Rep. Brad Sherman Talks Medicare, Libya, Bipartisanship, Public Option

Rep. Brad Sherman attracted hundreds of San Fernando Valley residents to the Valley Performing Arts Center at Cal State Northridge for a town hall meeting on campus Sunday afternoon.

Los Angeles City Attorney Carmen Trutanich introduced Sherman, who represents the 27th Congressional District. Sherman took questions based on a randomly selected raffle of audience members.

April Cooper, a second-grade teacher from Woodland Hills, asked Sherman why the “trickle-down theory” hasn’t reached her school or her home.

“You’re going to have me describe the frustration I go through every day,” said Sherman, a Democrat. “As you may have noticed, we’re now the minority in Congress.”

Efforts to increase or preserve public education funding have been unsuccessful in recent months in the House of Representatives, said Sherman. The 2009 stimulus bill “insulated” the Los Angeles Unified School District from the recession and prevented additional teacher layoffs, he said.

Sherman emphasized that he tries to meet Republicans halfway on issues such as education.

“We have to fight hard, and at the same time be able to reach a reasonable compromise,” Sherman said.

Sherman talked about the compromise that avoided the threatened government shutdown, noting his allegiance to his party.

“The budget resolution did not receive any Democratic support and did not deserve it,” he said. “Without the votes of Democrats like me, the compromise would have gone down in flames. The federal government would have shut down."

Sherman said that he didn’t “love” the compromise, but once President Barack Obama signed it, he knew it wasn’t going to get any better.

The discussion segued to a question about bipartisanship. When asked about his efforts to stop the polarization of the two political parties, he responded, “First, my congenial personality.”

But he said that the individuals in the parties get along well.

“There’s this idea that if three Democrats met one Republican in a dark alley, three Democrats would walk out, and no one else would walk out of the alley,” he said. “That is not the case. We actually like each other.”

Sherman said that the parties have to fight when it’s relevant, and not over views such as abortion. If the federal government shutdown happened, it probably would have been over Planned Parenthood funding, he said.

“Why would you close down the federal government over the fact that some people have strong views on abortion?” Sherman said.

The conversation led to war, first on spending in Afghanistan, then on Libya. A resident from Northridge asked Sherman if the government was going to cut military spending while saving the social programs that come out of taxpayers’ wallets.

“I would like to see us changing our objectives and strategies in Afghanistan,” Sherman said.

Afghanistan has never successfully created a central, well-organized government and it won’t have one even if U.S troops stay there, said Sherman.

During his discussion of the situation in Libya, Sherman proposed that the U.S. should pay the bill for American involvement with assets that Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi “was dumb enough to have invested in the United States.”

“I think that ought to be the source of money for operations,” he said. “The administration said doing this would make us look bad. I think it looks bad when we use taxpayer money." To this statement, Sherman received enthusiastic applause.

The congressman was asked a few questions about health care. A resident of Canoga Park named Laura asked about the option of a single-payer system.

“When 'Obamacare' was enacted, I thought that would lead to lower premiums. My premiums just went up. I barely use my medical insurance,” she said.

Sherman responded that he was a major proponent of the public option and that he wishes he could tell her that we will have a more liberal Congress in 2012. He said parts of the new health-care system won’t become effective for a year or two.

He also said that he does not think “dismantling Medicare” is a solution.

At the end of the town hall meeting, Sherman conducted an informal survey, asking the audience what they considered the government's biggest problem. Was it the budget deficit? Scattered hands went up. Was it the unemployment rate and the job crisis? Almost every hand shot up.

Earlier in the meeting, Trutanich used the forum to report on the financial shape of his office. The city attorney said last month said that he is considering running for county district attorney.

“When you have a payroll of $95 billion, and you have a budget of $78 million, before you turn the lights on, you’re broke,” he said. “So we’ve had to do a lot of cost-cutting and savings.”

The city attorney’s office is currently defending the city on approximately 2,800 lawsuits, which represent billions in liability, he said.

When Trutanich took office in 2009, he had 647 lawyers, and now he has fewer than 500, he said. His office has not hired any lawyers, paralegals, secretaries or any other staff in the past two years, he said.

“I’ve had to steal from criminal [legal staff] to make my civil lawyers have a full contingent,” he said.

On the other end of the spectrum, he spoke of collecting more than $6 million  owed to the city.