This morning the California State Senate will finish up the (painful) process of passing out legislation out of the upper house, as the deadline for passing bills out of their “house of origin” is upon us.
Senator Roth campaigned as a "pro-business" Democrat.
Of of the handful of remaining bills to be voted on today is SB 405, authored by Los Angeles State Senator Alex Padilla, that would ban every single grocery store in California from using plastic bags for customers to carry home their purchases. I wrote about this bill at length last Friday, and you can read that here. There are a LOT of sound policy reasons to oppose this legislation. One of the reasons is that it a job-killer. Many of the plastic bags used by Californians are made right here in California. Obviously such a ban would end the jobs of those who currently make them.
So it is with some cynicism that I heard through the grapevine that one of the Senators leaning towards supporting this extreme environmentalist legislation is none other than State Senator Richard Roth. Roth, who one a hotly contested, expensive race last year against Republican Assemblyman Jeff Miller, throwing himself before voters as a “pro-business” Democrat who would be an independent voice in Sacramento.
Well, I commend my friends at the Riverside Press Enterprise to keep an eye on this particular bill, and Roth’s vote on it.
This legislation is extremely poor public policy. Where I live a local (coastal) city, San Clemente, had a vigorous debate on whether to enact a similar ban. After having that thorough discussion, they decided against it.