We need immigration reform. First we should do a bettter job of tracking people legally entering the country but who over stay their visas. Second, we should expand legal immigration to bring people with high skills into the Country. Finally, we must address the fact that there are over 11 Million undocumented people living in the US who have established roots and have been here for a long time; if they have not committed any serious crimes and are working or otherwise contributing to society, they should pay a fine for the violation of the law, and be allowed to remain in the Country. There must be a path to enventual citizenship.

If elected, I am committed to meeting with every Congressional Representitive who will meet with me, regardless of party, in the first 100 days of office. The purpose of the meetings will be to see what middle ground can be reached and develope a relationship that will help get things done in the future.

In general, what we are doing now is suffricient but we need to work hard on developing intelligence to locate potential terrorists before they act. We also need to extricate ourselves from the Middle East conflicts as our involvement only serve as a catalyst for terrorist recruitment and terrorist acts againsat the US.

The Federal Government needs to invest in infrastructure, including creating aditional water storage. But the investment in infrastructure should not be limited to water storage. We need to invest in conservation, waste water reuse & recycling, and creating new sources of water such as desalination.

I favor a return to the Bracero Program in which vetted foreign workers are allowed to enter/re-enter the U.S. under a work visa for approved work, but only in areas that U.S. citizens refuse to work.  If the work is seasonal, as in agriculture, migrant workers should return to their own countries with the understanding they will be allowed to return the next season.   

We must actively pursue and remove those who overstay their work visas. I favor a technological “wall” over a physical wall.  There are excellent facial recognition programs the government can use at key detection points around the southern and northern borders to identify known terrorists, or other threats, including those who were previously deported. Using technology will not eliminate the need for border agents, but it will reduce the amount of agents needed.  I would require the government to dispose of all records involving American citizens within a short period of time to avoid abuse of privacy.

I do not favor an amnesty program for those who illegally enter the country. Anyone that comes here must enter legally.  Anyone who stays here must have a current visa. An amnesty program is not fair to those who have waited years to enter our country lawfully.

As a former prosecutor and judge, I am a very seasoned negotiator and I know how to work with people that have diverse interests.  I’m not willing to sacrifice or compromise my conservative values, but I don’t believe we need to focus exclusively on the things which divide us. There are important issues which unite all of us. For example, all of us, regardless of our political beliefs, want: 1) a more responsible and responsive government; 2) a more vibrant economy than the one we currently have; and 3) safety in our homes and streets. It is far more productive to focus on things that unite us.

As a recent example, I worked with a local Democrat to build the Chico Youth Court, a program which diverts kids from a path of criminal behavior through early accountability with their peers. The common ground we found was our interest in protecting kids from having criminal records, and the community from increasing youth crime. It did not require us to sacrifice our values.

Also, because the country believes that Washington, D.C. is broken and disconnected from the people, I believe the majority of the 435 U.S. Representatives will be new. That is an opportunity for someone like me, who knows how to build coalitions, to unite my fellow members of Congress for true change.

The U.S. must be able to vet anyone who enters the country, regardless of national origin or religious belief. Where possible, I favor setting up refugee camps near areas where refugees have come from. This distance will insure greater protection for U.S. citizens, and will provide greater convenience and closer proximity to the families of those who have been displaced from their adjacent homelands.

We must also improve our human intelligence gather efforts as intelligence gathering cannot be accomplished with surveillance alone.

Finally, we must continue to support our traditional allies.  However, we should be very hesitant about inserting ourselves into conflicts that do not involve our national security interests. We cannot afford the cost in lives or dollars.

I do not want the state or federal government involved in our personal water rights.  It was a mistake for Doug LaMalfa to co-sponsor HR 5781 (California Emergency Drought Relief Act of 2014), which was an attempt to transfer even more of our limited water supply down south.  It will take us years to recover from the drought and we cannot afford to make these kinds of mistakes in the future.

We must increase water storage to help us through periods of drought. If we are unable to build Sites Reservoir for any reason, we must secure another water storage location immediately.  As an alternative to Sites Reservoir we should consider increasing the height of our dams to store more water. 

We must also improve water run-off to our lakes and rivers below by requiring the U.S. Forest Service to revise its forest management practices and allow modest tree thinning and clearing of underbrush from our national forests.  Doing so will save human and animal life, reduce the number and intensity of forest fires,  preserve property and timber, allow more water to soak through the canopy to recharge our last remaining aquifer, and allow more water to flow downhill into our rivers, lakes and streams.

A migrant workforce has always been a staple to the American economy. Many that have come here and are working are not in compliance with current laws governing their stay here. These people need to be normalized, pay taxes and carry required insurance like the rest of us. Citizen ship is not part of mandatory normalization. If a person has strong desires to become an American Citizen and is willing to learn and become their civic duty as a citizen, a path to citizenship should be made available to them.

I am uniquely qualified among all candidates to solve this problem. Being an Independent and self-funded, I will be free from obligations or pressure to join the two party feuding. That acrimony is the root of the problem in Washington and creates the dysfunction that we see so much of today.

As an independent I will be able to attend to the caucus of both parties while avoiding the restrictions of either caucus. This will be an advantageous position where my history as a technical solutions expert will be available to find reasonable compromises to hard questions.

The national security apparatus is out of control. We spend 1 Trillion dollars a year on National Security. A large portion of that is not auditable, because the agencies refuse to tell Congress how the funds are spent. I would propose that we cut any funds that refuse an audit.

In general we need to dial back that spend on foreign affairs and reevaluate our return on investment regarding how we go about national security. We waste entirely too much money and that money would be better spent on veterans health care, infrastructure and education at home.

I am in favor of the proposed Sites Reservoir project. It is a diversion project and is the best bet to support the health of the river. I oppose the Delta Tunnels.

There are 75,000 damns in America. The Federal Bureau of Reclamation has overdone damn building in the last century. The federal government has to define criteria to assess damns across the county for safety viability and river health. It’s likely many should come down. Other will prove well worth the efforts to sustain.

The immigration laws that are on the books should be enforced.

The courts should revisit the 14th amendment with respect to anchor babies. As it stands, illegal aliens can give birth to children in the U.S. thereby allowing those children to have U.S. citizenship and all of the benefits thereof.

Illegal aliens should not be able to access public benefits.

I make an attempt to speak with people of all political beliefs. I have reached out to the Democrat student Club at Chico State three times and was rejected each time. I will reach out for solutions. I will not reach out for differences.

There are more people killed in the U.S on any given weekend than have been killed by terrorists in the U.S. The emphasis should be making our streets and cities safe for American citizens from withn, not from so called terrorists without.

California is largely a desert, hence the term drought is a misnomer. The federal government should leave water allocation to the states.