Neither of the Democratic "frontrunners" for Governor of California is willing to talk real issues. Neither of them is really evil, either. So there is no need to vote for one to make sure the other doesn't get the Democratic nomination. So why not vote for what we really believe?
Are you tired of Democrats who won't take firm PROGRESSIVE positions? You oppose the war and wiretaps. You are sickened by the Governor putting debt on our kids, as he cuts education and health care. You wince as
corporations get huge tax breaks. You worry about the massive growth of prisons, about 3-strikes laws that jail a petty thief for a life sentence, and the fairness of capital punishment.
Mike Strimling offers Democrats a true progressive choice on issues. The purpose of Mike's candidacy is for progressives to have a place to cast a vote against the death penalty, for schools not jails, against corporations having the benefit of Proposition 13, and a clear place to vote against the war and against wiretapping or any other invasions without a warrant. This choice is not to be found in the positions of the other candidates.
Details of Mike's positions can be found on his website: www.MichaelStrimling.com Unlike any other candidate, that website has principled positions on the issues.
Death Penalty: As far as we are aware, this is the first credible Democratic candidate for Governor in California that has taken a principled stand against the death penalty in at least 15 years. He decries the death penalty as a policy which is tremendously expensive, biased, inaccurate and which does not deter. The LA Times has estimated that it costs $250 million for EACH death sentence. The death penalty has not been imposed since at least 1972 in 21 states or 75 countries, including all modern countries. Angelides and Westly are pro-death-penalty, so this is a clear chance to show what you believe by voting for Mike Strimling. We've had ENOUGH of Democrats trying to be more law-and-order than Republicans. Show what we believe. Let's enter the 21st Century and get off the list of those governments which violate Human Rights.
Proposition 13: Mike Strimling is also the only one who is taking a stand on exactly which taxes need reform. He is the only one to take a stand that Proposition 13 should be reformed so that corporations pay taxes on the true value of corporate property. Corporations do not die, divorce and move like individuals, so the share of property tax paid by corporations has gone down and the proportion paid by homeowners has increased. Some older corporations like Disneyland are paying at about 1% of what their property is worth. Meanwhile, new businesses which create jobs cannot compete with the low tax base of these older corporations. As prices inflate, the taxes of these corporations keep going downward, bankrupting our schools, healthcare, transit, childcare, elder service.... you name it.
None of the promised programs of the other candidates can be financed if we don't address the constantly shrinking taxes on property of corporations. It also makes sense to immediately reassess at true current value those properties worth more than $10 million - they are not poor elderly homeowners, either.
The Unsustainable Growth of Prisons: Mike Strimling also takes a stand on 3-strikes laws and the explosive growth of prisons. Not only does he pledge to sign a moratorium on the death penalty, but he would also commute and pardon those nonviolent offenders who have both served the sentence of their actual 3rd strike crime and have shown they have used their prison time to educate, train and rehabilitate themselves. As stated on Mike Strimling's website: In 1980, California had 22,000 prisoners. Now we have over 168,000. The extra prisoners cost $6 billion a year to house and feed. Nonviolent petty thieves get life-sentences under 3-strikes. Meanwhile, schools suffer: California has gone from first to last. Schools are broke and tuition goes up, because we have been building 23 new prisons over the last 20 years, which don't make us safer.
Mike Strimling is also the only candidate to come out in favor of universal healthcare and a single-payer health system. As a step towards that system, he is for regulations that will immediately require very large employers like Walmart to insure their workers or pay into a State fund that will provide insurance.
He is for workers' rights enjoyed in most of the modern world but lacking in America and California: mandating vacations, pensions and severance, and enacting laws that make it wrongful for an employee to be terminated for union organizing.
Mike's candidacy is about issues, not personalities. However, by way of biography, Mike Strimling is a law graduate of Boalt Hall at UC Berkeley. He is a native Californian, born in San Diego, raised in LA and resident of the Bay Area for the last 25 years. He is an experienced attorney, with knowledge of the applications of laws, something which none of the other candidates can claim. Mike Strimling has been a Court staff attorney in the Superior Court and moving to the Court of Appeal, and an experienced private attorney in civil and criminal matters in 12 California counties, 4 federal districts and the Court of Appeal. He also served as advisor to the Solomon Islands Government and the sole attorney for two of its provinces while in the US Peace Corps, and has argued before the United States Court of Federal Claims in Washington, D.C. He served three terms on the State Bar Committee on the Administration of Justice. He has represented California governmental agencies and private litigants in most of the controversial areas of law practice. He currently is litigating against toxic spills by Chevron and General Chemical in the Richmond area.
Consult details about Mike Strimling's positions at his website www.MichaelStrimling.com
Our email is Strimling2006@yahoo.com
This is a chance to vote for your true ideals and stop hiding our light under a bushel. We know that there are better ways to address crime and poverty than putting the poor and minorities in cages and giving tax cuts for the rich. We are becoming a society divided between the elite and the morlocks.
California used to be a utopian vision of free education and wonderful public facilities. But we are still living off the investments made under Pat Brown in the 1960's. It is embarrassing to hear someone from a Southern State say that her autistic son has to stay in the Carolinas because the care offered by those states is better than that in California. It is embarrassing that Court of Appeal decisions show that our 3-strikes law is the harshest in the nation, more harsh than states in the Deep South. It is embarrassing to have a higher rate of incarceration in our prisons than any other country except North Korea. It is embarrassing for prison guards in California to be so in demand that they can negotiate a better pension than teachers, nurses or Judges.
And as long as Proposition 13 is not amended to tax corporate property, at least, at current market value, we will continue to spiral downwards and turn into a feudal society of rich lords and peasants. The Hearst Ranch covering 128 square miles on the California Coast should be taxed at its current value instead of the value set under Prop 13 over 30 years ago, and so should the Chevron refineries.
We are seriously off-track. If we just vote for milquetoast candidates who don't mention any of these things, we are in serious trouble. Mike Strimling runs so that there is a space to vote about these issues - and to register a strong vote against the Iraq War. If we vote for Mike Strimling, he might not win, but maybe we can show what we believe, and move one inch towards addressing these real problems.