Senate District 1 is HUGE in area! Since the population of all senate districts is about 877,000, it is a very sparsely populated district, covering 12 counties. The electoral composition of this district is more or less as follows:
| Libertarian | 3,295 | 0.68%% |
|---|---|---|
| Democratic | 164,758 | 33.83% |
| Republican | 230,056 | 47.24% |
| Green | 4,507 | 0.93% |
| American Independent | 10,845 | 2.23% |
| Natural Law | 355 | 0.07% |
| Peace and Freedom | 1,361 | 0.28% |
| Miscellaneous | 2,317 | 0.48% |
| Declined To State | 69,464 | 14.26% |
| Total | 486,958 | 100% |
As you can see, the powers that be have managed to make this into a nicely safe republican districting. One more reason why I believe we should have a separate commission in charge of arranging districts.
Here's the map of the district, basically a nice chunk of the Sacramento Metro area and every sparsly populated county touching it:
My positions on many issues are easy to predict, and as Senator I intend to focus on state wide issues that affect our district, but here are some particular issues of intrerest in this district, and my positions:
- Auburn Dam - In the general sense, I believe that our state government should not be in charge of building infrastructure, both for pragmatic reasons (face it: they stink at it!) and for more theoretical issues: it requires taxation, which can only happen with the threat of a gun behind it. In a perfect world property owners would have a chance to build or not to build any infrastructure projects in their own land. But facts remain that for whatever reasons, our government has taken it upon itself to build this kind of project, and has put in place as many obstacles as possible for private market forces to do it, I have no ecological opposition to this dam being built, but I would only encourage it if its economic impact is positive. I would much rather release the Auburn property to private ownership though.
- Folsom Dam Road Closure - If elected, I will do everything possible to open the dam road again to traffic. The security considerations that were the official "excuse" for closing it are silly. Somewhere in a cave in Pakistan Osama bin Laden is laughing is hat off that he managed to increase the commute time of hundreds of Folsom/Roseville/EDH residents by 30 minutes. And don't do this at home, but if the terrorists really wanted to blow a dam up, doing it from the road that crosses it is not a very effective way.
- Urban Sprawl - Yup, Urban/sub-urban portions of this district are growing. Many people from the more expensive areas of northern California are moving here in the hope of being able to afford the American dream. The biggest problem is that these folk move in but don't realize that the jobs are limited: not as plentiful as in the bay area, even in its good days. We need to stop businesses from leaving the state/country and make California a friendly place for people to work AND live. I don't see much problem with sprawl itself, I believe strongly in private property and that people should have the right to do with their property whatever they wish, as long as they don't affect anyone else (and no, I don't think bringing house prices down is a violation of anyone's rights). I'll work with local governments and propose in the legislature projects that encourage private industry to invest in infrastructure for this area and reduce the impact of our increasing population densities througout the satet: for example providing tax advantages to companies that support teleworking, thereby reducing the traffic problems.
Roberto Leibman
email: statesenate@leibman.net
web: http://www.leibman.net/statesenate2004