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.

Legislative Break
It can't come soon enough...
[John Campbell] 8/30/03

Countdown: On September 12th the legislature will adjourn for the year (or until a special session is called) and the people will be free from new bad laws for a little while. Democrats are hurrying to pass all sorts of terrible legislation that is continuing the legacy of the last 5 years of Davis/Bustamante and rewarding their union and other special interests at the expense of jobs, the economy and the state budget. Today was the last day to pass bills that Gray Davis would have to sign before the recall election. Any bill passed from now until September 12th doesn't have to be signed or vetoed until 5 days after the recall election. Since the new Governor, if there is one after the recall election, would not be sworn in for probably at least a week, Davis can hold all sorts of bills until after you vote in the election if he wants to.

But he may have pressure to sign all the bad stuff from the unions and others that have bankrolled his previous campaign and upon whom he is relying to bankroll this one.

He has already signaled that he will sign the absolutely hideous undocumented alien driver's license bill. This bill is substantially worse than the bill the Governor vetoed last year. The bill invites and allows voter fraud. It specifically prohibits collection of any information on these non-citizens in our country or use of information by law enforcement. Non-citizens without legal residency would be able to get what is effectively a passport good within the U.S. without an employment requirement, background check, proof that they are in the process of obtaining citizenship or collection of fingerprints on all 10 fingers.

But the Governor and the Lieutenant Governor don't care if they are jeopardizing the security of our entire nation or that our voting rights will be abridged, as long as they keep their jobs.

Abuse of Power: I have often cited actions by the one-party ruling junta in Sacramento to abuse the process because of fear that the people will somehow understand what they are really about. Another example of that yesterday involved SB 122 (Escutia-D) which is a bill that will actually make the situation with the so-called 17200 abusive lawsuits worse. 36 amendments to that bill were made which substantially change it and should require the bill to go back to a committee so that what the bill actually does now can be thoroughly vetted. But the majority party does not want that to occur because they do not want the light of public scrutiny shined upon another blatant gift to the trial lawyers while unfairly hurting thousands of small businesses in California.

Over the next few weeks, We shall see if any of these and many other pieces of bad legislation can be defeated, or if the people must suffer one more round of abuse before things start to change on October 7th.