California State AssemblyCandidate for District 46

Roxanne Beckford Hoge
My Top 3 Priorities
- To ensure that the Assembly works to secure our rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and no more.
- To maintain the rule of law; California cannot continue to have sanctuary cities flout federal law.
- To return freedom of choice for Californians -- of where to send their children to school, how to spend their money, how to live their lives and how to run their businesses.
Experience
Experience
Education
Biography
Roxanne Beckford was born in Kingston, Jamaica. She emigrated from the island and eventually began working in public and community relations in Miami for Citibank and the Rouse Company. She arrived in Southern California in the late 80s to become a working actor, which she has done for over twenty years. Her IMDB page can be found here.
After her marriage and the birth of her children, Roxanne and her husband Bob founded One Hot Mama, a maternity clothing website, in 1998. Their foray into the world of the internet and brick-and-mortar retail has lasted over 17 years, and taught them many lessons about entrepreneurship and the practical effects of government regulation.
She became a citizen of the United States fifteen years ago and keenly appreciates all the wonders of this great nation.
Questions & Answers
Questions from The League of Women Voters of California Education Fund and California Counts, a public media collaboration. (4)
Climate change and the drought are two separate issues. The first is debatable as to how much of an impact human behavior is even having on climate, and as there have been irregularities surrounding purported proof of same, crippling one's economy to address the issue may be counter productive.
As to the drought and the state of California, author Victor Davis Hanson has many insightful thoughts about the subject, and I would ask his sage advice on specific actions that could be taken at this late date. Much of what could have been done to mitigate the effects of a drought such as this wasn't done in the name of the environment.
I, too, am concerned about the influence of money in politics. The difficulty is that any body that speaks for a group of constituents or interests will likely have money. The influence of lobbyists and unions and businesses must be balanced with attention to individual and less-well-funded groups. Term limits should help, but the truth is that every representative we send to Washington or to state capitals ends up richer than when they arrived. I'm not interested in getting rich feeding at the public trough; if elected, my goal will be to effect change, and then return to public life, as our founder intended.
Labor and wages work with the immutable law of Supply and Demand. Artificially setting a minimum wage actually hurts the young, the elderly, and anyone else trying to get started in an entry-level job. Even Governor Jerry Brown said, “Economically, minimum wages may not make sense,” but signed the new law anyway. Minimum wage laws and raises have been proven time and time again to lead to layoffs, to companies not hiring, and to automation. The people of the 46th Assembly District deserve to be free to use their assets (and labor is an asset) to earn money, and the businesses of my district should be free to hire people at any wage they mutually agree to.
My top three fiscal priorities are to institute zero-based budgeting for the entire state budget, to make California's economy more robust by reducing taxes and regulation, and to continue to protect Prop 13 by finding funds wasted elsewhere.
Political Beliefs
Our founders intended our legislatures to be filled by citizens who served their duties and then went back to their lives in the real world. Our Republic, like our legal system, only works when there are two sides with clear and distinct ways of finding the truth. California currently only has one side in power which is a loss for all of us. I believe in freedom -- real freedom. We currently have local, state and federal governments telling us what to purchase and how to think. The Republic is in danger of decline, and the most immediate concern of our great state is fiscal. We are losing the vast middle class to other states with less taxation, more affordable housing and better educational systems.