California Assembly candidate Debra Gravert spoke to an audience of 12 students Monday in the Hinde Auditorium in the University Union during an event sponsored by Lobby Corps, a nonpartisan student organization dedicated to voter education.

“This is the biggest crowd I?ve ever spoke to,” Gravert said.

The informal question and answer talk was advertised incorrectly on flyers posted around campus. Instead of being from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m., the talk started at 1 p.m. and ended one-half hour later. Gravert used the small size of the audience to emphasize the importance of every individual voter on Election Day. In her unsuccessful bid for the Assembly in 1998, Gravert lost by “about 200 votes out of 140,000 cast”. She lost to Republican Anthony Pescetti, who is her opponent this time around as well.

The Democrat is seeking to win the election for the 10th Assembly District, an area that houses many Sac State students. The District includes Galt, Lodi, Elk Grove, Laguna, Rancho Cordova and Rancho Murieta, part of East Sacramento, and the Arden-Arcade, La Riviera, Rosemont, and Woodbridge areas.

“I feel that the under-40 crowd is very much underrepresented,” she said.

Gravert feels that other politicians concentrate only on K-12 people and senior citizens. College students and those people in their late twenties and early thirties are often “left behind”.

Gravert, 34, lives in Elk Grove with her husband and six-year-old daughter. She is a member of the PTA in Elk Grove, as well as the National Breast Cancer Coalition and Friends of the Library. She also serves on the California Council on Criminal Justice, a body that gives advice on criminal justice and juvenile delinquency prevention to the governor and legislature, as well as approves expenditures for juvenile justice programs using federal funds.

After graduating from Heald Business College, Gravert spent 14 years as a legislative staffer, working her way from secretary and clerical positions to consulting and finally to Chief of Staff for several legislators. She ran for the 10th Assembly District seat in 1998 and lost. In her opinion, most new Assemblymen are not effective during their first two to four years. Because she has been in the state capitol for 14 years, she feels that she can be “effective from day one.”

In a quote on the Sacramento Bee?s Campaign 2000 Web site Gravert described herself as a “working mom” who has to worry about working family problems like “paying the mortgage, buying food and clothes, paying for day care”. If elected to the Assembly, she promises to “represent the interests of working families”.

Health care is a big concern for Gravert. “I believe that health care is a crisis that people are ignoring,” she said. She opposes mandatory health insurance requirements for entry into a UC, stating, “instead of mandating health insurance, I believe we should start providing some sort of health insurance”.

Gravert said the state?s budget surplus “needs to go to education”. Her sister, who graduated from Sac State, is “36 years old and she?s still paying off her student loans”. She said that on the surface there seems to be little difference between her and Pescetti?s support for education, but that they really differed in their passion for it. She is against school vouchers.

“I will work day and night for education,” she said.

Among the other positions that Gravert supports are lowering the threshold for approving school bonds from two-thirds to a simple majority, gun registration and licensing, raising per-pupil spending in California to the national average, and adopting a California Taxpayer?s Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights, according to Gravert?s campaign Web site would simplify tax codes and create new bureaucracy to “?protect taxpayers from over zealous tax collectors”.