Get the facts on the California candidates running for election to the District 7 — California State Senate
Find out their top 3 priorities, their experience, and who supports them.
A forum for candidates for California Assembly District 7, moderated by Claudine Wong, KTVU Channel 2. Sponsored by Contra Costa County Elections Division, Contra Costa Television, The League of Women Voters of Diablo Valley, and The League of Women Voters of West Contra Costa.
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Sixteen years ago, Steve Glazer was shot in the neck by a high-powered pellet rifle while driving with his family. The .17-caliber projectile just missed his carotid artery and lodged next to his spine. The perpetrator was caught but never charged with a crime because pellet guns were classified as toys in the criminal code.
After recovering from his injury, Steve worked with then-Senator Tom Torlakson to author legislation establishing penalties for pellet-gun attacks. This incident sparked Steve’s involvement in Orinda local government, where he won a seat on the City Council in 2004, served three terms as Mayor, and was re-elected in 2008 and 2012. Throughout his terms, Steve has focused on improving infrastructure, public services, and local schools — while ensuring government fiscal accountability.
At the state level, Steve’s public policy efforts span three decades and include landmark achievements in the areas of conservation, public safety, affordable housing, and fiscal reform.
Steve Glazer has received numerous awards and recognition for his volunteerism and professional endeavors. He served as California State University Trustee and Mayor of Orinda. Steve also founded a successful small business, advising environmental, business, and nonprofit organizations.
Steve is married to Melba Muscarolas, a retired AT&T executive. They have two daughters. Steve earned a bachelor’s degree from San Diego State University where he served as Student Body President.
Top contributors that gave money to support the candidate, by organization:
Education is an area where Senator Glazer has made a tremendous difference for California. We should be the national leader in education and our students should be performing among the best in the world. Our schools need more resources, and our students need more options for quality instruction.
Education is an area where Senator Glazer has made a tremendous difference for California. We should be the national leader in education and our students should be performing among the best in the world. Our schools need more resources, and our students need more options for quality instruction.
Senator Glazer has a proven track record of support for local schools and expanding educational opportunities. Senator Glazer:
Wrote the $15 billion 2020 Preschool, K-12 and College Bond (the largest in California history) to repair aging schools, remove lead from school drinking water, build new classrooms, expand classroom technology, and build affordable student housing at California’s colleges and universities. (AB 48)
Voted to provide free tuition for first-year, full-time Community College students who carry at least 12 units and qualify for financial aid. (AB 19)
Wrote The California Promise Act to help increase the 4-year graduation rate by requiring the California State University (CSU) system to provide priority enrollment, enhanced academic advising and other support for students who carry at least 30 units per year.
The State Senate plays a critical role in education. It goes beyond funding – which is vital – to creating educational reforms to ensure that each student who attends a public school has an equitable opportunity to succeed. Senator Glazer’s priorities include:
Local empowerment. We need to empower local school boards to lead on educational issues. The centralization of educational decision-making in Sacramento is not healthy and should be reversed.
Teacher Quality. Senator Glazer believes in accountability at all levels of government, including public schools. There are few jobs more important or difficult than being a public-school teacher. We need to support our teachers in every way and help them be successful.
Allow families to select the best schools for their children. Senator Glazer supports the ability of families to select the best school environment for their children. Senator Glazer does not support FOR-PROFIT CHARTER SCHOOLS or private school vouchers as they siphon vital tax dollars from public schools.
Greater educational resources. Senator Glazer promised to continue to work to strengthen California’s economy and bring greater resources to our education system. There can be no higher priority for improving K-12 education.
Senator Glazer has been a strong supporter of strengthening the finances of local school districts, assisting disadvantaged students, providing consumer protections for students and families, keeping students safe in their schools, recruiting and training quality teachers and reforming California’s K-12 curriculum. Senator Glazer:
Wrote legislation to prevent the state from raiding local school district budgets. (SB 751)
Voted for the Feed the Kids Act to automatically enroll 800,000 low-income students in the state’s free or reduced lunch program. (SB 138)
Voted to license and strictly regulate student loan services to prevent students and their parents from being taken advantage of by unscrupulous lenders. (AB 2351)
Voted to strengthen the Bureau for Private Postsecondary Education and provide strict oversight and regulation of private, for-profit colleges that frequently fail to deliver on their promises.
Voted to require classroom doors to lock from the inside to help keep students safe and to require all school buses to be equipped with passenger restraints. (AB 3205, AB 1798)
Forbade school districts from withholding diplomas and transcripts from students with unpaid cafeteria debts and from reporting parents’ unpaid debts to credit agencies. (AB 1974)
Required all public schools (Charter and Non-Charter) to provide “medically accurate: and “age-appropriate” reproductive health education at least once in middle school and once in high school. (AB 2601)
Voted to forbid public schools, community colleges, the CSU system, and the UC system from collecting information about the immigration status of students, faculty and staff and their families. (AB 691, AB 21)
Voted to reestablish Cal Teach to better recruit teacher candidates, help prospects navigate the credentialing process and enable districts to meet teacher shortages in key subject areas. (SB 915)
Higher Education
Senator Glazer served as a California State University Trustee, helping guide 23 campuses, 447,000 students and 45,000 faculty and staff — the largest, most diverse and one of the most affordable university systems in the country. As Trustee, he voted repeatedly against excessive executive pay.
Higher education is a gateway to lifelong learning and employment opportunities. We need to ensure our state universities and colleges remain catalysts for societal progress and individual opportunity, and that they remain accessible and affordable to all Californians.
There are a number of challenges facing our higher education systems that need attention; remedial educational needs of incoming students in English and math; achievement gap between student groups; faculty and staff diversity; and low four-year graduation rates in the CSU system.
“I am very proud of the fact that the Cal State System issued degrees to more than 100,000 Californians last year, Senator Glazer said. “About 60% of these graduates were the first in their family to graduate from college. We need to make it a priority to support our public universities, as they are making a difference for so many.”
Senator Glazer has consistently voted to protect the Affordable Care Act from President Trump’s attacks, expand access to care for all Californians, limit prescription drug costs, and hold insurance companies accountable.
Senator Glazer has consistently voted to protect the Affordable Care Act from President Trump’s attacks, expand access to care for all Californians, limit prescription drug costs, and hold insurance companies accountable (photos here).
Strengthening California’s health care system.
Holding drug and insurance companies accountable.
Expanding the availability of Health Care.
Curbing the use of tobacco by minors.
Imposing transparency and strict oversight on California’s health care system.
We are experiencing an affordable housing crisis in our state. At the heart of it is a lack of supply. Complicating the situation are problems at every level: labor availability and cost; building supply prices; government fees; the cost of capital; regulatory rules and barriers; and a builder’s willingness to take a risk that they will make a profit at the end of the entitlement and construction period.
We are experiencing an affordable housing crisis in our state. At the heart of it is a lack of supply. Complicating the situation are problems at every level: labor availability and cost; building supply prices; government fees; the cost of capital; regulatory rules and barriers; and a builder’s willingness to take a risk that they will make a profit at the end of the entitlement and construction period (photos here).
There are over 550,000 approved housing units in California; about a three-year supply. There is a false drumbeat by urban legislators that suburban city councils are blocking housing construction and the state should step in to circumvent local control. But all of the cities in the 7th Senate district are in compliance with the State’s affordable housing requirements. So I reject the notion that the small towns of Contra Costa and Alameda counties are to blame. Still, everyone needs to work together to make the situation better.
The shortage of supply has given landlords the ability to raise rents dramatically in a tight market, in some cases the equivalent of gouging. In response, I supported legislation temporarily limiting rent increases to 5 percent a year plus the cost of living. This should allow landlords to recoup their investment without forcing tenants out of their apartments. But rent control is an imperfect solution given its potential to discourage the construction of new rental housing and lead landlords to convert apartments to owner-occupied condominiums.
A better solution would be to provide aid directly to needy tenants. I have proposed that the existing renter’s tax credit of $60 for singles and $120 for couples be increased to $220 and $434 respectively. This would provide immediate relief to 2.4 million low-income renters. California currently provides over $4 billion in tax relief for homeowners but only about $300 million in help to renters. The renters tax credit has not been increased since 1979 – 40 years. We can and must do better for our most vulnerable renters.
Additionally, I have authored legislation to limit some of the regulatory burdens on affordable housing projects. My bill passed the Senate 30-5 and is currently awaiting action in the State Assembly.
Finally, our state budget approved funds for a variety of housing programs this year. They were:
Top contributors that gave money to support the candidate, by organization:
Marisol Rubio is a former scientific researcher, current health care provider, and advocate for high-need students. A second-generation American, she was raised by her single mother, a public school teacher who taught Marisol to always fight for a better future for her entire community.
Marisol experienced the unimaginable when her infant daughter was diagnosed with brain cancer. If not for Marisol’s tireless advocacy on her daughter’s behalf against an unresponsive and dismissive health care system, her daughter would not have survived.
Through this experience, Marisol saw firsthand the problems that exist within our healthcare and education systems and the importance of providing quality, affordable services. She put her background as a scientist and advocate to work for others, serving as a bilingual science teacher, special education tutor, health promotion officer, and disability student advisor.
Marisol has consistently dedicated her time to advocate for our community on the environment, gun safety measures, the housing crisis, and disability and worker rights. Now, she is ready to take her lifelong commitment of fighting for others to the State Senate.
Marisol graduated from UC, Berkeley with a major in Molecular and Cell Biology, Neurobiology emphasis and received the P.E.O. Women’s Leadership Award.
Describe what proposal(s) you would support to alleviate the shortage of affordable housing for all income groups in California?
We can and must not only meet those goals but surpass them. Climate science is now suggesting that even the 2018 IPCC report’s emissions targets may not be sufficient to avert a catastrophe. The California legislature should support strong climate action on all fronts to reach net zero emissions by 2030 and negative emissions soon after.
We must address our climate crisis with the urgency that it merits and move into action just as we would if it were a natural disaster or war that threatened us all. We need a California Green New Deal to build green infrastructure with all possible speed. We need to halt all new oil and gas exploration immediately while enacting a strong combination of regulations and incentives for a switch to sustainability across all sectors on the timeframe that science shows is critically needed.
We must work for more than a target of zero: viable climate solutions require that we go carbon negative, drawing down vast amounts of CO2 from our atmosphere. California should lead the way in investing in carbon sequestration. The sooner these projects begin, the greater their effectiveness will be.
According to the California Legislative Analyst’s Office, we spend over $81,000 per individual who is incarcerated. Other than incarceration, what ways can the State address safety and justice?
Top contributors that gave money to support the candidate, by organization:
As far back as I can remember, I was never handed anything simply because I wanted it. Everything I wanted I had to struggle to obtain, because I grew up in low-income household despite my mother being a teacher while raising three girls. Like many people, I thought my struggles were behind me when I became an adult, but that all changed with the birth of my daughter and her subsequent bout with brain cancer.
For the past 23 years, I had to advocate on behalf of my daughter for her health care, social, and educational services that were often replete with gaps in service due to lack of funding, understaffing, and lack of understanding of the complex nature of long-term care for persons with multiple disabilities. Interestingly, 1 in 4 adults and 1 in 7 children are living with disabilities in the United States; yet, we have had no major, transformative legislation on their behalf for three decades. Disability disproportionately affects our most vulnerable populations, such as the elderly and our veterans.
I have dedicated my life to fixing our broken system by going back to college and studying Molecular and Cell Biology with an Emphasis in Neurobiology at the University of California at Berkeley to help educate my daughter myself, by working in various academic labs and conducting original research, by tutoring students like my daughter who have learning disabilities, by teaching bilingual science lab courses, by volunteering at a pediatric oncology clinic and providing support to other families experiencing the same difficulties I once did with my daughter, by spearheading the Disabled Students Program Peer Advisor Division and the Biology Scholars Program Health Promotion Division at UC, Berkeley, and by volunteering my time in my local church for six years, for the FACES Medical Program for thirteen years, and within our government as a DNC delegate, At-Large Delegate, Issues Committee Co-Chair, and Diablo Valley Democratic Club Endorsements Chair for the past three years. As a result of my work, I was the recipient of a President’s Scholar Award, the National Dean’s List, Phi Theta Kappa Honors Society, and the PEO Women’s Leadership Award.
Aside from my advocacy and research, I co-authored a resolution Calling for a Statewide Moratorium on Charter School Expansion and Reducing the Voting Age to 17 in California, which both qualified to be on the 2020 CDP Platform. I also helped pass the Green New Deal for California, the Public Banking Act, and the California Schools and Local Communities Funding Act of 2020 through the Democratic Party of Contra Costa County as the Issues Committee Co-Chair in just three months.
I knew that one day I wanted to turn my hardship into advocacy and the failure of our government to be responsive to our needs obligated me to take this next major step in my life. I am in a unique position to help millions of caregivers and their loved ones who are living with disabilities. No one will fight harder for you than I, because this is personal. I am experiencing this socioeconomic hardship right alongside you! I understand all too well the complexities of living in poverty and trying to move up the socioeconomic ladder, while addressing multiple demands. I will never give up on you just as I never gave up on my daughter who had once been told she had six months to a year to live and should settle for vocational training and is now attending college and academically able to perform well above her expected FSIQ thanks to the chemotherapy treatment I researched and selected for her and the metacognitive approaches to learning that I taught her over the years.
It would be my honor and privilege to serve as your State Senator in our 7th District. I will make sure that our children get an exceptional education, that workers rights are protected, they get paid FMLA, and that they receive free ongoing professional development, that the environment is protected at all costs to ensure that the next generation can enjoy our world the way we did, that the housing crisis is stabilized and resolved, that everyone has access to health care and their medications, as well as, to higher education without going bankrupt. My campaign is about reinvesting in our residents. It is about reclaiming the American Dream for everyday people!
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