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]

Bad Bills, Strange Bills Crazy Bills
The song remains the same...
[John Campbell] 9/15/04

During the 4 years that I have been writing this laptop report, I have reported to you about many "bad bills." Last spring, Governor Schwarzenegger coined the term "strange bills" while suggesting that a part time legislature might rid us of such things.

But some bills are just plain nuts. Here are a few that fall into that category from the just-ended session of the legislature.

AB 2684 (Lieber-D): Under current law, charitable organizations (501(c)(3),s) that provide job training services are required to verify an individual's legal status prior to providing them job training. If they don't do it, they can lose their tax-exempt status. This makes sense since we would not want taxpayer subsidies going to train non-citizens or non-residents who, according to federal law, cannot legally obtain employment in this country. This bill would repeal that requirement. That effectively means that your taxes will subsidize job training for illegal aliens who cannot legally obtain a job after we have paid to train them. So, we are allowing tax deductions to train workers for jobs they cannot have? This is not just waste, this is direct and intentional abuse of taxpayer funds and it is just plain wrong.

SB 1140 (Scott-D): This bill makes it a criminal offense to keep a handgun where a person knows or should have known that a child may have access to it, and it is "in proximity to ammunition" for that firearm, even if it is unloaded or in a locked container. So, if a woman living alone keeps a firearm for protection at night, and there is a chance that a child may ever be in her home, she will have to keep the ammunition for that firearm in another room. Therefore, when the burglar comes in at night, she should get up and ask him to wait while she goes to another room to get the ammunition for her weapon. If she were to keep the ammunition near the gun, the burglar (or anyone else) could then put her in jail for unlawful firearm storage. Can we agree that we have finally taken these laws way to far in favor of the criminal and against the law abiding citizen?

AB 2683 (Lieber-D): Under current law, 30 year old and older cars are exempt from smog requirements because they are deemed to be "classic" cars. This bill would remove that current exemption and make many current and future classics subject to whatever the current smog requirements are. Now, I hope that some years from now, our smog requirements on cars will be zero or near zero-emissions. Classics cannot meet ever escalating standards. This would relegate most classic cars to the equivalent of non-running potted plants. Working on further reductions in smog is something I care deeply about. But classic cars are an infinitesimally small contributor to smog. The big contributors are 10-30 year old cars that are not maintained. Those 10-20% of cars cause 90% of all vehicular pollution. But this bill doesn't touch those. Instead of "fishing where the fish are" for smog reduction, this bill fishes where Democrats think it feels good, whether you catch any fish or not. And in the meantime, they will eliminate classic cars from the state that created the car culture.

AB 2783 (Simitian-D): This bill puts a $2 tax on the recordation of the sale of a house to pay for a new elder abuse bureaucracy. So, homebuyers are at fault for elder abuse and must pay for it. Is this twisted logic or what?

To answer your next question, yes all of these bills passed both houses and are sitting on the Governor's desk for signature or veto. You see what Sacramento Democrats do when they have been in power for so long that they are bankrupt of any ideas that are meaningful and rational. CRO

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