26th Congressional District candidates Julia Brownley and Tony Strickland will each be answering questions about issues of concern to seniors during an AARP-sponsored tele-town hall on Tuesday evening from 7 to 8.

The sponsor will be telephoning about 20,000 AARP members who live in the district and asking if they wish to stay on the line to listen to the discussion between the candidates for Congress. For those who may not be AARP members, or who wish to make certain they're included, there is also a way to self-register to get on the call. To do so, go to the this link and enter your name and telephone number.

A GREAT RESOURCE FOR VOTERS: With mail-in ballots going out on Tuesday to those who are registered as permanent mail-in voters, it's time to start educating yourself about all the candidates for local offices. VCStar.com has a terrific resource to help in that regard. It's called Election Central, and it's a searchable treasure trove of information about all the local races and candidates. All candidates were given the opportunity to submit information about themselves, along with resources that readers can use to learn more about them.

Don't fill out your mail-in ballot without it. And if you intend to vote at the polls, get out your sample ballot and do some homework at Election Central before Election Day.

LATINO VOTERS AND THE ENVIRONMENT: Since many Latino voters, who are expected to make up about 16 percent of the California electorate on Nov. 6, are blue-collar workers very concerned about jobs, conventional wisdom holds that they are naturally skeptical of environmental regulations that could potentially chill job-creation.

But a survey released last week by Tulchin Research, conducted for the California League of Conservation Education Fund, turned up some surprising results. Among them were:

-- Latino voters overwhelmingly agree (90 percent) that we can "protect the environment and create jobs at the same time," with 69 percent in strong agreement with that statement while only eight percent disagree.
-- Two-thirds of Latino voters (66 percent) consider themselves "conservationists", with nearly three out of 10 (28 percent) strongly self-identifying as conservationists;

TAXPAYER GROUP, SENIOR ADVOCATES GRADE DIFFERENTLY; Two statewide organizations last week released legislative scorecards ranking California legislators based on their voting records. Naturally, that includes the two candidates in the 26th Congressional District.

The scorecard produced by the California Congress of Seniors gave Assemblywoman Brownley a 100 percent score, and Senator Strickland a grade of 42 percent.

The scorecard produced by California Taxpayers Association gave Strickland a 100 percent score and a score of 31 percent to Brownley.