The California Report (a radio program) played host to the first, and perhaps only, debate between Gov. Jerry Brown and his challenger, former U.S. Treasury Department official Republican Neel Kashkari, on Sept. 4. The two battled—sometimes passionately, sometimes heatedly—over major issues facing California, including water, the environment, jobs, immigration, education, and income inequality. Kashkari continued to hammer one point throughout the conversation—the state’s economy is still suffering and it shows in the way the state ranks nationally for business climate (50th), jobs (44th), education (46th), and poverty (first). “We’re not heading in the right direction, we need to turn this around, we need to rebuild the middle class,” Kashkari said. Brown argued that the state went from deficit to surplus over the last four years, and is continuing to move in a positive direction. “I love this state and I know it works, and I’ll tell you what, in the last four years, we haven’t solved all the problems, but boy, what momentum,” Brown said. They argued about the high-speed rail—Brown for, Kashkari against; prison realignment—Brown said it’s working and will continue to get better, Kashkari called the program “an absolute failure;” and a recent ruling on the state’s teacher tenure laws in which a state judge ruled that the laws violate California students’ constitutional rights to a good education. Brown appealed the decision to the federal courts. “You had a choice between fighting for the civil rights of poor kids, and fighting for the union bosses who funded your campaigns. You sided with the union bosses,” Kashkari said. “I’m going to side with the kids.” Gov. Brown responded by saying that state law obligated him to appeal the court ruling to a higher court. “No one wants bad teachers in the school system, especially not me,” Brown said. He added issues such as poverty play a bigger role than tenure laws on the way students are educated, and said that the recently implemented Local Control Funding Formula should help alleviate some of the educational issues associated with poverty. The debate will most likely be the last in the governor’s race. The California Report writes on its website that Brown said he doesn’t want to hold any more forums, which is understandable because he currently holds a “commanding lead over Kashkari,” which is 16 points according to the latest field poll.
This article appears in Sep 11-18, 2014.