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 Laws Don't Stop
We need our new Governor in office now... with a veto pen...
[John Campbell] 10/22/03

Bad Bills: Throughout most of September, this missive recounted a litany of bad legislation that had been passed in the final days of this year's session as Democrats scrambled to put the bills on Governor Davis' desk before he was recalled. The last date for Davis to sign or veto these bills passed last week. As was expected, Davis signed the vast majority of these bills and signed all of the really bad ones. In fact, only two of the bills I have told you about in the last few weeks was vetoed; that being SB 328 which would have granted financial aid to non-citizen students and AB 1219 which actually increased funding for prison inmate education. I could never go through all of the bad stuff that is now law. But a few bills that I had not told you about before are:

SB 810 (Burton-D): A bill that gives the state water board new powers to veto any timber harvest plans. The provisions of this bill are so extreme that they are likely to decimate the already weakened forestry industry in Northern California. Say good-bye to more jobs.

SB 566 (Scott-D): Allows counties to have a sales tax up to 2% instead of the currently authorized 1 1/2%. This opens up another avenue to raise sales taxes in the future.

AB 1262 (Matthews-D): Sets up new training standards for workers'
Compensation claims adjusters which will increase worker's comp costs and give trial lawyers more legal minutia to use to get higher settlements.

SB 578 (Alarcon-D): Prohibits the state from contracting or doing business with any supplier that is a "sweatshop." The bill defines a "sweatshop," amongst other things, as any company that is non-union or does not have all employees under contract, which has any mandatory overtime, pays any employees less than a "living wage" or does not prohibit any distinction based on "gender identity." In addition to being terrible social engineering, this bill will cost the state untold millions of dollars by eliminating potential bidders on projects.

AB 17 (Kehoe-D): Prohibits the state from contracting for over $100,000 with
any supplier who does not offer domestic partners benefits that are at least
equivalent to the benefits that company offers married people.

That's all I can stand for this week. I'll give you a few more next week.