I have one word for the state Legislature: Priorities.
The story about parking placards for pregnant women made me want to pose for the cover of Arrgghhh! magazine: What are they thinking in Sacramento? People are getting paid to create laws for such issues when the budget's on fire, teachers are about to be laid off by the score, sick residents aren't getting the care they need, and we are uncertain of our water supplies for the future?
Assembly Member Chuck DeVore of Irvine apparently has too much time on his hands. He needs to visit the Valley and get his brain focused on substantive issues like water policy, view the nation's most concentrated poverty, take a look at our crumbling schools infrastructure and talk to our hospital CEOs about fair reimbursement for indigent care.
This adds credence to Jim Boren's argument that the lege should only be allowed to introduce four bills a year. Here is an excerpt:
Limit the number of bills that can be introduced. Right now, more than 2,000 bills are introduced each year. Cut that back to three, not counting the budget bill. For example, in 2009, the Legislature might only work on bills on water, education and transportation. That's it. If they forgot the trivial stuff and spent the year concentrating on three issues, they just might get somewhere. By radically limiting the number of bills, we wouldn't be hearing about laws to ban kangaroo leather or require the labeling of food made from cloned meat.
Read his recent column on that topic by clicking here.
Jim’s article was great. It shows that some are still thinking about solutions. The problem is that it’s to late. Who is going to "make it so?" Not the legislature! The California initiative process? Hardy har har! Coexistent with any initiative that concerned citizens could propose would be several confusing, deceptive and similar pieces of legislation that would distort or diminish the whole process.
We have looked down the barrel of the gun and eaten the bullet! California is ungovernable!
Maybe turning our dysfunctional state government into a functioning one should be OUR priority.We need something like the pig in the Feed the Pig.org commercial to slap them down everytime they try to propose worthless legislation instead of working on priorities.I agree with T.C.- we have gone over the cliff.Who's been driving? Democrats.
Calif needs independant accountants and a task force of volunteers to oversee all the legislature they want to put through in the name of special interests. We have to bring back businesses to our state without sucking them dry at every turn.