Jerry Brown has been busy with the annual flurry of signing/vetoing bills that have stacked up by the hundreds over the past legislative year. Just this week he has:
1. created an inspector general for the state National Guard. Is there no institution that liberals can't turn into a sinkhole of waste requiring the appointment of an IG?
2. banned the "open display" (hubba hubba) of unloaded rifles.
3. funded a statute of Ronaldus, and saying that Reagan raised taxes. Note to 21st century GOP: if you agree to any "deals" with liberals you will get their tax increases, but not your ephemeral spending cuts, and jerks in the year 2050 will cite your "unique" leadership in support of their latest tax schemes.
4. created an on-line digital library of college textbooks.
5. prohibited schools and employers from asking for people's social media passwords as a condition of employment/enrollment. Boy, it's hard to believe this is a wide-ranging problem, but legislators gotta legislate...
6. banned the use of dog packs to hunts bears and bobcats. I believe this was sponsored by the same state senator who banned the sale of shark fins. He is obviously in the pocket of Big Carnivore.
7. OTOH, you can still trap bats, if you are looking for some Big Game.
8. designated the Pacific leatherback sea turtle as the official state marine reptile. At Last!
9. authorized driver-less cars. Am looking forward to extended naptime.
And, miraculously,
10. vetoed a bill that would increase the penalty for talking on the phone while driving. Brown says the current fines are deterrent enough, which isn't true as millions of scofflaws will attest. I'm sure it's never going to be an option to do away with this entirely. we probably won't be able to use our cell phones in our driver-less cars.
Oh, and California has apparently created some kind of state-guaranteed pension system for private sector workers; I guess because the public sector one has worked so well.
Democratic Sen. Kevin de León of Los Angeles pushed the two measures, Senate Bills 1234 and 923, respectively.
De Leon's goal is to create a voluntary savings plan in which private-sector workers would be guaranteed a minimal rate of return, through insurance, to supplement their Social Security retirement income.
The concept is to have private-sector workers contribute 3 percent of their pay, with the money pooled in a state-administered fund that would be professionally and conservatively managed and invested.
About $1 million must be raised in private funds - perhaps through nonprofit groups and public policy think tanks - to undertake a market analysis designed to determine the feasibility of de Leon's plan.
UPDATE: Sheesh! In the 24 hours since I first drafted this post, Jerry has
(1) authorized the DMV to issue driver's licenses to illegal aliens qualified to work under the DREAM Act. Licenses for illegal aliens was one of the sparks that lit the recall against Gray Davis. We'll see if CA Republicans have any spark left.
(2) "banned" the use of "gay-repair" therapy. Hard to imagine anything good will come of this. If the law prevents psychs from even discussing the matter with a patient who genuinely doesn't want to be gay, I don't see how that can possibly be constitutional. (free speech, and all that). Also, the bill proponents were addressing the "problem" of parents taking their teen-aged sons to therapists after their kids started showing signs of, ahem, homosexual thoughts. What if the kid was sexually abused and is now experiencing extreme confusion about his sexual orientation? Guess he and the therapist will have to work out a system of hand signs.
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