Contributor

John Campbell

John Campbell (R-Irvine) is an Assemblyman representing the 70th District in Orange County. Mr. Campbell is the Vice-Chairman of the Assembly Budget Committee. He is the only CPA in the California State legislature and recently received a national award as Freshman Republican Legislator of the Year. He represents the cities of Newport Beach, Laguna Beach, Irvine, Costa Mesa, Tustin, Aliso Viejo, Laguna Woods and Lake Forest. He can be reached through his Assembly website and through the website for his California Senate campaign.

Budget Pain and Union Payback
The Governor scolds and Plumbers pay-for-play
[John Campbell] 7/19/03

Budget Notes: The Governor spoke this week chastising the "pain" that would be caused by Republicans proposed 4% reduction in spending in the budget. Naturally, the Governor's claims of what our proposals will do are scare tactics and completely false. But the Governor should be focused on a few other things. Our credit rating as a state, already the lowest in the nation, is poised to drop again. His budget proposals are based on a tripling of the car tax which will likely be found illegal and have to be paid back, thus creating another budget shortfall in the future. And some of the debt the state has pledged to take on has already been challenged in court and may blow another hole in his budget proposal. Spending less is the only thing the state can do that is guaranteed to work regardless of the economy or our credit rating. Spending less is the only thing the state can do that Wall Street can count on to close the deficit. Spending less is the only thing the state can do that reverses the conditions that got us to this problem. And unfortunately, it appears that spending less is still the one thing that the Davis Democrats say they will not do. But if we don't spend less, we will be right back here dealing with another huge deficit next year. But maybe that deficit will be inherited by a new Governor.

More Pay to Play: You may remember in the past few years that plumbers union bosses had donated $3 million to Gray Davis' campaign and shortly thereafter, California banned the use of certain easy to install plumbing pipes. Well, the beat goes on. The Governor has appointed an employee of that union and a former lobbyist for the union to the commission that determines state building standards. This commission will be voting on an entirely new set of building standards soon. As you might have guessed, the plumbers union bosses are pushing a particular set of building standards that will require lots more labor for no benefit in safety or reliability and raise the cost of everything built in this state. A huge coalition of public officials, architects, builders and other building trades favor the more reasonable set of codes. The union bosses set of codes has been adopted by only one jurisdiction in the country.....Pasadena, Texas. I have called for the removal of these 2 conflicted members of the commission. Otherwise, we may have another situation where you pay more, and Davis' campaign contributors get more.