United States SenateCandidate for Senator

GREG CONLON COMMENTS ON THE FUTURE OF

CALIFORNIA’S HIGHER EDUCATION SYSTEM    

(Palo Alto, CA) - California is taking away an outstanding educational opportunity from some of its best and brightest high school graduates by limiting their access to the University of California system. US News and World Report ranks UC Berkeley and UCLA  20th and 23rd in the nation, yet 30% of their students come from out of state.  That amounts to approximately 8,500 students each out of a total of 27,000 to 30,000 students, respectively. While out-of-state tuition costs $36,000 per year, or $23,000 more than in-state tuition, this additional revenue supports only about 6% of UC System’s expenses.                                   

Is this really what we want to do — give away about 17,000 spots a year in these two schools to out-of-state and out-of-nation students and deprive our own top students of this educational opportunity and future high-paying jobs?.  My answer is no.  The State of California has decreased its funding of the UC System in total from 18% of the State's general fund in the late ‘70's to 11 to 12% today.  These decreases compare with increases in health and human services, corrections and rehabilitations, and K-12 education from 60% to 80% of the State's General Fund expenditures.  These statistics are available from a Study of Public Education in California by the League of Women Voters of California Education Fund. 

Meanwhile other universities that are ranked equal or higher than our two top public universities are charging about $10,000 more per year (average $48,000 per year) in student fees.  So not only are we giving away these top spots to non-state students, we are doing it at a discount compared to similar top 20 universities in the nation (see US News and World Report Rankings).  

As a candidate for the U. S. Senate, I believe a federal policy regarding issuance of student visas to out-of-nation students can positively address the inequity of educational opportunity for California’s equally qualified best and brightest students.  I propose that out-of-nation students (who are primarily from China and India) be subjected to requirements similar to those currently imposed for issuance of "Green Cards" for foreign persons to obtain work visas.  My recommendation is that each University would have to demonstrate that there are no equally qualified in-state students, based on test scores and GPA, who could fill the available slot for admission. Only then would student visas be issued. While the loss of higher tuition revenue would have an impact, I believe we can find ways to make up much of the lost revenue.  First the California legislature should try to increase appropriations for the UC System and reverse the trend of the downward spiral.  Second, based on my experience in both the private sector as a businessman and CPA and my public sector experience as President of the California PUC, it is not out of the question to find some savings to recover some of the 6% in the University System expenditures.  

This is not an easy problem to solve but by addressing this issue we can increase the chances for California’s best and brightest to receive a high-quality education and gain access to future high-paying jobs right here at home.

Letter to the Editor or Opinion Letter April 9, 2016:

US Supreme Court issues a recent decision continuing the logic that has caused a negative impact on the timber and fishing industry in Northern California

U S Supreme Court in its recent decision  (Evenwel, v Abbot, Governor of Texas) continues supporting the 1964 Case of Reynolds v. Sims where the Supreme Court upheld that "The Equal Protection Clause" of the U S Constitution "requires that the seats in both houses of a bicameral state legislature must be apportioned on a population basis."   The Supreme Court  decision stated "a State may draw its legislative districts based on total population."  This decision does not require that only the use of population basis be used to apportion state legislative districts and related maps.  It uses the terminology "one-person, one-vote" to describe this rule.   Over the ensuing decades, the Court has several times elaborated on the scope of the one-person, one-vote rule.  Finally it decided in another case, Brown vs. Thomson in 1983, that the Court would allow deviation in the method of apportionment as long as the deviation, between the largest and the smallest is less than 10%.  The Court has held that the maximum deviations above 10% are presumptively impermissible.  One later decision allowed a 16% deviation in order to accommodate the State's interest in "maintaining the integrity of political subdivision lines.”  The State of Hawaii was allowed to deviate because of its geographic island separation. 

Northern California counties were severely impacted by the 1964 "Sims" decision because they had to redraw their California Senatorial Districts, (as did the entire State), using total population from the U S Census Bureau rather than using the eligible or actual registered voters or just using county lines, i.e., one Senator per county.   This had a dramatic impact from Sacramento north causing a loss of seven Northern California Senators from the State Senate.  This loss in Senators caused an extreme transfer of political power in the State Senate from Northern California counties with very low population towns and cities to large metropolitan urban centers like Los Angeles County.  Today there are only 4 Senators out of 40 representing most of Northern California (excluding the San Francisco and Sacramento area) while there were 11 Senators before the 1964 decision in Sims and the subsequent reapportionment. 

Although this loss of political power by Northern California is hard to measure I believe that State legislation in the 1970s and the Federal legislative changes over the years have had a dramatic impact on both the timber and fishing industries in these counties.  I reach this conclusion from my experience traveling through six of these Northern California counties two years ago when campaigning for State Treasurer.

The fallacy of the use of total population rather than political boundaries like counties makes no sense in a bi-cameral government where there are two bodies--a house or assembly and a senate.  The house or assembly should be elected by population as it is in the U S House of Representatives and the Senate body should represent the different government sub-bodies normally counties within a state.  This logic follows the practice in the Federal Congress where the U S Senators are based on two per state, not on some equal population formula as is the House of Representatives with about 800,000 persons in each District.  If the Federal U S Senate were apportioned by the equal population formula called for in the "Sims case" decision and the recent "Evenwel case" New England states would likely have only one or two Senators instead of the 8 or 10 they have today and California with its large population would have 12 U S Senators.

Hopefully the U S Supreme Court will recognize its use of population apportionment for both houses of a bi-cameral State government is inconsistent with the Federal apportionment of two Senators per state. Instead States should be allowed under the 10th amendment states rights to come up with their own apportionment process for the second house (usually the Senate) in a bi-cameral legislature. One of these processes would be to use the county boundaries within the State to reapportion each Senatorial District. 

Greg Conlon, Wash. D.C., Attorney

Candidate for U S Senate in California