top of page

How legislature, governor overdid it

For those of you interested in keeping score, with the hope they might eventually win, I’m sorry to tell you that the tally, ending with September 2017 would be 898 for them and 159 for us. I’m speaking in general of the legislation which reached Governor Jerry Brown’s desk for signature representing the “work” of this legislative session in Sacramento.

The breakdown would appear thus; 1,059 bills were brought forward; the governor signed 898 of those while vetoing 159 others and allowing two others to become law by ignoring them. Funny, I always thought that amounted to a “pocket veto” when no action was taken.

We’re not sure that we understand why it is necessary, year after year, to generate even more laws that generally represent a solution in search of a problem. That makes everything they pass a score against the hard-working, tax-paying citizen.

Obviously none of the people who we have elected to the august position of serving the voting public would never subscribe to the Hippocratic oath which requires physicians to swear that “first of all, they will do no harm.” Maybe it’s time to require them to do so!

Without having the necessary space to parse and analyze each and every one of these manifestations from Sacramento the one conclusion that can be derived from their passage is that it represents a loss of even more freedom for the average citizen. We do know, however, that many of them contain a message of spite for the Trump administration and the majority of United States who voted for Donald Trump.

Spite is not an admirable thing on which to pass any piece of legislation. People with such animus toward another are seldom clear thinkers.

Judging from the content of those which the governor deemed worthy of his signature, one has to wonder about those that he vetoed. It’s a pretty safe bet — given the makeup of the Senate and Assembly — that any of the legislation had a Republican sponsor although some Republicans did cave and join their Democrat colleagues, providing impetus for at least some of this mess. The gas tax would be one of those.

How many of self-serving social measures can California continue to support financially when they are redundant with other social programs? With E.B.T. Cards and numerous other familial support programs is it suddenly necessary to spend taxpayer money to provide free tampons for students in “low income” districts? With an abundance of federal and state programs to support the less fortunate, why is it everyone’s problem to support personal hygiene for high school students?

Taking a broader view, we really don’t understand how it is in the interest of California’s citizens to continue to sue the federal government and take positions that place this state in direct contradiction of federal and law and standards. We understand that the supremacy of the U.S. government over the whims of the individual state has already been adjudicated. If I remember correctly, Erick Holder, who was retained by Jerry Brown to fight the Trump administration, was the Attorney General of the United States who brought the State of Arizona to heel with very similar circumstances. As we recall that battle was about immigration. Precedence carries great weight under the law!

If one were to carefully scrutinize the actions of most of our elected officials one will find very little common sense being brought to bear. Virtually everything that transpires in Sacramento is payment for favors or financial support to unions and special interest donors.

Everything is about maintaining a constituency that has become a bloc vote in California. Even with a state this large and rich they will eventually run out of other people’s money!

But, as always, that’s only one man’s opinion.

Tags:

bottom of page