Photograph by Robert Scheer
Assemblyman Jim Cunneen addresses Saratogans during a town hall meeting held Feb. 3 at the library.
By Tim Persyn
The community room at the Saratoga Library was packed Feb. 3 for an hourlong town hall meeting with Jim Cunneen, Republican state assemblymember for Saratoga.
Cunneen began the meeting by reviewing some of the latest legislation the Assembly has passed and ended with a question-and-answer session.
Cunneen listed bills recently passed by the Assembly that he thought had a good chance of becoming law, and explained why he supported them. For instance, he said he backed a bill to create no-fault insurance because "we have to take lawyers out of accidents," and he voted for a 'use a gun, go to jail' bill, which would enhance penalties for using a gun in the commission of a crime, because "we have to crack down."
He also supported bills to provide medical savings accounts, to create a child-care tax credit, and to provide immunity against civil liability to homeowners when a third party is committing a felony. Under this bill, a burglar who injures himself while in his victim's home cannot sue.
Questions from the audience ran the gamut, from taxation to the environment to gun control.
Early in the question-and-answer period, someone asked what the Assembly was doing to eliminate benefit assessment districts, which reportedly provide a loophole to Proposition 13's supermajority requirement for any attempt to raise property taxes.
Cunneen said the Assembly was designing a bill to close the loophole, then offered his own view of Proposition 13.
"If property owners are being taxed, and we all benefit, there should be a supermajority requirement," he said. "The only thing that makes California reasonable in terms of taxation is Proposition 13. It ranks us at number 20 in comparison with other states in terms of total tax burden."
He then criticized the provisions of Proposition 13 that give control of the tax money to state and not local authorities.
Cunneen supported a bill that passed the Assembly that would allow Californians to carry concealed weapons. He said he voted for the bill because it provides uniform standards that must be met if a citizen wants to carry a concealed weapon, while allowing local law enforcement officials the authority to deny concealed weapons permits. However, Cunneen noted, "If the sheriff or police won't allow you to carry a concealed weapon [under the new law], they have to say why."
Cunneen received one of his biggest rounds of applause when he replied to a question about undocumented immigration: "Send Mexican criminals back to Mexico." But he said he did not support Proposition 187 because it denied services to immigrants who are already here. "I'd rather have kids in the schools than on the street," he said.
A bill passed in the Assembly that allows the National Guard to patrol the border to restrict illegal immigration is "a right step in the right direction," he said.
Cunneen was also asked what he thought about recent proposals to allow for the spanking of children in the schools. A bill to reinstate corporal punishment was defeated in the Assembly; Cunneen spoke against it.
"It would have transferred parental authority to a bureaucrat," he said.
Cunneen spoke in favor of the Common Cause Initiative, which would reform campaign financing. CCI, which is in the process of qualifying for the November ballot, would reduce the amount of money individuals can give to campaigns. Under the initiative, the maximum amount an individual could donate to a candidate would be capped at $250, or $500 if the candidate agrees to a cap on total campaign spending of $300,000.
"We should cut off contributions two weeks before elections," he said. "We've got to take money out of politics."
This article appeared in the Saratoga News, February 14, 1996.
©1996 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved