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.

The Bad Beat Goes On...
The bad legislation dogpile...
[John Campbell] 09/10/03

More examples of what Democrats stand for these days that have passed the legislature in the last couple of days:

AB 1742 (Committee on Revenue and Taxation ) - This bill requires taxpayers to "e-file" their state tax returns with the Franchise Tax Board if their tax preparer prepares more than 100 tax returns a year. This is supposed to save the state about $1 million per year in paperwork handling, but it will cost you millions more than that because of the additional costs your CPA must incur to comply. It also means that your most sensitive private information will be flying through the Internet and will be available on state computers for easy access. So, although we just passed a bill to increase the privacy of our financial data with private companies, apparently we can trust the government with way more information that is less secure. Yeah right. STATUS: Passed both houses and on the Governor's desk.

AB 1309 (Goldberg-D) - Under this bill, if a school district eliminates existing housing in order to expand or build a school, they can seize yours or anyone else's house to replace the housing they displaced. This is another assault on property rights and really dumb. STATUS: Passed both houses and on the Governor's desk.

AB 1144 (Pavley-D) - A bill that moves employees of the California State University System closer to "civil service" status so that it is harder to fire them for any reason. STATUS: Passed both houses and on the Governor's desk.

SB 179 (Alarcon -D) - This makes anyone liable for the payment of wages to a contractor's employees if you "knew or should have known" that the price that contractor bid on your job was too low to get it done. More "deep pocket" legislation that will ensure that more trial lawyers move to California and more productive businesses move out. STATUS: Passed bothhouses and on the Governor's desk.

SB 640 (Burton-D) - A bill which prohibits companies from bidding on state contracts if they use offshore tax shelters. This bill will have the affect of reducing the number of bidders on state projects and thereby further increasing costs (and budget deficits) while having no affect on these corporate practices which are under federal jurisdiction anyway. STATUS: Passed Assembly. Headed back to Senate for Concurrence.

Worker's Compensation Insurance - Gee. There is no bill yet. And the bill that is being discussed will only be a band-aid on the problem. Real reform will require a new Governor who will advocate it and sign a bill that will be supported by all Republicans and a few Democrats willing to stand up to the unions ands trial lawyers (if there are any such Democrats).