The two leading Democratic candidates for governor took different approaches Wednesday to pocketbook issues, such as how to pay for the rising cost of college and easing highway congestion in an appearance before the editorial board of The Dallas Morning News.

On college tuition, former Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez proposed to reverse the Legislature’s 2003 decision to let state schools set their own rates and fees. She said lawmakers, aided by experts, should again set tuition. But she offered few details.

“I think we would have to just set a wage, or set a standard to which would be fair all across the state,” Valdez said. “There’s tuition in some schools that are a lot higher than others. We should look at the experts in education and have them help us stair step, or set a standard in tuition. You can’t do this on your own.”

Houston investor Andrew White stopped short of supporting re-regulation of tuition. But he said that if elected, “at the very minimum” he would press state legislators to pass a law requiring state universities and colleges to guarantee that tuition for a student would stay the same for four years.

“They better graduate in four years because after that, we’re not going to freeze it,” he said.

White said the source of the problem is reduced state funding of higher education. However, he offered no details on how he’d find more money for public colleges and universities.

Valdez, White and four other Democrats fielded questions about education, taxes, social issues and how as a member of the minority party they'd govern in GOP-leaning Texas. Three other candidates did not attend the editorial board meeting. The primary is March 6.

Toll roads

On traffic congestion, Valdez said she opposes toll roads such as managed lanes. White called them a necessary evil -- though he said tolls such as those on the Dallas North Tollway should come off at a date certain.

Neither supported Dallas businessman Jeffrey Payne’s call for a 10-cent increase in the state gasoline tax, now 20 cents a gallon.

The average Texan would pay an extra $230 a year, but the increase is necessary, Payne said.

“Money doesn’t grow on trees,” he said. “I’ve looked in my backyard. We have to get the money somewhere.”

Valdez spoke vaguely of hopes that President Donald Trump’s infrastructure proposal, which he touted in his State of the Union speech on Monday, would bring Texas some additional federal funds. She also touted mass transit.

School funding and new revenue

On funding public schools, White repeated his plan to give teachers a $5,000-a-year pay raise by closing a “loophole” by which businesses and industries appeal their property tax valuations and succeed in ratcheting them down. White said ending the practice would generate $5 billion more per budget cycle.

San Antonio populist Tom Wakely, saying White’s proposal is too little to fix a big problem, called for creation of a state corporate income tax to replace the business franchise or “margins” tax.

Payne said the answer to state revenue scarcity is to legalize both recreational and medicinal marijuana and casino gambling.

“We can tax that and regulate it [marijuana] just like we regulate alcohol,” said Payne, who owns a bar among other businesses.

“We lose a ton of money to Oklahoma and Louisiana and New Mexico due to their casinos,” he said. “We need to let the public decide if that’s what they want, if that’s what they want to do. If so, that money should go toward education as well.”

Marijuana legalization

White, the son of the late Gov. Mark White, said he would favor letting voters decide whether to expand gambling. But he said he opposes legalizing pot. White said he favors decriminalizing possession of small amounts of marijuana.

Valdez said she favors legalizing medicinal marijuana.

“If society is ready to accept otherwise, no problem,” she said of recreational marijuana.

She also favored letting Texans vote on expanded gaming.

Self-employed audio-video technician Joe Mumbach of Houston said he favors legalizing and taxing marijuana, which he described as less harmful than legal products such as alcohol and tobacco. He said he personally opposes casinos but would favor a vote.

Certified financial analyst Adrian Ocegueda of Dallas, though, dismissed Payne’s appeals for marijuana legalization and expanded gambling as “simple solutions.” Leaders should study who could be hurt before they leap, he said. Ocegueda called for Democrats to take a broader look at tax reform as the solution to state funding shortages.

Wakely supports marijuana legalization.

He denounced unnamed Republicans in the Legislature as he responded to a question about how often, if elected, he would use the governor’s veto pen.

“I personally don’t think you can negotiate with the state Legislature,” Wakely said. “So many of them are white supremacists. How do you negotiate with a white supremacist?”

He said the power of the veto is the only way to negotiate with such people.