position on that bill. Maybe if you had, he wouldn’t have vetoed it. I certainly will sign it. I also will sign the Perata bill to ban copycat assault weapons. And I voted to ban assault weapons and took on the NRA in Congress in three tough elections.

Skelton: I still haven’t heard anybody say what an assault weapon is. Is that something that holds something more than 10 rounds? What is it? 20? 30?

Harman: I think more than 10 rounds fits what I’m talking about. I don’t see why we need automatic rounds to kill deer or to shoot a robber. I think what happens with that is we kill kids walking to and from schools and put neighborhoods at risk with those weapons. And they should not only be off our streets, they should be not permitted to be owned by gun collectors either. They should be off the inventory in California, except for police.

Skelton: Mr. Lungren.

Lungren: Well, as you know, this is a complicated issue. I think I’m the only one up here who has been condemned both by the National Rifle Assn. and the Los Angeles Times.

One took a full page ad out against me. The other one did a full-page story about it all on the same issue. One saying I was doing too much. One saying I was doing too little.

Let me tell you what I believe. I believe in the 2nd Amendment with limitations. When I was in Congress I led Republicans to support what became the Brady bill. Not many of us there. But I was there. Background checks are extremely important. As the attorney general of the state of California, I enforce that law.

Over the last eight years I have stopped 32,000 purchases of weapons by people who had convictions of a felony nature in the past or had an outstanding court order with respect to domestic violence.

At the same time I created for the first time in the history in California violence suppression units, dedicated agents who do nothing but work with local law enforcement in seeking out the thugs, violent felons on the street and gang-bangers. We have taken over 15,000 such weapons off the street under my administration, arresting people in the process.

I worked with David Roberti. It’s hard to believe, but I worked with him in presenting a bill to the Legislature that would have limited the size of clips. We started with 10 and went up to 17 because we found that was the traditional size clip used by many law enforcement officers with their 9-millimeter Glocks today.

Skelton: The critics say you were lax in enforcing his assault weapons ban.

Lungren: No, that’s the L.A. Times.

Skelton: I think other people say that.

Lungren: But the National Rifle Assn. took out a full page ad saying that I was doing such a job I was confiscating weapons. I have been trying to enforce a law that is difficult law. I was not in the Legislature at this time, but I always thought the best way to handle this was to limit the size of the clip rather than to try and describe the kind of--what it looks like, which is essentially what we have right now.

But I am defending that law before the California Supreme Court.

Skelton: All right. Thank you, Mr. Lungren.

Clayton: OK. The fastest-growing part of the state budget right now is prisons. Is that appropriate, Mr. Davis?

Davis: The fastest-growing part of state government . . .

Clayton: Major part of the state budget.

Davis: Is prisons.

Clayton: Is going to corrections and prisons.

Davis: Well, there’s a reason for that. People have committed violent acts in the main. And by the laws passed by the Legislature, many of which I voted for when I was in the Legislature from ’82 to ‘86, they are being sentenced for longer periods of time and more severely, which I think is appropriate.

If you’re asking me are there ways the next governor can both discharge our obligation to keep people safe and be more economical in our task of incarcerating people, I think the answer is yes.

I would want to seriously look at ways in which nonviolent offenders could be incarcerated in abandoned military bases, National Guard facilities that are being shut down to see if there aren’t ways in which we can avoid having to build new prisons for people who aren’t violent and don’t represent a threat to people.

But I do want tell you, as controller, I sat on a board for eight years that heard the appeals from victims of violent crime and they didn’t get to me until about a year, year and a half after the crime. And if I wasn’t a believer in victims rights before I sat on that board, I certainly am now. And I was always a believer in it. Because the passion and the pain was evident at least a year, year and a half later in the faces of mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters.

So we do have to incarcerate bad people. But I think we can find a more efficient and taxpayer friendly way of doing it.

Clayton: Mrs. Harman.

Harman: I am known as tough on crime. I support three strikes and the death penalty and I voted for prison construction money in Congress. But we can’t build enough prisons to house the whole next generation, and so the challenge is to deter kids from lives of crime.

The crime rate has gone down recently. Dan Lungren takes some credit for that, so do I, because I voted for the ’94 crime bill which put a 100,000 cops on the street. But that’s in part because our population