(A tongue-in-cheek post, with a serious thought at the end…)
My State Senator, Repubican State Senator Tom Harman, recently held a little contest in his district where he asked for suggestions from local students on potential legislation. For the winner of the contest for the best bill idea, who happened to be a local high school student, Harman agreed to introduce their suggestion as legislation.
I would like to encourage the Senator to have another contest. This one would be to ask bloggers in his district for our ideas for legislation. In anticipate of the Senator seeing the wisdom of this idea, I am going to get ahead of the game by laying out my proposed legislation right now!
In the Sacramento area, there is a home being used for business purposes in a residential neighborhood. What’s happenning is that this that every room in this home has been rented a transient occupant — specifically, state legislators! For our discussion, let’s refer to burgeoning blight on a serene, peaceful neighborhood as a Legislative Living Home.
As you might expect, this endeavor is a cash cow for the owner, who may very well expand his operations and place more LLH’s into this very neighborhood! And the scary part is that right now, if we don’t get a law passed, no one can stop him!
All of the positive cash flow for the owner clearly encourages him to turn a blind eye to the eyesore he has created in the local neighborhood.
So here is my proposed law:
1) The state shall create a new officially licensed designation for residences called Legislative Living Homes (LLH’s).
– Clearly the State of California has an interest in knowing how many of these (LLH’s) exist, and local governments should have access to this information in order to determine if one of these LLH’s has been established next door to say, a Councilmember with children!
2) These homes shall be open to warrent-less inspection at all times of the day and night.
– We cannot trust legislators to behave maturely and appropriately in the State Capitol. Clearly the government has an interest in making sure that the occupants of an LLH in a quiet neigborhood are well behaved. Spot inspections should do the trick.
3) Legislative Living Homes may not be located within 100 yards of one another.
– We all know that too many legislators working together have already wreaked havoc on California government. Too many legislators living together in one neighborhood is sure to reduce property values. They are also notoriously bad neighbors, talking on their cell phones at wee hours, and constantly throwing parties. This particular restriction also severely mitigates any potential Brown Act violations.
Here’s the funny part — I am not really proposing that anyone carry this legislative proposal, but this Legislative Living Home really does exist in a suburb of Sacramento. It’s occupants are four people are readers know well — Republicans all. Two of them write for our site — Anthony Adams and 
Doug LaMalfa, and two others are our friends Jeff Denham and George Plescia! And their landlord is…. Tom Harman!
Now for the not so funny part — Tom Harman is carrying legislation that would actually place a lot of the restrictions that I suggested above to Sober Living Homes, and it is a terrible idea. It is a ‘taking’ of property rights that same as imposing my ludicrous bill idea would be a ‘taking’ of Tom Harman’s property rights.
In the meantime, I expect that we’ll hear from Adams and LaMalfa soon about whether they, as transient occupants of the state’s only known Legislative Living Home. I’m sure that the warrant-less search component would be very troublesome for Adams, given that it is well known that he sleeps in "Superman" pajamas.
