The Sacramento Bee has come up with one of the more interesting lists we’ve seen lately. It’s a catalog, via video, of “some of the most left-leaning laws that have come out of Sacramento since the Democrats” — who are enjoying “their biggest legislative advantage in decades” — have “been in charge.”
Here’s the list with a few comments added:
- Boards of public companies must include women.
As PRI President and CEO Sally Pipes has said, this sort of effort to achieve pay equality is “a clear message” from its authors “that women do not have the qualifications to make it onto corporate boards on their own.” That attitude “should infuriate every woman in the country.”
This law will likely force companies to remove men from their boards to make room. The would be fired “not due to malfeasance. Not because of unethical behavior. Not because corporate bylaws were violated.” They will be forced out “simply because of their gender.”
“Legislators also seem to forget the legal boundaries in place to prevent them from taking their political power too far,” Pipes says.
“They might wish that every corporate board in California is filled with women. But the state has no legal authority to tell companies whom they can and cannot elect to their boards.
- Undocumented students can get state financial aid.
Doesn’t this discriminate against legal immigrants, as well as California-born students who aren’t receiving public financial aid? And how much more can the taxpayers be bled, especially in a state where the average tuition for public colleges more than doubled in a decade not long ago.
- You can register to vote on Election Day without an ID.
Wouldn’t it be easier to just outright encourage voter fraud? Hans von Spakovsky, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation who studies election law, and a former member of the Federal Election Commission says the practice both “raises constitutional concerns and is poor public policy.”
“Allowing a voter to both register and vote on Election Day makes it nearly impossible to prevent duplicate votes in different areas or to verify the accuracy of any information provided by a voter. . . . Since Election Day registrants cast a regular ballot, even if election officials determine that the registration was invalid after the election, they have no means of discounting the ballot.”
- You have to ask for a paper straw. Paper receipts might be next.
PRI Director of Communications Tim Anaya has a handle on this.
“We don’t need government to mandate electronic receipts. Whenever I go over to Office Max to buy office supplies, I’m already given the option to have a paper or electric receipt, or both,” he says. Californians don’t need legislation to provide that choice.
It is also, he continues, a “mandate that chips away at people’s personal freedoms.”
- In an effort to promote equality in the LGBT community, California bans government travel to 10 states with LGBT-discriminatory laws.
The 14th Amendment to the Constitution clearly says no state can “deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” If these states are in clear violation of the Constitution, seek a legal remedy. But don’t ostracize, chasten, and smear others for holding different political views.
The Bee provided an honest public service with the list, but calling the bills “left-leaning” is an understatement — or at least an understatement almost anywhere but in California. In most states, New York and Massachusetts being obvious exceptions, the bills would be considered “hard-left.” That shows just how far this state has strayed.
Kerry Jackson is a fellow with the Center for California Reform at the Pacific Research Institute.
