When Mark Ridley-Thomas was an LA City councilman during the LA Riots of 1992, he personally authored legislation that prohibited over 3000 market and shop owners from rebuilding their businesses. Claiming that the markets were encouraging lawless behavior and the prices were too steep, thousands of Korean-American merchants lost even more following the riots. The real victims were those who served the community as store owners. His economic policy continues to cause his community to suffer poor services, gang violence and failing schools. His legacy was to stop economic progress for his constituents and to fear the growing Latino influence in his historically black seat.
Since moving to the Senate, Ridley-Thomas believes his work is incomplete. As chair of the Business and Professions Committee, he set his cross hairs on the chiropractic profession. He seeks to simply abolish the civil rights protection that the chiropractors earned in 1922, when they got sufficient signatures to permit California voters by Initiative to approve the Chiropractic Act. The Act permitted chiropractors to see patients without fear of medical and legal persecution. The Act has worked well 85 years.
The Board’s Executive Director was fired for conflicts of interest and incompetence. But she ran to the Bee, leaked confidential documents and raised hell (of course the Bee helped her out with some ‘sensationalized’ reporting that belonged in People magazine. More important, Ridley-Thomas saw an opportunity to embarrass the Governor, because two of Arnold’s close friends were just appointed, by Arnold, to the Chiropractic Board.
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