Why I am running for State Assembly
Those who refuse to stand idly by are those who make this Nation and State great. Most importantly, this greatness is due to our constant change and redefinitions of who we are as a people.
This “concept of becoming”, is my sustaining will, and it can compel all of us to refuse complacency and to engage the system as it is to move forward and make this State what it ought to be.
Let us dream of that future great nation yet to be, by building a greater and stronger California.
My activist life started at eighteen. And thru the decades, I contributed to many causes. In that time I started a family and enjoyed the stability and opportunity afforded by working for wages. My employment was in construction, factories, and even in agriculture for a time. Then, a decade ago, a great change in my life...
Unable to return to labor, due to several surgeries, the State afforded me the opportunity to go to collage and to start a new career. First, at Allan Hancock in Santa Maria, then on to graduate CalPoly at San Luis. Where with great pride, I earned a degree in Social Science (Magna Cum Laude).
The change from working in labor to working in social work, earning the education, and a short stint as a labor organizer forever changed and made whole my life and increased my drive as an community activist.
Today I am the candidate for Assembly…
A seat on the Assembly is much more than voting and an occasional comment in committee. And it is absolutely more than photo ops to play to the constituents back home.
It is the essential job of an Assembly Member to provide the connection between constituents and government, then to show the leadership in driving those issues that ought to become law.
First and foremost are the economic and quality of life issues.
The three broad issues that I see affecting us most in our daily lives and I want to impact are; development and its affect on the social and natural environments, a Health Care System that fails at so many levels, and the decline in decent salaries and wages (the fading of the middle class). In my first term these are I the issues I want to be identified with, here is where my performance in office should be judged.
Law and policy needs to further the interests of those who work for wages and salaries. Support of working families is furthered when people are free to organize and are on an equal playing field with the corporations. The "starter job" concept (the minimum wage) needs to be seen for what it is, a below subsistence wage. Minimum wage needs to be incrementally pushed to a living wage.
The issue of public safety and basic services ties in with development, wages, and overall quality of life. Local governments are starved to provide police, fire, water and power, sewage, and so on, in the face of less and less taxes staying local. A state level bureaucratic laundering of local taxes returns to this district only after a heavy toll. Local governments must scrimp on public service personnel, their equipment, wages, and training.
Local communities thus starved for funds turn to greater and more development. Large housing developments and "big box" mega stores take precedent over affordable housing and support of small business. In all cases, these trends drive down quality of life by taking away a familiar and local culture. The communities of the state are, more and more, moving toward a national template, a grand consumer land of Wally-worlds and McMansions.
The environment is increasingly fragile, the very superstructure of air, water, and land, those elements essential to life, is at risk. Waste rather than decreasing with technology is greater than ever. Sustainable energy has long been the call of environmentalists, the technology exists now, yet law and policy support centralized (high profit) over decentralized and sustainable technologies.
That fiasco we call "health care" is in deep need of reform. The very most critical of life quality standards is our health. It is a system that exists not because it works for all, but because it works for a small and narrow group of investors. The greater number of hands to pass the health care dollar, the greater that un-seen tax that goes to corporate health care. In one-way, or another, we all pay for what we all need. No institution is in greater need of reform. We must advance with the rest of the modern world to a health care system for all.
In Sacramento I will also deal with a very broad range of issues, and there is no space here to touch every one. Much depends on the very character of the candidate, and then on how they are able to maintain that good character in the campaign. It is common knowledge that politicians, in the campaign, will lose some integrity. But ultimately, once in office, the new Assembly Member must not lose that original intent to serve all constituents.
As a young man, some thirty years ago, I imagined a world far different than what we have today. I believed that by now we would have achieved economic justice, an end to all forms of bigotry (social, racial, and gender based), and be in a world at peace.
Repeatedly, in the late 70’s I saw trends that seemed to be moving society toward that new world. I fully expected that by the 21st century I would see universal health care, adequate and appropriate housing available, and full equality and equity in all areas of our social and economic life.
What gains have been made are hard won, the work of many, a work I can say I have played some part in. Now, today I have lost some idealization of progress. But I have not, nor will lose that vision, and to that dream of a young man I am dedicated.
Robert Cuthbert, your Candidate for 33rd State Assembly.
