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. [go to Campbell index]

Some Things Remain the Same
Change slows to a trickle in Sacramento
[John Campbell] 2/10/04

We talked last week about a few bills that gave some hope that the legislature's Democratic majority might be waking up a bit to the realities of the state's condition and the people's will. But there was also plenty of evidence that little has changed. Here I present to you some bills that did pass the Assembly before last Saturday's deadline:

AB 1520 (Kehoe-D): This bill establishes a new commission to approve veteran's memorials that recognizes the contributions of any "cognizable group." Now, obviously there is no problem with veteran's memorials, although there are plenty of existing commissions that could establish them without creating a new one. But an even bigger problem with this bill is the requirement that the veterans be identified with a "cognizable group." This is intended to require that they be recognized only as an ethnic group or of a certain sexual orientation. It is furthering the desires of the left to devalue our uniqueness as individuals and instead classify everyone in a group-think of our national origin, gender, income or sexual behavior. The only "cognizable group" we should recognize are veterans as a whole. Nothing else matters.

AB 56 (Steinberg-D): This bill expresses the "intent" of the legislature to establish "universal preschool" for 3 and 4 year olds. Now, preschool is already "universally" available from a number of religious and private organizations for any parent who wants to enroll their kids and pay for them. So what does this bill mean by "universal"? What they really mean is government run and taxpayer funded. Great. We are doing so well now with lots of government run and taxpayer funded programs let's create another one! And taxes would undoubtedly be raised to pay for it! And the government runs things so well and efficiently too! (Heavy sigh) Maybe we should fix the funding and operation of K-12 schools first.

This bill was one of a number of bills that expresses the "intent" of the Democratic majority to establish new programs and spend more money which they know the state does not have and this Governor will not fund. But they cannot resist the opportunity to create something in the law that sets a foundation for this program so that they can fund it if they can ever find the money in any way including, of course, increasing taxes on anything. Another example of this is AB392 (Montanez-D) which sets up "environmental justice" and "community-based planning" subaccounts for your gas tax money. These accounts will be used to try to divert money away from roads and into more politically correct social programs.

Also note AB1466 (Koretz-D): which creates a new "litter prevention" program.

Or AB 204 (Nation-D) which allows nine San Francisco Bay area counties to increase the car tax in those counties by $6 for "environmental mitigation."

All of this shows that the social engineers in the legislature are still at work, and that they need more of your money to achieve more control over our lives. All of this speaks even louder to why we need a strong spending limit in California because there is no end to the "government run and taxpayer funded" social dictates that this crop of elected officials will force on you if they can.

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