Antioch CD 10 Forum July 2 2009

CALIFORNIA CD-10 FORUMS: ANTIOCH CITY HALL, JULY 2, 2009
by Edi Birsan
Continuing in the series of Forums within the 10th Congressional District, the East
Country Democrats for Action hosted the Democratic candidates at Antioch City Council
Chambers the evening of July 2. Part of the tone of the crowd that was just short of 100
was noted at the end of the starting Pledge of Allegiance when someone added rather
loudly after “…liberty and justice for all.” “Some day.”
The Format was significantly different from previous forums in that the moderator
(Cherice Gillian) was an active participant in not only delivering questioning to the
candidates, but in trying to redirect follow up questions to various candidates and at one
point being critical directly of one of them stepping totally out of the moderator role and
into an interviewer.
After explaining the format, the moderator thanked the three elected officials for taking
time out from Sacramento to address the group this evening. To which Mark DeSaulnier
scored the first laugh of the night when he added in his opening:
“We prefer to be here than in Sacramento.”
Joan Buchanan, Mark DeSaulnier, John Garamendi, Adriel Hampton and Anthony Woods
were the speakers arranged in alphabetic order with Anthony Bothwell absent fueling
speculation that he would withdraw from the race. Ms. Atwood who recently announced
interest in joining in the race, stayed low keyed in the audience.
Buchanan, DeSaulnier and Garamendi held close to their standard introductions seen in
other forums.
Adriel Hampton set a combative tone when in his opening he mentioned that the three
people to his right were all involved in Sacramento Politics and the people can judge
them on ‘that mess’. He also denounced the interplay of money in the campaign noting
he had only $25,000 for the campaign, and was critical of Mark DeSaulnier’s recent
mailing throughout the district talking about health care issues in Sacramento and local
support but not directly mentioning the CD 10 campaign that still does not have an
official election date.
Anthony Woods’s introduction, for the first time excluded any reference to the Military’s
Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and concentrated on trying to reach out to the audience with a
theme of “I spent time in your shoes...” as someone without health care insurance,
without great local education etc. This was a welcomed elevation of his approach and a
reminder that within the Democratic Party in Contra Costa, unlike its opposite, no one
cares about your sexual orientation.
The differences between the candidates:
Question 1 Medicare
“What do we do when Medicare runs out of Money?”
Buchanan: Did not have a specific answer. She put an emphasis on bringing down costs.
DeSaulnier and Woods went after the idea of increasing the pool of participants with
younger people so as to spread the costs.
Garamendi kept to a Single payer approach and Medicare for all by removing the age
limit on Medicare.
Question 2 Playing with Trains

Dealt with a choice between Electric or Diesel engines for a Bart extension and while
everyone went for Electric, Woods brought up that if the Electric was generated by fossil
fuels it may not be the best approach.
Question 3 Illegal Workers/Immigrants

The hot button issue of Undocumented Workers and increased Border Security brought
some revealing differences. While all of them supported the McCain Kennedy bill and an
eventual path to citizenship there was:
Garamendi who brought up the idea of a fine for illegal workers,
DeSaulnier put an emphasis on enforcement of existing laws on employers to stop
exploitation,
Hampton put an emphasis on American Trade policy that he felt was destroying Mexico
and was inequitable.
Question 4 Comparative Failures in Education

Education- why is Antioch and Pittsburgh having a 20-30% failure rate on statewide tests
but San Ramon has 1%.
Buchanan used the opportunity to declare that No Child Left Behind was a failure,
whereas Garamendi used the more politically nuanced phrase that “it is an empty
promise”, but did not answer the question. Hampton put the cause on funding.
DeSaulnier said that there is a direct correlation between school results and poverty. That
poverty needs to be addressed.
Question 5 Iran
Iran- should we resume full diplomatic relations with them if Ahmadinajad is confirmed
as victor in the elections?
Hampton was in favor of restoring full relations saying we needed to be able to tell them
what we want. While the others were opposed to full diplomatic relations Garamendi
went further indicating that we should impose sanctions/embargoes on the import into
Iran of the refined light crude, a positioned echoed by Buchanan at the prior forum.
There was no discussion as to how would causing wide spread economic hardship
directly identified to US action was suppose to secure some positive reaction from the
Iranian people or its government. I found it ironic that here, just before our Independence
Day, where we defied the economic embargoes of then strongest Empire on the world,
that someone would advocate that in dealing with a theocracy that is looking to unite the
populace by having an outside demon, would somehow make the people want to do
things our way.
DeSaulnier noted that it was important to support Obama and his Cairo approaches and
that ‘hard power was not the solution.’
Question 6 Committees in Congress

Asked about what committees they would want to go on, gathered the expected answers
of Education, Transportation, Armed Services and Commerce with a smattering of
Energy. This only provided both Garamendi and DeSaulnier with opportunities to
display their experience with prior committees in legislative bodies.
Question 7 Ways and Meanies

The moderator asked why none picked the Ways and Means Committee?
Hampton went on the anti-establishment response saying: the lobbyists and political
types he is fighting against control it. Wood said it was overrun with pork and the other
committees were more fundamental to the district.
The others kept to their experience in the committee’s field as a means to distinguish
them from the two younger members of the panel.
Question 8 Committee assignment and district jobs.

How would their committee choices help benefit jobs in the district?
While each of them provided various ideas such as generating Green Energy production
(DeSaulnier), mass transit (Buchanan) and expanding Livermore and Travis research
(Garamendi), Hampton went with a national approach calling for reform of our trade
policies without giving specifics other than calling it unfair, and called for the creation of
a small business website where all government forms would be combined so that there
could be a single point of reference for all compliance issues.
Question 9 Born in the USA

The issue of Born in America of non American parents (presumed illegal residents) and
what do you do about that was framed as a choice of three options:
A. Leave current laws alone such that the parents are deported but not the child
B. Grant mother and father resident status
C. Amend the Law (Constitution ) to disallow citizenship if parents were illegal.
Woods was up first and came in with a strong ‘D-none of the above’ that earned the ire of
the moderator who insisted on a choice. While the whole panel would eventually agree
that under those circumstances the choice would be B there was a range of additional
comments trying to get across that in reality things are not that simple. Woods spoke of
the problem as an example of a broken system that was echoed by most of the panel.
Hampton went on about the problem is a distraction and that blaming the illegals has
become a bogeyman approach to politics. DeSaulnier made the most declarative
statement that: “we must have a fair and just policy …” Expelling and separating
families “is fundamentally un-American.”
Question 10 What Projects are in CD 10?

The question was asked how many projects were ‘shovel ready’ in the district? This fell
first upon Mark DeSaulnier who rattled off some of the projects and added that there was
300-400 in the district. The question was then enhanced and thrown at the others with
Garamendi and Woods slipping past the details and Buchanan bringing up Project Labor
Agreements (PLA) as a way to make sure that local employment is used. However, when
it came to Hampton he became flustered admitting that he did not know the details of the
projects. This triggered the moderator who stepped totally out of the role of a moderator
and unloaded on him along the lines of ‘how are you to be expected to lead the district if
you did not know what is going on.’ It took a long moment for Hampton to recover and
go on about his support for small business rather than the banks and the Employee Free
Choice act.
What was most interesting in displaying differences here was that DeSaulnier answered
the question straight up and had the details, both Garamendi and Buchanan were able to
deflect the question to other areas: all three displaying the value of experience in such a
situation. Hampton was caught and nailed more for being flustered than any real
substance since the others were able to skate on the issue.
Question 11 Medicare compensation woes.

What do we do if the Dr. will not accept Medicare/Medical payments because it is too
low?
Garamendi returned to his basic position that we need to have Medicare for all ages,
adding that reimbursement levels should be reviewed every two years. He also stated
that MediCal is a disaster of a system and when Medicare is set to age limit of -0- it
should go away. There was no discussion or details forthcoming on what happens to the
existing insurance structure when everyone goes to Medicare.
Everyone else echoed that there was waste in the overall current patchwork of private and
government systems noting that in this particular field, government has less
administration as a % than private providers.
Question 12 Bush Tax Cuts and General Revenue
The Bush tax cuts are running out should there be changes?
DeSaulnier advocated bringing in tax increases in creating categories of $250K-500K and

then $500K+. He said he is a strong believer in a progressive income tax and that when
40% of the wealth of the nation is owned by 1% of the people that situation is Un-
American.
Garamendi said that the Bush Tax Cuts should not have been done in the first place, and
that the Middle Class has stood still. He supports the Obama tax plan.
Hampton went beyond just letting the tax cuts expire, but added that he wanted to have a
Transaction tax on stock sales since he felt the constant churning of accounts was more
akin to gambling than investing.
Question 13 Marijuana
There was a question read from one of the audience submitted cards that was poorly
constructed but related to legalization of medical marijuana and was expanded to
legalization of marijuana period.
DeSaulnier continued his dominance on the more comedic relaxed responses by

quipping: “Is this one of those I never inhaled questions.” Everyone on the panel agreed
that for medical purposes it should be legal. Only Hampton called for out right
legalization, with Woods saying there should be a discussion in the public about de-
criminalization. DeSaulnier and Buchanan both took a position that more control is
needed over medical application and that there is abuse now on prescriptions and use for
non medical or ‘traditional applications.’
Question 14 Employee Free Choice Act

Support for the Employee Free Choice act was universal. Woods made the comment that
Top Executives know how to protect themselves and get what they want, while the
workers need to be able to organize so that their needs can also be protected.
Question 15 Manufacturing Jobs and Globalization

The question was manufacturing jobs in the district and the global market, what do they
see as the approach.
Buchanan spoke of Free Trade in a global economy and wanting to even the playing field,
without detailing what makes it uneven now.
DeSaulnier while supporting Globalization wants us to be more aggressive in protecting
American jobs and sees high wage industrial jobs in a Green Economy and warned
against going to a Financial Services type of economy which is what he described as the
case in Great Britain.
Garamendi echoed Free Trade but called for more support for Education and research
breakthrough transfers from Livermore Labs and Travis Research.
Hampton spoke about Global Empathy and that we have to stop outsourcing what has
amounted to slavery/slave labor in other countries. He wants to repeal of the Taft Hartley
act that restricts union actions.
Woods said we have to remove incentives for people to ship jobs overseas and called for
more local Green and new Technology Energy jobs that he felt could not be shipped
overseas.
Question 16 Recidivism in prisons

Recidivism in prisons was the final question and while there was common ground on
treating drug addictions and giving education in prison the distinctions between them
were:
Buchanan made an emphasis on keeping people out in the first place and going to a very
local rather than central prison structure getting the communities involved directly on a
Missouri model that has reduced repeat offenders from 70% (Californian currently)
down to 10+%.
DeSaulnier called California an example of what should not be done, and sited New York
approaches which has an in prison training program that has been successful.
The Closings:
Hampton returned to a more combative approach describing himself as accessible to the
people and having vigor and passion; that he was not a politician and was outside the
‘political class’.
This triggered a response from Garamendi that no one was going to tell him that he did
not have vigor and passion and that: “I am a politician and I am proud of it.” This was
the first time that Garamendi came off a standard focused forum closing reminding
people of his 35 years in public service.
Woods made fun of his own youth saying that he feels like he is 28 and ¾ and that he has
no regrets on the decisions he has made so far in the campaign.
Buchanan repeated her theme of the opening starting with “These are extraordinary
times…” that she turned around the San Ramon School district and Delta Dental and that
Education is her priority and that she did her homework.
DeSaulnier had the best closing reminding people that he was from the community
directly, was supported by local elected leaders and tied it in with his witnessing and
echoing of Obama’s inaugural phrase. “We are the change we have been waiting for” as
why he wanted to be in Congress.
In Summary
If I was to judge it as a debate, the marginal points would go to DeSaulnier over
Garamendi with Buchanan still remaining a distant third never having made a clear
victory in any of the questions. Between Woods and Hampton, Woods has started to gain
some traction winning a few of the questions on points and trying to make that
connection between feeling the effect of the times in his own story and then tying it to the
audience while Hampton had his worst outing and is being more isolated in his further
left/progressive almost libertarian approaches to the campaign that may resonate with
some of the audience.

Antioch CD 10 Forum July 2 2009

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CALIFORNIA CD-10 FORUMS: ANTIOCH CITY HALL, JULY 2, 2009

Question 2 Playing with Trains

Question 3 Illegal Workers/Immigrants

Question 4 Comparative Failures in Education

Question 6 Committees in Congress

Question 7 Ways and Meanies

Question 8 Committee assignment and district jobs.

Question 9 Born in the USA

Question 10 What Projects are in CD 10?

Question 11 Medicare compensation woes.

DeSaulnier advocated bringing in tax increases in creating categories of $250K-500K and

DeSaulnier continued his dominance on the more comedic relaxed responses by

Question 14 Employee Free Choice Act

Question 15 Manufacturing Jobs and Globalization

Question 16 Recidivism in prisons

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