California governor recall candidate and upcoming debate participant Arianna Huffington said she promised to roll back tuition and fee hikes for the state’s community colleges and public universities if elected governor.

“To pay for this I would cancel new prison construction projects which would generate over $600 million for this issue,” Huffington said following her speech at Sacramento City College on Sept. 11. “That money would be more than enough to fix the fiscal problem at the university level.”

During her visit to SCC, Huffington said that the California Department of Corrections has not sustained budget cuts similar to the ones the community colleges and public universities have.

Huffington also said that the California Correctional Peace Officer Association, the labor union for California’s prision guards, gave over $3 million to Governor Davis’ campaigns for governor.

“Had your chancellor given $3 million to Gray Davis, I guarantee your fees would’ve never gone up,” Huffington said.

Huffington also said she promised to lower community college fees to the original $11 per unit versus the current $18 per unit. She plans to do this by balancing the state budget and by having homeowners in the top income brackets pay their fair share in property tax.

“It is absurd when people like Warren Buffet, the second richest man in the nation, only pay $2,000 a month in property tax on his $4 million home in Orange County,” Huffington said. “Something must be done about this.” K-12 education and community colleges are funded through property tax revenue, which was lowered by Proposition 13 in 1978.

Her plan to balance the budget would be done by closing corporate tax loopholes. “This alone would generate $5 billion in revenue for education,” she said.

Huffington also stressed the low voter turnout in recent elections.

“Thirteen million voters didn’t vote last year. That is a crisis in democracy,” she said. She also said that a majority of the people that did not vote last year were young people, particularly college students, and disenfranchised minorities.

Campaign volunteers passed out voter registration cards at the conclusion of Thursday’s rally.

Huffington is expected to join candidates Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, state Sen. Tom McClintock, actor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Green Party candidate Peter Camejo in a live television debate at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 24 at Sacramento State.

The special statewide recall election has been delayed because of a federal court ruling. An alternate date has yet to be decided.