Nutty John Cox for California Governor?

July 31, 2017 By Geoffrey Cantor 20 Comments

John CoxJohn Cox was hardly a serious candidate for governor of California when the first UC Berkeley/IGS poll was announced earlier this year in March and gave him, the only Republican listed in the poll, 18 percent of the vote and the prized second spot against Gavin Newsom, suggesting to amateur political observers that he might have a chance to get into a November 2018 Republican vs. Democrat run-off with Newsom, offering the California GOP its first long-shot chance at statewide office in years. The ensuing press reports took Cox seriously. But none of the reporters did much homework on Cox, labeling him positively as a political newcomer or outsider. They all failed to mention he had been on the ballot before in California, with an awful showing. The reporters could have recalled for readers that Cox was surely not a fresh face to our statewide ballot, and that the last time he was on it, he ran for the Republican nomination for president in the February, 2008 primary, and proved a miserable votegetter, barely mustering 3,200 votes statewide, finishing with .01 percent, while both John McCain and Mitt Romney drew over a million votes each.

Cox, a native of Illinois, is a candidate for governor who must NOT be taken seriously. He is a serial candidate, and what older Republican operatives might label a “Harold Stassen.” Stassen once served as governor of Minnesota and was termed a “boy wonder,” but was bit so hard by the political bug that he ran for the GOP nomination for president, unsuccessfully, 9 times in a row, losing every time. Yet Cox differs from Stassen in that Cox has never won any elective office, and he has run plenty of times. He has actually hit a trifecta of losses having run for every federal office one can, losing each time. Cox has run for Cook County Clerk, Congress, and U.S. Senate, all in Illinois, losing all the races, all losses by wide margins.

But in 2008, despite all his previous electoral defeats, Cox decided to run for president as well. He says he contributed $1 million to his campaign, visited all 99 counties in Iowa, campaigned hard in New Hampshire with 14 visits, visited South Carolina 10 times to campaign, and appeared on the ballot in California. During his campaign, he got into an altercation with security at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley because his campaign performance had proven so insignificant that they would not let him in to the presidential debate. Even though he was excluded, he still tried to use a questionable media credential to enter the premises under the ruse he was a fake press operative. His vote-getting prowess was a disaster – he received not one delegate to the Republican National Convention. In major counties in California that will be very important to the governor’s race, like Fresno, for example, he got just 60 votes across the county’s three congressional districts, according to the California Secretary of State’s office.

By June 2017, Cox quickly fell in the gubernatorial race polls, losing 50 percent of his initial support, in the second UC Berkeley/IGS  poll when just one other Republican was added to the mix by the poll authors – this time former Assemblyman David Hadley, who was not an announced candidate for governor at the time he was added to the poll and who has since stated he is not running for the office. The significance of the second poll, with Cox running hard for several months yet dropping from 18 percent to 9 percent as an announced candidate, and Hadley at 7 percent as an unannounced candidate with no campaign, established that Republicans had hardly raised a groundswell of support for Cox in the first poll, rather, Cox made a showing in the first poll in March because he was the only candidate on the poll Republicans had to chose from. As soon as another Republican was put on the list to chose from in the second poll, even someone not running for the office at the time, Cox’s support quickly and very significantly tanked.

Cox’s lack of real support was evidenced again in a poll in Silicon Valley in May where, once again, when listed as the only Republican on the ballot he received 16 percent of the vote, however, when the poll considered “favorability,” Cox garnered a terrible 3 percent, the lowest favorability rate of all the candidates.

When asked, Cox would not tell the San Francisco Chronicle whether or not he voted for Donald Trump for president. While Cox’s strategy may be to separate himself from Trump, who surely is not as popular in California as Gavin Newsom, Cox will not be endearing himself with the thousands of members of Republican volunteer organizations in the state who care about their party’s candidates. Members of the California Republican Woman’s Federated Clubs, for example, who form many local clubs that are the backbone of the state GOP’s grass-roots operations, may or may not have supported Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential race, but they surely all overwhelmingly voted for him as the Republican Party’s candidate for president, even if some of them had to “hold their noses” out of party loyalty. These voters will not be impressed with Cox’s lack of candor about his own presidential vote, which will stink to them of party disloyalty.

The issues Californians and Republicans care about in opinion polls, like being taxed too much, do not appear on Cox’s radar screen. Cox’s central campaign theme is his “Neighborhood Legislature” idea, to expand the California Senate and Assembly to 12,000 members. It is truly a nutty idea that has no support in opinion polls. While the state Legislature truly is in need of reform, like making itself a part-time body, world history tells us increasing its size to that of a small coastal city is not going to improve policy. There were also thousands of members of the Soviet Union’s legislative body, far too many, intentionally, to actually make decisions, and the result was the concentration of power in a small committee known as the Politburo, which established a “dictatorship of the proletariat.” We are close enough as it is today with near dictatorship of Democratic control in Sacramento, to just add thousands more people to the legislative ranks.

What California needs is some political balance, and if the Republican Party can settle on a single, strong candidate to run for governor in a field of many Democrats, there is indeed a long-shot chance a united GOP could get their candidate into a run-off with a Democrat and then see what happens. The fact is Maryland, Massachusetts and Illinois, all deeply “blue” Democratic states, currently have Republican governors, elected to balance Democratic control in the state. It would be a tough order for the GOP to fulfill, but not impossible, as long as Republicans end up with a candidate with a much better vote-getting history, and who runs on issues voters actually care about, than nutty John Cox.

 

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California Republicans sweat Trump effect

July 10, 2017 By Carla Marinucci 26 Comments

Travis-Allen-Associated-PressSAN FRANCISCO — Republicans running for governor in the Democratic stronghold of California face a myriad of challenges. One of the them is how to handle the issue of Donald Trump.

Travis Allen, an assemblyman who announced his bid last week to succeed Jerry Brown as the state’s next governor, argues that he’s already a standout — of the three leading Republicans in the race, he alone proudly admits voting for the president.

“There were 4.4 million Republicans in California who voted for Trump, and they are looking for real leadership in California,” Allen told POLITICO last week as he tooled around the state’s highways on a campaign trip.

He said the reluctance of the leading GOP challengers — millionaire businessman John Cox and former Assemblyman David Hadley — to embrace Trump and his positions “may not sit very well with Republicans who are voting come June 2018.”

Yet at the same time, the deep animus toward Trump in California makes embracing him a difficult proposition for any candidate who hopes to win a general election. Together, it’s presenting a thorny situation for GOP candidates as the state’s marquee 2018 race ramps up.

In an overwhelmingly blue state — where Democrats hold a 19-point voter registration edge over Republicans — leading Democratic contenders like Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, state Treasurer John Chiang and former state Superintendent of Schools Delaine Eastin are busy collecting donors’ checks and are widely covered by major media outlets.

By contrast, the GOP candidates in California are relative unknowns who, on top of a party registration gap, face the hurdles of the state’s “top two” primary system — which calls for the top two vote-getters of either party to advance to the general election. In a crowded gubernatorial field, that drastically decreases their chances of making it to the general election.

And this year, the Republican candidates have the added “Trump factor” to contend with.

Thanks to Trump — whose approval rating in California is just 27 percent and who lost the popular vote by 4 million votes here — getting to the governorship is “almost an insurmountable mountain for Republicans to climb,’’ said USC political analyst Sherry Bebitch Jeffe.

The delicate formula for victory involves backing Trump enough to please the party’s base — volunteers and donors who are critical to success — while not alienating the independents, 1 in 4 state voters who could make the winning difference in the general election.

Jim Lacy, a Trump delegate to the Republican National Convention and author of “Taxifornia: Liberals’ Laboratory to Bankrupt California,” frankly acknowledges that “if a Republican candidate went out and fully embraced Trump, and shouted through the state that they’re Trump’s candidate for governor,” it would almost certainly end their chances to make it to the state’s general election.

But he says there’s a way to thread the needle — though to have any chance of victory, a California Republican must have the backing of the loyal GOP grass-roots activists and donors who can make or break a campaign here.

“Even though many of them didn’t like Trump, they voted for him because they are tried-and-true Republicans,’’ Lacy said. Allen alone “can very proudly say he voted for the GOP candidate — and that these other folks who say they are Republican haven’t done so.”

Hadley — a moderate who has in the past won the backing of millionaire donor Charles Munger Jr. — told the Los Angeles Times recently that he didn’t vote for Trump in the 2016 election. The former assemblyman said he hopes to appeal to voters who may be willing to cross party lines and that he will soon announce endorsements from more than 20 GOP members of the legislature.

Cox, in a past interview with POLITICO, declined to say for whom he cast his vote, though he said last week that he is glad Hillary Clinton didn’t win, because she “would have been a disaster.”

But Cox, who ran for both U.S. Senate and president in Illinois before he moved to California — and has never been elected to office — has wholly embraced the Trumpian notion that an outsider can offer fresh solutions and break up the stale government insiders’ hold on Sacramento. “I’m a businessman, not a politician,’’ he said, a line that comes directly from Trump’s playbook. “I’m running to clean out the barn.”

Yet he’s also carefully attempted to distance himself from some of the president’s more controversial moves — his tweets, for example. “Take a look at my Twitter feed,’’ he said, when asked about Trump’s critiques of the media, TV personalities and the intelligence community. “My tweets are positive … that’s the tenor of what you’ll see coming out of me. … I’m not going to comment on the president.”

All three GOP candidates accuse Democrats — who hold supermajorities in both houses of the California legislature — of overreaching, and Brown of failing to keep them in check. Despite the open hostility of many California political leaders to Trump, Allen argues Democrats and independents are not all in lockstep with the “State of Resistance” agenda on issues like sanctuary cities.

“A friendly relationship with the White House could only benefit California’’ in areas like infrastructure, jobs and federal funding, Allen said.

“It’s up to the government in California to take care of our state first and foremost,’’ he said. “And this is what has been completely lacking with the Democrat leadership in Sacramento — from Jerry Brown to [Senate President] Kevin de Leon to [Attorney General] Xavier Becerra. They have taken an antagonistic stance, regardless of the detrimental effect to the state, and it’s gotta change.”

Allen cites Brown’s recent support for an increase in the state gas tax, which he argues is unpopular and won’t solve the state’s traffic gridlock problems. He also points to sanctuary cities — a concept that polls show is not nearly as popular as Democrats suggest, he argues.

“There is a widely held misconception that the Democrats are invincible in California,’’ he said “But there is a silent supermajority that has been marginalized and forgotten by Jerry Brown and the ruling Democrats. These are the people who are screaming at their TVs every night and can’t understand why their politicians aren’t listening to them.’’

Allen said he’s already lined up party-slate mailers that will reach 14 million of those voters by the fall — an advantage he argues will give him a major advantage over his fellow Republicans in a state with eight major media markets where TV spots are among the most expensive in the country.

But even that may not be enough. On the fundraising front, Democrats have raised more than $20 million to date — and front-runner Newsom alone has banked more than $10 million. By contrast, GOP front-runner Cox, who says he’s putting $3 million of his own money in the race, last week announced he has raised $202,000 — the most to date in the Republican field.

Hoover Institution fellow Bill Whalen, who was an adviser to former GOP Gov. Pete Wilson, says popular San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer dashed the Republican Party’s hopes recently by insisting again that he won’t enter the race, so “there is not an alpha in the field.” As a result, Republican candidates will get even less attention.

Which means “until any of these candidates show serious money or the ability to raise their name recognition, let’s forget about Donald Trump,” Whalen said. “He’s the least of their problems.”

This article was originally published by Politico.com

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SCOTUS declines to review CA asset seizure practice

March 7, 2016 By James Poulos Leave a Comment
Photo courtesy Envios, flickr

Photo courtesy Envios, flickr

The U.S. Supreme Court declined to take on a 15-year-old case challenging California’s asset seizure practices.

The justices decided “they would not hear a long-running lawsuit that contends the state does not do enough to notify the rightful owners before seizing their assets,” the San Francisco Chronicle reported. “Under the state’s law, accounts can be seized if a bank or retirement fund has lost track of the owner for three years. But lawyers who sued called the state’s system a ‘recipe for abuse’ because many people are unaware that their assets or those of a relative are being held by the state.”

The suit put the court’s interpretation of fundamental constitutional rights at stake. “Lead plaintiff Chris Taylor filed the class action at issue back in 2001, taking aim at California’s Unclaimed Property Law, which provides for the conditional transfer to the state of unclaimed property such as savings accounts or shares of stock,” Courthouse News reported. “Taylor accused state controller Betty Yee of violating due-process rights by transferring property to the state without providing the potential owners adequate notice.”

“During the intervening years, the challenge brought several amendments to the law’s notice procedures. Chief among them, California now notifies potential owners before the state transfers the unclaimed property, not after.”

Room for abuse

But the state has not changed its passive stance on money “which they freely admit they owe to someone (or that person’s heirs if they are deceased) but are unable to deliver because they can’t find them,” as HotAir noted. Other states, the site observed, had reason to watch the case closely. As CNN Money has calculated, “States, federal agencies and other organizations collectively hold more than $58 billion in unclaimed cash and benefits. That’s roughly $186 for every U.S. resident. The unclaimed property comes from a variety of sources, including abandoned bank accounts and stock holdings, unclaimed life insurance payouts and forgotten pension benefits.”

Critics have charged that governments take advantage of the perverse incentive to keep people in the dark about what they’re owed. California alone has amassed some $8 billion in unclaimed assets, according to the Los Angeles Times; “from this fund, it takes about $450 million a year to add to the state budget,” the paper reported.

Future hopes

Two justices did offer Taylor and his supporters a small consolation prize. In a concurring opinion, Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas recommended that the court consider “in a future case” how proactive states should be in similar situations.

“As advances in technology make it easier and easier to identify and locate property owners, many states appear to be doing less and less to meet their constitutional obligation to provide adequate notice” prior to seizure, Alito reasoned. “Cash-strapped states undoubtedly have a real interest in taking advantage of truly abandoned property to shore up state budgets. But they also have an obligation to return property when its owner can be located.” Alito said “the convoluted history” of Taylor’s suit “makes it a poor vehicle for reviewing the important question it presents[.]”

Legislative divisions

More broadly, asset forfeiture laws have become a target for reformers in both political parties, with bills attracting controversy in states across the country. Last year, a divided Legislature in Sacramento saw Senate Bill 443 sail through the Senate but sink in the Assembly. State Sen. Holly Mitchell, D-Los Angeles, and Assemblyman David Hadley, R-Torrance, “would have reformed the state’s asset forfeiture regulations to require that police and prosecutors actually convict citizens of crimes before seizing ownership of their assets to spend on themselves,” as Reason magazine noted. Between the Senate’s vote and the Assembly’s, state police and prosecutors mobilized effectively to prevent the bill from becoming law.

Originally published by CalWatchdog.com

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Lowest-Paid Legislators Wear Distinction As Badge of Honor

February 27, 2016 By Matt Fleming 1 Comment

Richard RothOnly in public office could the distinction of lowest paid be worn as a badge of honor.

But Richard Roth, a Riverside Democrat, has refused every pay increase since being elected to the state Senate in 2012, making $90,526 per year in base salary.

Most members of the California Legislature make $100,113 per year, with leadership drawing checks for as much as $115,129. In fact, Roth is the only senator currently paid below the going rate, although there are several like-minded members of the Assembly.

Roth spokesperson Shrujal Joseph told CalWatchdog that Roth believes he has an obligation to perform his duties at the pay rate voters agreed to when he was elected.

“If fortunate enough to be re-elected, Senator Roth will accept the pay that is in effect then, whether it be higher or lower,” said Joseph.

Members of the Assembly

Fullerton Republican Young Kim is the lowest paid member of the Assembly, earning $95,291 annually. Like Roth, she’s refused every pay increase since being elected in 2014 — including one that passed right before she was elected but came into effect afterwards.

Six other members of the Assembly refused one pay increase, earning $97,197. Four are Republicans: Catharine Baker of San Ramon, Shannon Grove of Bakersfield, David Hadley of Torrance and Tom Lackey of Palmdale. Two are Democrats: Ken Cooley of Rancho Cordova and Jacqui Irwin of Thousand Oaks.

California Citizens Compensation Commission

Pay for legislators, and constitutional officers like governor and attorney general, is determined annually by the California Citizens Compensation Commission, which will meet again on April 27. The CCCC also determines benefits.

The CCCC is a seven-member panel, appointed by the governor, which is supposed to represent different segments of the community and different areas of expertise, including one member with expertise in compensation (like an economist); one representing the general public (like a homemaker/retiree/person of median income); one representing the nonprofit world; one who is an executive at a large CA employer; one who represents small business; and two labor representatives.

According to Tom Dalzell, the CCCC chairman, it’s unclear if another raise will be in order as he hasn’t “begun to think about it,” but noted the sacrifice many legislators make by leaving lucrative careers for public office. And in general, pay is considered one of the biggest lures of top talent.

Dalzell, who is a business manager for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1245 and occupies one of the CCCC’s labor seats, said that in determining whether to increase, freeze or reduce pay, the CCCC considers the state budget, the consumer price index and survey data on local elected officials.

Pay Scale History

California has the highest paid state legislators in the country, according to the National Conference of State Legislators. They are also paid well above the state’s median income of around $61,084.

On the whole, base salary for legislators has increased since 2005. To be more precise, legislators have received six increases, three freezes and two reductions since 2005. To be even more precise, base salary went from $99,000 in 2005 to the $100,113 base salary it is today — after salaries had been frozen between 1999 to 2005.

The two reductions were largely orchestrated by the former chairman Charles Murray, a holdover appointee from the Schwarzenegger administration. Murray stepped down almost a year ago to the day.

The six increases: 2005 – 12 percent increase; 2006 – 2 percent increase; 2007 – 2.75 percent increase; 2013 – 5 percent increase; 2014 – 2 percent increase; 2015 – 3 percent increase.

The two decreases: 2009 – 18 percent reduction; 2012 – 5 percent reduction.

And the three freezes were in 2008, 2010 and 2011.

As readers can probably imagine, the decreases were unpopular in Sacramento. In fact, one former legislator fought a cut — the 18 percent reduction in 2009 that slashed salaries from $116,208 to $95,291 — by appealing to both Brown and the California Victim Compensation and Government Claims Board.

Neither appeal was successful.

This piece was originally published by CalWatchdog.com

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Legislature gives in to lobbyists, fails to reform asset forfeiture

September 12, 2015 By James Poulos 4 Comments

Government agencies will continue to have the power to confiscate private property in California – without a criminal conviction – after lawmakers bowed to intense lobbying pressure by agencies with a vested interest in maintaining California’s civil asset forfeiture system.Asset forfeiture

“No one should lose his or her property without being first convicted of a crime,” said Scott Bullock, a senior attorney with the Institute for Justice, which has pushed for a nationwide reform of asset forfeiture laws. “That’s a basic tenant that most Americans are shocked to learn is being violated daily by law enforcement officials nationwide.”

On Thursday, the state Assembly rejected legislation on a 24-44 vote that would have reformed the state’s rules for seizing assets of those suspected of criminal activity.

A bipartisan coalition of lawmakers urged their colleagues to defend the due process and property rights of those not yet convicted of a crime.

“We have today the opportunity to restore a core principle of American justice, and that is that no person’s property can be taken from him or her without due process of law, without a trial and a conviction,” said Assemblyman David Hadley, R-Torrance, who carried the bill in the lower house. “In California in the last 20 years, tens of thousands of people have had property taken and that property has not been returned – even though those individuals have neither been charged with a crime nor convicted of a crime.”

Asset Forfeiture: Controversial Tool for Targeting Criminals

Under the country’s asset forfeiture system, law enforcement agencies have the legal authority to confiscate property of anyone suspected of a crime. Those agencies are then entitled to keep a percentage of the assets – providing a direct financial incentive for government agents to seize personal property.

Law enforcement agencies defend the practice as a vital tool for stopping organized crime and prosecuting drug dealers.

“Is there anyone who could seriously argue that that dealer should be able to still keep the dirty money derived from those illegal sales?” asked Chula Vista Police Chief David Bejarano, who also serves as president of the California Police Chiefs Association, in a recent Sacramento Bee op-ed piece. “How about the low-level criminals frequently paid by drug dealers to transport dirty money?”

Critics of the practice say it has been widely abused, indiscriminately punishing average citizens alongside criminal masterminds. A multi-year investigation by the Drug Policy Alliance, “Above the Law: An Investigation of Civil Asset Forfeiture Abuses in California,” found that the average value of a state seizure in California in 2013 was $8,542.

“Unfortunately, forfeiture has become a widely abused practice,” explains Steven Greenhut, the San Diego Union-Tribune’s California columnist. “Instead of targeting drug kingpins as intended, police sometimes target average citizens who haven’t been convicted or even accused of a crime.”

California law enforcement agencies circumvent state law

Each state has its own rules governing asset forfeiture. Under federal law, any amount can be seized without a conviction. In California, assets valued at less than $25,000 are exempt from seizure. To evade California’s basic legal protections, law enforcement agencies have partnered with federal agencies, who keep a cut and pass along some of the seized assets to their local counterparts.

Senate Bill 443, authored by Senator Holly Mitchell, D-Los Angeles, would have required a conviction for most asset forfeiture cases and blocked law enforcement agencies in California from using federal agencies as a middleman for circumventing state law.

According to a legislative analysis of the bill, “Under federal law, 20 percent of revenue from forfeited assets is retained by the federal agency involved, and 80 percent is allocated to the local agencies involved in the seizure in proportion to their involvement in the case.”

In the past decade, California law enforcement agencies have seen their share of seized assets more than triple to more than $100 million per year. California law enforcement agencies received $89.6 million in funds from the Federal Equitable Sharing Program in 2014 — on top of approximately $28 million in assets seized at the state level.

Law enforcement lobbying to maintain vested interest

Public safety groups that have a vested interest in maintaining civil asset forfeiture rules waged an intense lobbying campaign to defeat the bill. The California District Attorneys Association launched an effort targeted at individual members.

In one flyer, the group targeted Assemblyman Phil Ting of San Francisco, claiming his support for the measure would cost his district $2.1 million in law enforcement funding.

The scare tactics included dire warnings that Sen. Mitchell’s legislation would jeopardize hundreds of millions of dollars in federal law enforcement funding.

“These requirements would violate federal forfeiture guidelines, and would thus end all federal equitable sharing for over 200 law enforcement agencies and task forces in California,” wrote Sean Hoffman, director of legislation for the California District Attorneys Association. “SB443 will severely reduce valuable resources obtained through drug asset forfeiture that fund investigation and prosecution, drug treatment and prevention, training, and community based organizations.”

Originally published by CalWatchdog.com

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Check Under the Hood Before Letting California Pass New Fuel Rules

September 2, 2015 By Susan Shelley 5 Comments

Gas-Pump-blue-generic+flippedDuring World War II, Americans endured rationing of food and gasoline. The federal government issued ration books and enforced tight limits on purchases.

When the war ended, nothing better symbolized the triumph of freedom than the return of gleaming new cars to the showrooms. “Just step on the gas and go,” enthused the announcer in an ad for the “futuramic” 1948 Oldsmobile.

Today, some California lawmakers want to hit the brakes. Senate Bill 350 — no relation to the 350 engine — would force a 50 percent reduction in the use of petroleum for California vehicles by 2030.

You’d think elected officials proposing such a drastic measure would have a clear idea of how they plan to achieve it and a very good reason why it’s necessary.

You’d be wrong.

Their plan is to turn the whole project over to the California Air Resources Board, an unaccountable panel of appointees that write and enforce the state’s regulations on climate change and air pollution. Would CARB impose gas rationing to meet the 50 percent reduction target?

An aide to Gov. Jerry Brown recently laughed that off as “ridiculous,” but SB350’s author, Sen. Kevin de León, said Tuesday he’s working on amendments, which could include a ban on gas rationing. He also said he plans to increase oversight of CARB, though he didn’t say how.

CARB chair Mary Nichols may have the clout to resist any changes. Over the years she has personally donated more than $75,000 to state legislative campaigns and to the governor.

CARB enforces the 2006 law known as AB32, which forced utilities to buy a greater percentage of expensive renewable energy and imposed a cap-and-trade system to penalize greenhouse gas emissions. As a result, California now has some of the highest electricity rates and fuel prices in the nation. SB350 and its companion, SB32, would mandate even higher, costlier targets for greenhouse gas reduction, renewable fuel use and energy efficiency in addition to the 50 percent petroleum cutback.

To enforce the limits, CARB could use data from your car’s onboard computer, downloaded at smog checks, to collect a road-usage tax or a fine for excessive “vehicle miles traveled.” Maybe new regulations will simply make gasoline more expensive until people stop driving, or stop eating.

It remains a stubborn fact that limiting greenhouse gas emissions in California will have absolutely no effect on the climate, now or in the future.

SB350’s proponents say California must lead the world, at your expense. But no other state has followed our lead to establish the type of cap-and-trade system that has left Californians paying higher prices for everything that’s produced or transported in the state. Nobody wants our higher cost of living, or our poverty rate of nearly 25 percent.

Assemblyman David Hadley, R-Torrance, said he doesn’t discount concerns about climate change but worries that the carbon reduction mandates in SB350 will be met “by impoverishing entire regions of California and bankrupting entire industries.” Since California accounts for only about 1 percent of the carbon emissions of the planet, Hadley said, “We could return our standard of living to the Stone Age and we would not move the needle on carbon emissions.”

Those Flintstone cars are going to look pretty silly in the showrooms, and they’re really going to slow down the carpool lane.

There’s no rational reason for Californians to pay ever higher prices for energy in order to achieve absolutely nothing. We should not tie a tourniquet around our own necks. SB350 and SB32 should be killed before they kill us.

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