Brown pays visit to Santa Monica College
Gubernatorial candidate seeks collegiate support by addressing
university fee hikes
With less than a month to go before the midterm election,
gubernatorial candidate Kathleen Brown will visit Santa Monica
College for a political rally Thursday. A press conference will
follow Brown’s speech.
Campaign officials said Brown’s hour-long speech will address
student issues with which the State Treasurer has used to battle
incumbent Pete Wilson, including a freeze on education fees.
She also will discuss eliminating the higher fees community
college students with a bachelor’s degree must pay  otherwise
known as the "B.A. differential," officials said.
Santa Monica College is one of more than 100 community colleges
across the state affected by a general fee hike for public
education. According to the Brown campaign, the price tag of a
community college education has jumped nearly 300 percent while
Wilson has been governor, and University of California fees have
doubled during the same time.
Lagging in recent opinion polls, the Brown campaign is working
along the lines of the 1992 Clinton campaign by heavily recruiting
a younger generation of voters to widen the base of support.
Brown’s visit comes one day after the Democrat and Republican
camps decided to drop a televised debate that had been scheduled
for October. Neither side would compromise on the debate’s format,
and the disagreement killed the event.
Compiled from staff reports