Last month we published our annual Top 20 Bill To Veto column.  Senators Doug LaMalfa and Mimi Walters culled through every bill that was sent to the Governor at the end of the session, and the worst of the worst made our list.  You can read the original column here.  Below we have pulled the actual 20 bills and as the Governor acts on them, we will continue to update this post…  As of 10/4/2011, the Governor has acted on three of the Top 20 — signing two, and vetoing one…

Assault on the Family

AB 433 (B. Lowenthal) – Requires the state to issue a new birth certificate to California-born, but now out of state residents that have undergone sex-change surgery.  Also allows them to petition the court to have their new gender recognized as such.

AB 499 (Atkins) – Tramples parental consent by allowing children as young as 12 to receive prescription drugs or injections from public school officials to treat diseases caused by sexual activity without guardian notification.

SB 651 (Leno) – This bill authorizes 16 and 17-year-olds to enter into same sex domestic partnerships with adults if they obtain a court order granting permission or parental consent.  Also allows couples to have a domestic partnership but not the same residence.

Incentives For Illegal Immigrants

AB 131 (Cedillo) – The other half of the “California Dream Act” allows the use of the taxpayer-funded Cal-Grant program to be used by illegal immigrant students.

SB 185 (Hernandez) – Defies voter-approved Proposition 209 that removed racial preferences in undergraduate and graduate admissions.  This bill allows the University of California and California State University to consider race, gender, ethnicity, national origin, geographic origin, and household income, along with “other relevant factors.”

Job Destruction

AB 22 (Mendoza) – Prohibits employers doing background checks on prospective employees from obtaining a credit report as part of an informed hiring decision.

AB 1155 (Alejo) – Erodes employers’ protections from covering employee non-work injuries.  This bill results in less new jobs due to increased costs to employers and exposure to more lawsuits.

SB 469 (Vargas) – This is a union-driven, anti-superstore bill.  Requires an economic impact report (paid for by the retailer) before local government approves construction of a superstore.  Funny, there isn’t a requirement for an economic impact report for government’s choking new regulations.

SB 508 (Wolk) – This bill would impose a 10-year sunset on all tax credits beginning January 1, 2012.  It would also require that any bill authorizing a personal or corporation tax credit to include goals, purposes, and objectives, making it much more difficult to reauthorize the tax credit.  Funny that there isn’t a companion bill that would sunset choking regulations to reevaluate that they’re meeting the goals, purposes, and objectives.

Manipulating The Elections Process

SB 202 (Hancock) – Blatant 11^th hour gut-and-amend to postpone the people’s vote on a fiscally responsible, union-opposed rainy day fund from the scheduled June 2012 ballot to November 2014. This bill also prohibits all future initiatives from a June primary, as has been the policy since 1974, stacking them onto November elections only…yet another political manipulation of elections during this session.

SB 397 (Yee) – Invites still more voter fraud by not requiring a live signature of the prospective voter and instead relies on a Department of Motor Vehicles electronic signature image.

The Nanny State

AB 144 (Portantino) – Infringes on the Second Amendment by criminalizing the carrying of unloaded, unconcealed handguns in public places and vehicles (i.e. “open carry”) all because someone might be offended by the sight of a gun.

AB 809 (Feuer) – Requires the registration of all long guns in the State of California.  The state will now keep track of every gun you own.

AB 887 (Atkins) – This bill establishes the “Gender Nondiscrimination Act,” which requires employers to allow cross-dressing in the public work place.  This applies also to schools and retail establishments. Can we now expect a male who chooses to identify himself as a female to use the girls’ restroom or locker room?

Promotion of Fraud

SB 930 (Evans) – Another attempt to unwind the 2009 budget agreement by repealing the IHSS fraud protections included in that budget.  Specifically, this bill would no longer require fingerprints from IHSS recipients and allows providers to use a Post Office Box to receive paychecks.

Union Protections and Expansion

VETOED! AB 101 (Perez) – This bill would force unionization of child care providers, without a formal vote, if it’s deemed that a mere 30% of these providers express “interest” in unionization. Again, without a formal vote by those affected.  Grandma will be forced to pay union dues if she provides child care to her grandkids.  Single moms and families using state child care will now have their budgets stretched even further.

AB 183 (Ma) – This bill would also force unionization by prohibiting the sale of alcoholic beverages at self-service checkout systems which would lead to additional check-out clerks and rising costs for supermarkets.

SIGNED! AB 436 (Solorio) – Further increased costs of public works projects by reneging on previous budget agreements…another union payoff.  In spite of severe deficits, this bill encourages public entities to pay workers more than necessary. It allows agencies to apply prevailing wage to projects under $25,000 which will drive up the cost of projects for the taxpayers.

SB 126 (Steinberg) – Makes it easier for farm workers to unionize by giving the Agriculture Labor Relations Board the authority to certify a union if there is “employer misconduct” (a term open to interpretation) – which means the election results were not in favor of unionizing.

SIGNED! SB 922 (Steinberg) – In yet another power grab by state government pandering to unions, state funding would be cut off for a public works project of a charter city if it has not used project labor agreements (PLAs).  (PLAs are estimated to increases costs by between 12 and 18 percent.)

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 4th, 2011 at 11:15 pm and is filed under Blog Posts.