Charles T. Black Candidate, 23rd District, State Senate 

Mirror: In order of importance, what are the most significant and serious issues facing this district? 

   Black: 1. Schools. This is perhaps the only real pressing issue. The school system is a failure. Too many children are having their lives wasted in school while parents and taxpayers are shed of large amounts of money for no good result. 
   2. Rent Control. This above all else has been a direct cause of the housing shortage and homelessness in this area. Interference by government has created all kinds of problems including patronage to politicians and corruption in the government. 
   3. Crime. The war on drugs has been the cause of the majority of crime in the area and the attendant corruption of the police and courts. The gang activity that has plagued the area recently is simply due to the related drug business. 

   Mirror: What will you do on the state level that will benefit the citizens of Santa Monica? 
   1. Free the schools from the government monopoly which has devastated the children of California and this district in particular. Allow parents to decide what schools and where. Allow everyone the liberty to choose. The corruptions and abuse by government run schools has got to stop. When you see that 90% of the schools fail the very standard that government wants to use, it should be obvious to everyone that the government schools are a catastrophic failure.
   2. Eliminate the government role in distorting the free market and economic activity. Government gives favors to some (low rents in good areas) while it gives suffering to others (lack of housing, high rents, no choices or homelessness). Low rents means no economic activity in the housing sector and excludes not only business but others from enjoying this area. It discriminates against the poor and those who cannot pay high rents. Government creates more problems this way. 
   3. Try to get the war on drugs stopped. Proposition 215 was a good start but more needs to be done. This senseless war on drugs has caused only suffering and devastated lives. It is time to stop locking up people for making bad choices. It is time to take the money and economic power of gangs and others including government agencies out of the drug trade by decriminalizing drug possession and use. Gang shootings are related to who does business where. When the money is gone, there is no power. Like the end of prohibition, the violence will also end.

   Mirror: What in your background and experience qualifies you for this office? 
   Most good and decent citizens can be qualified to be in office. It only requires common sense and a coherent philosophy of what government is, what it can and cannot do and what it should and should not do. I am a physician, used to making tough decisions. Especially when the options are not good. Sometimes, there are no really good choices. Politicians today are only interested in doing or saying what will keep them in office. They have no philosophy of government and that is why we are in the mess that we are in. 
   I for one am angry and fed up with the corruption, the frauds perpetrated by politicians and the news media and the endless taxes. Money that just disappears and leaves us with crime, schools that are destructive to our children and the nation, and distortions of the free market by the government which leaves us with less and more expensive housing. Lastly, the loss of freedom due to countless, contradictory and oppressive regulations and laws which serve only to make good citizens criminals. The only qualification that one needs, is to be a decent person, a good citizen and to remember the principle that our founding fathers built this country on: "That government is best which governs least."

   Charles T. Black is a resident of Malibu and a member of the Libertarian Party.