Today was the final day of the legislative session. For those brave enough, like me, to watch much of the shameful legislation being pushed through by the Democrats – it was almost too much to take. I truly think that we all need to chip in to provide for each Republican legislator to get professional counseling for having had to live through it in person. Mid-day yesterday, Congressman Tom Price (R-GA), the Chairman of the Republican Study Committee in Congress, stopped by my office (we did an interview which you can see on the blog later today). When he came in, I pointed out to him that the State Assembly was debating legislation introduced by Democrats to prohibit employers from using the credit history of a perspective employee as a factor in the hiring decision. He was as outraged as I was.
I did want to share a piece of good news. Much has been written about here on the FlashReport about Assembly Bill 1998 – legislation pushed by an evil coalition of eco-whack legislators and greedy grocers, that sought to both ban the use of plastic bags at grocery and drug stores – and also apply a new state-mandated fee on the sale of paper grocery bags. I am pleased to report that this legislation, despite support and alleged back-room lobbying by the Governor’s office, died in the State Senate, falling well below the necessary 21 votes needed for passage. This legislation represented such an over-reach that a handful of Democrat Senators either voted against the bill, or refrained from voting for the bill. But full credit goes to Senate Republicans who totally rallied against this bill (not one GOP Senator voted for it). Extra kudos to those GOP Senators who performed so admirably on the floor, including Senator Denham and Senator Walters.
I want to express my personal admiration to Jon Coupal and the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, Peter Foy and Americans for Prosperity/California, Grover Norquist and Americans for Tax Reform, Tim Shestek and the Chemistry Council, all of the legislators who voted no on this bill, and all of the other patriots out there who stood up publicly against this bad bill.
All of that said, I have no doubt that this stupid bill will resurface next year. I, for one, will be interested to see if any of the major grocery store chains that supported this plastic bag ban will go ahead of their own volition, free of government coercion, and stop carrying plastic bags…
In closing, there are tons of terrible bills on their way to the Governor (including that job-killer one I referenced in the opening paragraph) that are on the way to Governor Schwarzenegger. Senator Walters, Assemblyman DeVore and I will be cranking out the FlashReport’s Top 20 Bills To Veto pretty quickly. But the reality is that we’d be better off if the Governor just vetoed everything on his desk…
September 1st, 2010 at 12:00 am
Veto all of it.
This crazy legislature should suspended and locked out by the next Governor. The only kind of bags that they should be worried about in the legislature is air sickness bags.