Loni Hancock

December 2002
photo by Richard Bermack

Loni Hancock will replace Dion Aroner in the 14th Assembly District. Dion worked closely with Local 535 until she was termed out. Hancock is a former mayor of Berkeley, and worked for seven years in the Clinton administration, heading up the regional office of the US Department of Education. One of her first appearances after winning the election was as keynote speaker at the Local 535 executive board meeting on November 16. The following is an edited version of that speech. Loni Hancock:

“We are going to be challenged, as never before, to keep the gains that we made, and to not let the people that we care about in this state get badly hurt by the financial crisis that the state faces.

I ran on what I call the three Es: education, the environment, and the economy. Nobody knows better than you, that education is the key to a stable, responsible, economic life. It is the key to spiritual and intellectual growth; it is the key to economic development in our state on every single level. It is essential; that we make sure that every California child has a superb education.

The second E is the environmentthe issues around environmental justice. We have a lot of oil refineries here. We’ve got a lot of highways. We’ve got a lot of pollutants, we have to make sure that we have those things under control, and also the fact that we live in an absolutely inspirationally beautiful place. We have to maintain that place for the next generation.

The third E is the economy. By which, I mean affordable housing for people, health care, access to healthcare for everyone in this state and corporate accountability.. ... A few days ago, we found out that we have a $21 billion deficit. Six billion coming through right now, and then, another $15 billion that will need to be cut from the budget that we are supposedly going to pass in June. We also are going to need six Republican votes to pass a budget. Last year we only needed four. And the budget, as you remember, was held up for months. What we’re hearing from the leadership in the legislature is that there is no more smoke in mirrors. Everything is on the table.

We’re talking about needing to make a $21 billion cut. That is just about the size of the human service budget for the state. So we’re going to have to work together closely, we’re going to have to strategize; we’re going to have to organize as never before. We can’t cut our way out of this and remain a state with any social contract or quality of life. And we probably can’t tax our way out of this, because we can’t get the Republican vote. It’s going to have to be a combination of the two things, and believe me, it hurts me to say that, because I’m a person that wants to keep every single thing that we have because I know we need more.

So you all know who are going to be the first people on the chopping block. It is the people you serve. They’re the most vulnerable people, they’re probably the people that don’t vote, and I know, because Tom Bates, my husband, was the chair of human services for years and years, and Dion Aroner my very good friend was chair of the committee for years and years. I know how they fought and how heartsick they were year after year, when they weren’t able to save as much as they needed to. But I know that you’ve been there with them and you understand this very well.

I am determined that we not balance the budget on the backs of the most vulnerable people. We can’t do it. We can’t do it and retain our souls in this state. However, I can’t do it alone. And I am going to need help from every one of you and the other progressive members of the legislature are going to need your help.

I want to suggest three ways that we need to work together: One, I really want to put a human face on the people that you serve, the people who need health care, the people who are coming off TANF. Within the next couple of months people will be turned out. And what’s going to happen to them? We need to keep the protections that we have, the child care, the health benefits, and transportation so that they can have jobs. We need you to be communicating with the public about the people you serve and what they need. We need to make sure every single Californian knows and sees there’s a human being in front of them when we make these budget choices.

Secondly, we’re going to need to look for ways to spend smart, to try some new experiments and programs working together and blending funding. We are going to be challenged to set turf issues aside, and really look carefully at how we deliver services in the best way for people. We need to strategize together on how to do that. You know the real life consequences of things, you know the programs, you need to steer that process.

And the third thing I think we need to do together is to build a coalition to raise taxes. We need more revenue in this state, to do the things we need to do. John Burton [is proposing] returning the high income tax brackets back to where they were in 1996. In 1996 we were running such a huge state surplus that they cut the top bracket from 11% to 9%. Well, guess what? We may need to go back. And we can say that if we ever have a big surplus again we’ll cut ‘em back down! I’ve talked with some of you about other ideas, industrial commercial property tax under Prop. 13, if we simply equalize that with what homeowners pay like it used to be, billions of dollars would come into this state. There are things we can do.

We need a broad consensus. We need not only human service workers, everyone in 535, in every district, talking to their legislators, talking to other community organizations, organizing the people with whom we work. We really need a strong and forceful coalition of people at every level and every district to do this.

I suggest that the next six months is the campaign season again. Erik Erikson, the psychologist, talks about how crisis situations are the time in the life of an institution or an individual when it will take a decisive turn in one direction or another. Unfortunately I think our state and our country have started veering off in very much the wrong direction. We need to right that, correct that. Because we’ll be setting a course. And I just want to end with, the immortal phrase, “Don’t agonize, organize,” and we will, and we will win. Thank you all so much.