Decision ’94 / SPECIAL GUIDE TO CALIFORNIA’S ELECTIONS : Governor’s Race : The Issues

A look at the key issues in the race for the governor:

Immigration

Illegal immigration was seized on early by Wilson as a central issue of his reelection, and it has been a key battleground of the gubernatorial campaign. The incumbent governor supports Proposition 187, which would cut off non-emergency health care and public education from illegal immigrants, and would require medical and educational personnel to report those suspected of being in the country illegally. Brown opposes the proposition, arguing that it would throw hundreds of thousands of schoolchildren into the streets, spread disease and turn public officials into snitches.

Wilson’s positions are based on his theory that illegal immigrants are drawn to California by free public services. He favors an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would deny automatic citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants who are born in this country.

Brown believes that illegal immigrants are drawn to the state because of jobs. She would strengthen penalties against employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants and favors the creation of a tamper-proof Social Security card that all employees would have to present while seeking work.

Wilson has waged a much-publicized effort to shame President Clinton into paying for illegal immigrants, writing full-page advertisements in major newspapers and running ads asking people to call the White House to complain about immigration.

Brown has worked with the Clinton Administration to increase federal funding for combatting illegal immigration, and has accused Wilson of hypocrisy for his current handling of the issue. She argues that while he was in the U.S. Senate from 1982-90, Wilson was an advocate for the agriculture industry’s desire to increase the number of farm workers allowed over the border.

Crime

With crime at the top of the list of voter concerns, both candidates have portrayed themselves as tough on criminals. Both have backed stricter sentencing laws, tougher sanctions for parole violators and increased crime prevention efforts.

Wilson this year signed into law a bevy of tougher sentencing provisions, all of which Brown supports. Wilson wants even tougher laws and proposes to expand the death penalty to cover carjackers and drive-by shooters who kill their victims. Brown opposes that idea but says she would put it on the ballot and let the voters decide.

Rather than focus on the death penalty, which Brown says is more important to political campaigning than to criminal justice policy, the Democrat says she would try to prevent youths from committing their first crime and promises swift and certain punishment to those who do.

Brown has criticized Wilson for his handling of the parole system and said she would order all ex-convicts who violate the conditions of their parole returned to prison pending a hearing to decide their fate.

Wilson says the parole issue would be moot if convicts were kept in prison longer in the first place. Both candidates supported the new “three strikes” sentencing law, though Brown has said she preferred a version that focused on violent criminals.

Death Penalty

Capital punishment has been the focus of much attention in the governor’s race, with Wilson clamoring that Brown will not enforce the death penalty--at least not as avidly as he--and Brown insisting she will.

The two candidates differ in their personal views about capital punishment. Wilson supports it personally, and argues that only a person who believes as he does can be counted on to enforce it. Both candidates insist that they will appoint judges who will enforce the death penalty.

Brown sought to avoid explaining her views for months, then in June said she personally opposed it for religious reasons and because she recalled that her father, former Gov. Edmund G. (Pat) Brown Sr., agonized over the issue when he was in office.

Wilson, who has signed execution orders for two men during his governorship, spent much of the campaign raising the specter that Brown would handle capital punishment like her brother, Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr. He named Rose Elizabeth Bird as chief justice of the California Supreme Court, a post from which Bird cast aside almost 60 death sentences.

State Finances

On fiscal issues Brown has little record, while Wilson has renounced some of the key actions he took as governor. Wilson, in his first year, agreed to raise taxes by more than $7 billion, but now, as a candidate, he says higher taxes are a drag on the state’s economy. Brown criticizes Wilson for raising taxes but applauded him when he did it and says now she has no plans to undo his action.

After taking a political beating for the tax increase, Wilson tried to tread water fiscally by shifting billions from city and county governments to the schools, an action that relieved the state of part of its obligation. When that tactic failed to balance the budget, Wilson resorted to borrowing, first in the guise of “loans” to the schools and then, in his third and fourth years in office, by openly accepting year-to-year deficit financing.

Wilson justified the deficit by pointing out that his budgets included a plan to repay the borrowing. But this year Wilson abandoned even that argument, resting his hopes on the unlikely prospect of the federal government coming forth with $2.8 billion to reimburse the state for the cost of serving and jailing illegal immigrants. If that money does not arrive, the state will be hard-pressed to repay the billions it has borrowed.

Brown advocates wrapping the state’s debt into a single bond and paying it off over five years. The debt payments would be made with money from a surcharge on income taxes paid by the wealthy that was adopted in 1991 and is due to expire at the end of 1995.

On other aspects of the budget, both would cut welfare, although Wilson, who already has reduced grants by 15%, would cut more deeply. Both would continue to fund a massive prison expansion. Both say they would like to give more to education, but neither has shown how that could be done. Brown has said she would freeze college fees for at least one year.

Jobs / Economy

The economy has been one of the key issues throughout the 1994 election campaign. Brown claims that her economic plan, contained in a 62-page booklet entitled “Building a New California,” will lead to the creation of 1 million new private sector jobs during her first four years in office.

For his part, Wilson insists that economic recovery already is well under way. Wilson maintains that his Administration has stopped the outflow of companies from California to other states that claim a more attractive business climate.

Early in his Administration, Wilson bad-mouthed the California economy and made many business leaders irate by saying the Golden State was a bad place to do business. In 1993, however, after Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco) sponsored an economic summit conference in Los Angeles, Wilson worked with leaders in the Legislature to develop a program that would entice California businesses to keep operating here and to attract companies from other states.

The plan included some business sales tax reductions, a first step toward reform of workers’ compensation insurance and some streamlining of business regulations. The governor says he will continue to push for legislation to make California an even better place to do business if he is reelected.

Brown argues that Wilson has not done nearly enough. Brown has proposed a plan that includes a state tax moratorium on new, start-up businesses; a tax credit of up to $10,000 for every new job created, what she calls “real regulatory relief” and the expediting of the permitting process for new firms or expansion of existing businesses.

Education

Brown, a former Los Angeles school board member, and Wilson, who campaigned in 1990 on the promise that he would be California’s “education governor,” each claim education as their issue and accuse the other of failure.

Brown notes that during Wilson’s tenure, fees have increased by large amounts at state universities and community colleges. She also criticizes him for allowing California’s K-12 classrooms to remain the most overcrowded in the nation.

Wilson has portrayed Brown as an inexperienced manager whose proposals would not accomplish what they promise. For example, Wilson says that a $300-million bond package that Brown proposes to pay for computers in schools and increased school safety would not have any impact on California classrooms until 1996 at the earliest.

Brown proposes creating a “JobReady” program in every high school to better prepare students to enter the work force. To make schools safer, Brown proposes that children who are caught carrying guns to school should be sent to special disciplinary academies--or boot camp schools--for up to a year.

Wilson has called for “zero tolerance” for weapons, violence and drugs at schools and the immediate expulsion of students who do not comply. He has signed a law allowing juveniles 14 or older who are charged with shootings or other serious violent crimes to be tried as adults.

Regarding higher education, Brown has pledged to freeze fees at state universities and community colleges for one year, and to fight future tuition hikes. She wants to create a state student loan program, leveraging existing non-general fund dollars to provide up to $200 million in low-interest loans for middle-class families.

Wilson maintains that fee hikes were necessitated by the state’s fiscal crisis, and that despite them, California’s public colleges and universities are still a bargain. And he notes that since he took office, financial aid loans to California students have more than doubled.

Environment

Compared to the 1990 election for governor, the environment has been a hidden issue in the 1994 campaign. Democrat Brown won the endorsement of both major groups that take sides in electoral politics: the Sierra Club and the League of Conservation Voters.

Four years ago, Wilson supported environmental issues such as creation of a state Cabinet environmental agency and instituting some form of growth management in California. Wilson pledged that he would be active as California’s “environmental czar.” But with the recession and the decline of environmental issues as high on the lists of priorities of voters, Wilson has been largely quiet on these issues.

Both candidates have pledged to work to streamline environmental regulations in the siting or expansion of new businesses as a means of boosting jobs in California. The League of Conservation Voters said Wilson has been particularly disappointing on the issues of water and growth management. Wilson appointed a Growth Management Council of his Administration officials, but its report was delayed a year and fell short of expectations on the part of growth management advocates. Wilson declined to sponsor legislation to implement any of its recommendations.

Wilson moved toward protection of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and assurance of quality water supplies to urban California, but broke off the consensus process in what the League called “an abdication of a state role.” Brown pledges to break the Delta stalemate.

Abortion

Both Wilson and Brown support a woman’s right to choose to have an abortion. Brown opposes all abortion restrictions such as parental notification policies and funding prohibitions. Wilson supports parental notification except in cases where a judge rules that no notification is necessary. In 1991, after the federal government took action to deny federal funds for clinics that provided information about abortion, Wilson committed $7 million in state funds to compensate for the loss. Both candidates have been endorsed by the California Abortion Rights Action League.

Gay Rights

Wilson has sent mixed signals on gay rights, vetoing two major bills supported by groups representing gays and signing one.

The governor, in his first year, vetoed legislation that would have prohibited employers from discriminating against gays based on their sexual orientation. Wilson’s veto prompted an outpouring of protest because Wilson had indicated he would sign the legislation.

A year later, Wilson signed a similar bill that gave gays the right to file grievances with the state labor commissioner.

This year, Wilson vetoed a measure that would have allowed couples of any sexual orientation to register with the state as domestic partners. Brown said she would have signed the bill.