Ahead of the November general election, the Southern California News Group compiled a list of questions to pose to the candidates who wish to represent you. You can find the full questionnaire below. Questionnaires may have been edited for spelling, grammar, length and, in some instances, to remove hate speech and offensive language.
MORE: Read all the candidate responses in our Voter Guide
Name: Laura Friedman
Current job title: Assemblymember
Political party affiliation: Democrat
Incumbent: No
Other political positions held: California State Assemblymember, District 44/43, 2016-present; Glendale City Councilmember, 2009-2016; Mayor of Glendale, 2011-2012; Former Board Member, Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority; Former Board Member, LA League of Cities, Former Board of Directors, Metropolitan Water District of Southern California; Former President, Independent Cities Association; Past Chair, Arroyo Verdugo Council of Governments Steering Committee; Past Chair, Glendale Design Review Board 2004-2009.
City where you reside: Glendale
Campaign website or social media: https://www.lauraforcongress.org/
Californians will decide on a proposition this November that would scale back some of Proposition 47, a 2014 voter-approved measure that reduced penalties for certain theft and drug offenses. What is one way the federal government could help states like California balance criminal justice reform with enforcing the law? (Please be specific with your proposal, and keep your answer to 200 words or less.)
Everyone deserves to be safe. Criminals must be held accountable, and individuals who have shown themselves to be a danger to the public should not be allowed to remain in communities. Most of our criminal justice policies are enacted by state and local governments, but there are ways the Federal Government can help keep our state safe. The Federal Government should help fund law enforcement training, and invest in facilities such as they have done with the DNA crime lab in Glendale. I will fully support the President’s request that Congress invest $37 billion to support law enforcement and crime prevention, including funding additional police officers, expanding community violence intervention, adding crisis responders, additional dispatchers, and addiction treatment and mental health infrastructure. The Federal Government should increase funding for coordinated joint federal and local efforts that target organized crime. They should help fund needed anti-recidivism programs so that formerly incarcerated people will have a chance to succeed. The Federal Government should direct funding into historically underserved communities by targeting spending on supporting foster youth support, job training, small business, parks, schools, community institutions. We need to reduce hopelessness, deep poverty, and trauma if we want to reduce crime.
Recent efforts to expand the federal deduction for state and local taxes, called SALT, have failed. What changes would you like to see, if any, to SALT? (Please keep your answer to 200 words or less.)
The SALT Deduction protects residents from paying double taxation to the State and Federal governments. Unfortunately, former President Trump placed a strict and low cap on this deduction during his presidency which resulted in Californians having to pay a disproportionately higher share of Federal taxes. I fully support raising the cap on the SALT Deduction so that our citizens are not penalized and can retain more of their income. Given the high cost of living in Los Angeles, the vast majority of residents should be able to claim the full SALT Deduction without any caps. This would put money back in the pocket of Californians.
President Joe Biden has called for an overhaul of the U.S. Supreme Court, including mandatory ethics rules. What reforms, if any, do you believe the Supreme Court needs, and how would they be enforced? (Please be specific with your proposal, and keep your answer to 250 words or less.)
Ensuring an ethical government is extremely important to me. Democracy is at risk if we lose faith in the credibility and impartiality of our courts. After the revelations about serious sexual harassment committed by legislators, I stood up and lead the legislature in making meaningful, robust sexual harassment policies that became a model around the nation. These policies involved an independent office to investigate and adjudicate accusations of impropriety, and mandatory reporting out to the press of sustained allegations. The Supreme Court should be held to the same ethical standards around the taking of gifts and reporting to the public as other elected officials. We need an independent ethics office made up of Federal judges and other stakeholders to investigate claims of improper conduct. This body should be empowered to make recommendations based on predetermined repercussions for those breaking ethical rules. There should be complete transparency for the press and the public around relevant behavior, such as the taking of gifts, by Supreme Court members. Members of the Supreme Court should be expected to follow ethical rules like other public officials and they should face similar consequences, including being removed from office, for breaking those rules.
Should there be an age limit imposed on presidential candidates? What about Congress or Senate? If so, what is that limit?
I do not believe there should be an age limit for candidates. There are individuals who at 75 are sharper then some people in their 50s. We hold elections, with public debates and appearances, so that voters can determine the mental fitness of candidates and vote accordingly. Age limits reduce voter choice.
Would you support legislation that protects women’s access to in vitro fertilization and other fertility treatments nationwide? Why or why not? (Please be specific in your answer, and limit your response to 200 words.)
My mother and the women of her generation fought hard for reproductive choice. But their decades of work were erased last year by the Supreme Court in the Dobbs Decision. Currently women’s right to reproductive health care and abortion has been fully erased in many states. And we know that abortion access even in California will be under threat under a Republican administration. Make no mistake: the same extremists who have restricted women’s rights to reproductive healthcare, the same people forcing their own personal viewpoints on women and their doctors across the nation, are exactly the same ones now attempting to restrict access to in vitro fertilization. This is because it is impossible to justify IVF pregnancies if one believes that life begins at conception because fertilized eggs are discarded in the IVF process. This is why Senate Republicans blocked legislation that would have made it a right nationwide for women to access in vitro fertilization and other fertility treatments, and why the Republican Party cannot be trusted to defend IVF the same way it’s now clear that they want a nationwide abortion ban. I will always defend a woman’s right to full reproductive healthcare and in vitro fertilization.
The Republican Party’s platform, following the summer convention, calls for the “largest deportation effort in American history.” Is this something you support? If so, what would such an effort look like? If not, how would you assuage concerns about border security? (Please be specific in your response, and keep it to 250 words or less.)
I do not support mass deportations. They would traumatize our community while also devastating our local economy. Here in Los Angeles we see the inhumane results of our failed immigration policies. Families are torn apart by deporation, undocumented children cannot access the support they need to be successful adults, undocumented workers are exploited by businesses in the underground economy and used to unfairly compete with legitimate businesses. I support a well funded process to help immigrants seek asylum in the United States in a more humane and streamlined fashion, and more supportive policies and programs for refugees fleeing war and oppression. However, we also need to secure our border to keep out violent criminals and close loopholes which have allowed cartels to exploit the system. I will support H.R.2, the bipartisan Secure the Border Act of 2023, which would have fully resourced border operations, helped secure the border, strengthened the asylum process, clarified eligibility requirements for work visas, and added due process protections and support for children.
Cost of living is high on the list of concerns among voters, particularly among younger people. What is one bipartisan proposal you have to alleviate concerns about high prices or cost of living? (Please be specific in your response, and limit it to 200 words.)
The biggest two cost of-living drivers I hear about locally are the cost of housing and healthcare. Lack of access to affordable healthcare makes people sicker and drives them into poverty. Medical bankruptcies, lack of access to routine healthcare ,and unaffordable prescription drugs are too common. I will push for national health care reform to shore up our medical infrastructure while putting dollars in pockets and providing better health. To address the skyrocketing cost of housing we need to build enough affordable housing to reduce the price of rent. The Federal government should develop a national strategy that evaluates innovative programs such as social housing, and includes tax code reform to encourage building for low and moderate income households. I have successfully worked with groups like Habitat for Humanity to remove barriers to creating ownership units for low and moderate income individuals. There are many programs at the federal level which are only available for the creation of rental units. I will attempt to expand these so that they can be used for the building of workforce ownership housing. I will develop tax policies which discourage investment funds and other commercial enterprises from competing against families for single family homes.
Californians continue to point to housing affordability as one of their top concerns. What is something the federal government could do to lessen the financial burden people feel, whether that’s with renting or buying a house? (Please be specific in your answer, and limit it to 200 words or less.)
Removing the cap for the SALT Deduction would allow CA taxpayers to deduct more of their housing costs. Adding a rental tax deduction would help relieve the cost of paying rent, and would disproportionately help lower income residents. I would fight to protect and expand the National Housing Trust Fund and other affordable housing programs so that more resources are available to create new affordable housing. We need to fix the Section 8 housing program, but also expand it so that many more eligible individuals can access the program. Federal funding should increase for programs like the Housing Choice Voucher program, which helps low income individuals absorb rent increases. If the Federal Government put more money directly into supporting urban infrastructure improvements such as water, sewer, power and public transportation upgrades, it would be easier for Los Angeles to build the housing it needs in areas best suited for infill development without burdening the city’s general fund or existing residents. The Government can increase its assistance to first time and lower income homebuyers, and focus similar incentives on for sale new homes as it does on rental properties.
What do you see the federal government’s role as in helping local municipalities tackle homelessness? (Please be specific in your answer, and limit it to 200 words or less.)
The best way to end homelessness is to expend the resources needed to keep vulnerable residents housed and to create enough housing for every homeless individual. For every 100 people needing affordable housing, there are approximately 16 available units, causing vulnerable individuals to slip into homelessness. Compounding the lack of access to housing is a crisis of available mental health treatment and easy access to highly addictive drugs. I have authored legislation to allow for the most mentally ill individuals to be taken off the streets and placed into conservatorships, but there is a gap between available state and local funding for new mental health facilities and the huge need. The Federal government should help fund addiction counseling, mental health resources, and job training. The federal government should develop robust national housing strategies that treat the crisis as an emergency. I will push to increase the availability of Section 8 vouchers and fix the program so that more landlords will participate. I support funding for programs which help vulnerable residents stay housed. We must retain and create SROs, board and care facilities, new mental health facilities and other forms of housing that focus on our most vulnerable residents.
After Tesla chief executive Elon Musk shared an AI-generated video purporting to be Vice President Kamala Harris’ voice, Gov. Gavin Newsom vowed to enact legislation to make it illegal to manipulate someone’s voice in an ad. What is something the federal government could do to protect people from deep-fakes, or false AI-generated images, videos and audio? (Please be specific in your response, and keep your answer to 200 words or less.)
I am extremely concerned by the rise of misinformation and the impacts that AI and deep fakes are already having on Democracy and public engagement. I support much greater accountability by social media companies, and strong regulation around AI. Some technology companies are actively working to combat the threat of deep fakes by creating methods for content verification. The government should continue to partner with the private sector on solutions. I supported the recent California bill AB2655: Defending Democracy from Deepfake Deception Act of 2024, which “would require a large online platform, as defined, to block the posting of materially deceptive content related to elections in California, during specified periods before and after an election. ” I will actively work for a similar federal law so that the public can have more faith in the information they are receiving about candidates and elections. If the public loses faith in their elections or feels that they cannot trust any information, our Democracy will be threatened.
What is one local infrastructure project you would push to secure funds for in the federal budget? (Please be specific in your answer.)
With the Olympics coming to Los Angeles, and with our famous traffic congestion nearing critical mass, my number one local infrastructure project would be more resources for public transportation. I will fight to put more federal money into inter and intra-city rail, better bus infrastructure, and more active transportation infrastructure so that we can move people around in more equitable, safer, sustainable and convenient ways. I will also seek resources to make our existing transit system safer, cleaner and running with more frequency. Providing more mass transit options will not only help absorb the impact of the Olympics, projects such as the 405 free rail line from the West San Fernando Valley to LAX will truly relieve congestion and remove some of the public’s biggest objections to new housing development: traffic and parking impacts. Los Angeles will only be a world class city when it fixes its mobility issues. When I was the Chair of the Assembly Transportation Committee, I helped secure over $1 billion in additional funds in the California budget for statewide transit investments. I have proven success and experience with transportation issue and will make them a top priority.
What is one environment or climate policy you’d champion if elected? (Please be specific with your policy proposal, and keep your answer to 200 words or less.)
Climate change is an existential threat, and we are already seeing its impact with drought, extreme heat and wildfire. Combating global warming will be one of my missions, as it has been in my 8 years as a legislator. I will focus on phasing out fossil fuel production in the United States and incentivizing renewable energy infrastructure. I will push for funding to assist states with new renewable generation, grid hardening and upgrades to allow for increased electrification while lowering our too-high electrical rates. I will fight to nvest federal funds in necessary infrastructure to transition off fossil fuels without shifting costs to ratepayers. I will push for a rapid decarbonization of our energy sector, the building sector, heavy industry, and transportation. I have successfully authored landmark legislation to move California towards zero emission buildings and sustainable methods of transportation, and I will bring these solutions to Washington as mandates, earmarks and tax incentives. I will not support new offshore drilling or fracking. It’s past time to move beyond fossils and shift rapidly to renewable energy such as offshore and onshore wind, solar, and green hydrogen. All this can be done while creating skilled union jobs.
What’s the No. 1 song on your playlist while you’re on the campaign trail?
“”We’re Having Much More Fun,”” by X
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