State Senate District 21

California Assembly members Jack Scott (D-Altadena) and Scott Wildman (D-Los Angeles) are vying in the March 7 primary for the 21st state Senate District seat being vacated by Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank).

The two candidates’ voting records are similar, and the issues they have emphasized, such as education, often overlap. Scott is a former college president, Wildman a former fourth-grade teacher. Each has taken the spotlight in the past year, Scott for passage of gun-control legislation and Wildman for his role in killing the problem-ridden Belmont Learning Center.

The district stretches from the east San Fernando Valley communities of Burbank and Sunland-Tujunga through the San Gabriel Valley communities of Glendale and Pasadena, and includes Los Feliz, Eagle Rock, Silver Lake and Griffith Park. The Times Valley Edition editorial board recently interviewed the candidates. What follows are excerpts.

Jack Scott

Question: Tell us what distinguishes you from your opponent in this race and why voters should mark the ballot for you.

Answer: I certainly would compliment my opponent. I’ve worked with him on quite a number of projects and I think a lot of the things that he has done have been quite good. We’ve both served two terms. I have authored and had signed into law some 40 different bills. He has, in the same period of time, had 18 bills signed into law. This, I think, indicates a degree of effectiveness on my part. I’ve been able to work on some very important measures and been successful in securing support, not only from Democrats but from Republicans, and [had] quite a number of those bills signed by a Republican governor during the first two years I was there. So that’s a distinguishing characteristic.

Second, on the issue of gun regulation, I have taken a very forceful leadership role. I chair the Select Committee on Gun Violence and in that period of time I have authored seven different bills. Last year, for instance, I had a bill that said that every gun in California will be sold with a trigger lock. Also, a bill that the chiefs of police in California for a long time have wanted to see, and that was that if someone carries a gun--a concealed weapon--that’s not registered in his or her name, that that could be tried as a felony. Previously you could be carrying brass knuckles or a knife, and that would be tried as a felony, but not a gun. I was able to get that bill through and signed by Gov. [Gray] Davis. I am now carrying a bill that says that a gun owner ought to be licensed and that all guns should be registered, not only at the time of purchase but at the time of transfer. But my primary opponent has indicated that he feels that we’ve gone as far as we can go on gun laws at the present time.

I have certainly been very active in the field of education. I’ve chaired the Budget Committee that dealt with all of education. I’m on both the education and higher education committees. I’ve had bills that address the teacher shortage, particularly. Thirteen of my bills have been in the area of education. My life has been in education. I spent 33 years, first as a teacher, then as a college dean and as a college president. My most recent post was as president of Pasadena City College, where I served eight years and initiated a $100-million master plan. When I left there we had a $6-million reserve. I balanced the budget every year.

I think I have a richer background of experience than my opponent. I managed an institution that had a $60-million budget and over 750 employees. That kind of management position gives you a lot of experience that you can call on when you’re in the Legislature, and I think that’s the reason I was recruited for this particular position. And so I fit the description of a citizen legislator. I’ve been someone who is not a professional politician.

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Q: On the topic of education, if you are elected, are there areas that you would emphasize?

A: There are a lot of issues on which we need educational reform. Many of our buildings have deteriorated. Over 60% of the buildings in California are over 30 years old. I supported the school bond measure. I’m certainly supportive of a majority vote for local school bonds.

However, I still believe that the key to the top education is the quality of the teacher. Today we have 30,000 emergency-credentialed teachers in the classroom. I had a bill that made it easier for out-of-state teachers to be credentialed in California. . . . I had a bill that said that para-professionals could borrow money from the state and that if they would come back into teaching, that loan, over time, would be forgiven. I had a pre-internship program now serving 5,500 emergency-credentialed teachers to get them up to speed.

Classroom-size reduction was great, but it exacerbated the teacher shortage. I would look to further strengthen the salaries of teachers, further strengthen the qualifications of teachers. I had a resolution that asked California State University to study how [the university system] could turn out more teachers. This year they turned out 25% more teachers than they did the year before--15,000 compared to 12,000. I’m looking at working with the independent colleges and their teacher training programs.

I would continue, in the state Senate, doing anything I could to increase the supply of teachers, to increase the quality of teachers, to assist them in improving their skills. We have seriously underfunded education in California [but] we need to spend money with accountability. Certainly as a college president, I recognize that taxpayers’ money is to be treated with a great deal of care. I did that. I would do the same thing with the state budget.

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Q: One of the ongoing issues in your district has been a new terminal at Burbank Airport. Is there a role for the state to play there?

A: Yes, there’s a role for the state to play in the Burbank Airport, and that is recognizing that air travel is essential to the Los Angeles metropolitan area, but also recognizing that the legitimate concerns of neighborhoods have to be taken into account. They certainly don’t want to see their homes hurt by noise and by the danger of expansion. I would work, along with the Burbank City Council and with the Airport Authority, to see that a legitimate compromise is worked out. My understanding is that there has been a compromise that has been signed. I would like to look at that more carefully. I certainly would suggest that we look with care at the rights of homeowners surrounding that airport because radical expansion without their input would be unfortunate.

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Q: Is there more that needs to be done with health maintenance organization reform and patient rights legislation?

A: Yes. There’s no question that we’ve taken a step forward in HMO reform. My bill, for instance, was the first one signed by Gov. [Pete] Wilson, a bill that dealt specifically with helping consumers and saying that every HMO in California would have to give specific information about what they covered and what they didn’t cover, and in a standard form. That is now law in California.

Our health care system is in crisis in California. We have doctors groups that are going broke. Right now, I think we’re underpaying MediCal. We’ve got to look at that. I’m for the expansion of Healthy Families, a program to give the working poor some subsidy so they can be insured. If 7 million Californians are uninsured--one out of every five--that’s tragic. I’m going to be a forceful voice in seeing the expansion of health care and health care insurance to those who are uninsured.

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Q: Where do you stand on campaign finance reform?

A: I’m in favor of campaign finance reform. I voted for Proposition 208. I would like to see the length of the campaign shortened, and I would be happy to work with some kind of limit in terms of both contributions and expenditures of campaigns. I live by the rules as they are now. I cannot simply say that I will unilaterally have campaign finance reform myself, although I try to be careful.

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Q: As a citizen legislator, would you support repealing or liberalizing the term limit?

A: I would. I think it ought to be liberalized. I supported the less drastic term limit that was on the ballot, and that was before I ever ran for office. That was 12 years for Assembly members and 12 years for state senators. It would simply say that you do have a limit but you have a good length of time.

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Q: Are there other topics that you would like to address?

A: I am the chair of the Assembly Insurance Committee, and as the chair I have been a very forceful voice for the consumer. I passed a bill last year that said that credit insurance must return substantially more to the consumer than it had been. My bill said that a minimum of 60% of the proceeds of the credit insurance has to go back in claims. That was a consumer bill. I’m working right now on a licensing bill that says we’ve got to make sure that all insurance agents selling in California have a basic license of some kind. . . . My Assembly Bill 393 will make sure that licensing is in effect for the entire insurance industry. [On] education, I was one of 12 legislators selected to review the master plan, perhaps because of my background in higher education. I was the one who had a bill passed that said that the interest on student loans would be state income tax-deductible, as well as federal income tax-deductible. Under my chairmanship, we made the greatest jump in Cal Grants.

We ought do to everything we can to encourage college education for all of our citizens, because the richest resource we have in California is the human resource. To open the doors to permit individuals to go into higher education is the gateway to the economic vitality of this state.

I’m disturbed when I see that Silicon Valley--and I understand the need for it--wants to bring in more immigrants because they need well-qualified personnel. We need to be turning those people out in California. We’re going to have a tidal wave of college students, 700,000 more between 1998 and 2010. We’ve got to use our college facilities even more efficiently. We’ve got to use them year-round, but we’ve also got to build some new facilities. We’re going to be looking at all of education, from kindergarten through higher education, and I’m pleased to be a part of that elite group that’s going to be studying the master plan. I think I can bring some expertise to that as a result of my rich experience in education.