The race for the state Assembly

Alex Coolman

Right now, Ray Mills says, only the rich are getting the

representation they deserve.

“The richest people buy the politicians, and that’s the only

representation we get,” he said.

Mills, the Reform Party candidate for the 70th Assembly District seat

now occupied by Republican Marilyn Brewer, doesn’t exactly smile on what

he considers a corrupt and unresponsive government.

It’s not just that the system doesn’t represent the people it’s

supposed to represent, he said. It’s also that the bland, compromised

positions that end up capturing big financial support lack any

originality or courage, he added.

“It’s not always the richest people that have the best ideas,” he

said.

Mills comes from a background that’s significantly different from that

of his opponents. He’s a taxi and limousine driver for California Yellow

Cab, a man who works primarily at night and is known to many of his

regular customers as “Joker.”

He’s also more wrapped up in party politics than his rivals. Mills is

the chairman of the California Reform Party. He’s been trying to hold

Reformers together since the fiasco of the August convention in Long

Beach, where supporters of presidential candidate Patrick Buchanan and

his then-rival John Hagelin nearly tore the party apart.

When he talks about the issues, too, Mills sounds a little different.

Driving laws, for example, frustrate him. He thinks the traffic school

system in California is little more than a veiled system of taxation, and

he thinks minor traffic infractions should be overlooked if they don’t

endanger anyone.

“I see nothing wrong with going to a stoplight at 3 a.m. and, if

there’s nobody around, you could run it,” he said.

Traffic reform, however, is not Mills’ main agenda.

He’s most concerned with such issues as government finance -- arguing

that the state and the nation should not spend more than they take in --

and campaign finance reform.

There are also subjects on which Mills admits he doesn’t know

everything.

A bachelor, he has never looked deeply at the question of education

but trusts he has the common sense to sort through the issues.

“I will weigh everything on its merits, and if I felt I didn’t have

enough information, I would seek the counsel of people who had

expertise,” he said.