John Kane: Bringing a fresh approach to politics
Deepa Bharath
Irvine resident John Kane is in the middle of his first run for
any public office.
But the 40-year-old software developer, who is running for the
70th Assembly District seat against incumbent John Campbell, says he
is out there to give “the voters a choice.”
The Democrat described himself as an “empathetic individual” who
is able to hear all aspects of an issue and not be blinded by
ideology.
“I’m willing to listen to both sides of a story,” he said.
“Sometimes, there are more than two sides to a story.”
The major issue Kane said he is concerned with at the state-level
is the energy crisis.
“If these companies want to do business in California, we need to
make sure they give us back the millions of dollars they stole from
us,” he said. “In the future, we need to get tougher with these
companies and not let them play games with us.”
Among other issues, Kane said he supports upholding the authority
of local city governments or municipalities.
“The state shouldn’t be butting in when it’s a local issue,” he
said. “When there is a concern about public health or safety, there
is a reason for the state to come into the picture. But otherwise I
don’t think it should interfere with the local governments.”
He is also a staunch supporter of clean air and clean water, Kane
said.
“I believe there should be a strong focus on cleaning up the water
flowing into the ocean,” he said. “I know we have budget constraints,
but I believe that this is an important issue and we need to make
sure allocations are made for it.”
Education, he said, is also vulnerable to decisions made at the
state level.
“Funding is key, especially with what we see in Irvine schools,”
he said. “We need to make sure we continue to maintain the
student-teacher ratio at 20 to 1. We need to keep our class sizes
small.”
Among the assembly bills he supports is one proposed by
Assemblyman Joe Dunn that increases the age limit of tobacco users
from 18 to 21.
Kane is also passionately against taking money from large
corporations for his campaign, he said.
“You can’t take money from insurance companies and regulate them,”
he said. “I know it’s probably naive to believe no one takes
contributions, but I really believe it leaves a lot of room for
conflicting interests in the future.”
Kane said he has heard a lot about how he would bring a fresh
perspective with his clean slate background in politics.
“I hope to do that,” he said. “But everybody has life experience
and something to offer.”
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