California Editorial Rdp

Sept. 19

Los Angeles Daily News on new law requiring 72-hour review period for bills

The new law that requires a 72-hour review period for bills before they are voted on by the California Legislature appears to be working - to a degree.

In past years, before the voters approved Proposition 54 requiring bills to be in print for three days before floor votes, lobbyists for powerful special interests stuffed all kinds of things into bills just before they were passed on the final night of the legislative session. Or they got parts of bills they didn’t like stripped away just before floor votes.

And the public never knew what hit them until it could all be sorted out after the fact - with the special-interest damage already done.

But that changed with the lopsided passage last November of Prop. 54, which requires every bill to be made public in its final form - precluding amendments - for three days before it receives a final floor vote.

As a result, just 13 bills were amended or revised on Sept. 12 - which was the last day changes could be made before floor votes on Sept. 15, the final day of the legislative session. And everything the Assembly or Senate voted on in that final day had been available for review for the mandated 72 hours.

That’s progress.

But does it make California’s legislative process a model of transparency and careful consideration by lawmakers?

Hardly. Hundreds of bills received consideration during the final week of the Sacramento session. We use the term “consideration” lightly, since no mortal can possibly digest the final versions of all those bills flying through each house in that ludicrously hectic final week.

That’s no way to run a government.

But it’s the way we run our government in Sacramento, and it ought to change.

On the final day of the session, major housing bills (a $75 fee on some real estate transactions to fund affordable housing, and a $4 billion bond measure), a bill to move California’s presidential primary to March, the “sanctuary state” bill and a bond measure for water and parks all passed, the latter two after midnight.

Certainly, there were big-ticket items decided earlier in the session, such as the cap-and-trade extension and the gas-tax hike to fund transportation works. But too many issues were left for the last-minute rush.

If that is ever to be fixed, no doubt it will have to be through another proposition passed by voters, somehow limiting the number of votes that can be taken in a day or week. Certainly, legislative leadership wouldn’t change things.

Consider what Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de León, D-Los Angeles, had to say about the 72-hour rule: “So you need time when you’re actually engaging in amendments, negotiating,” he told the Los Angeles Times. “The 72-hour rule actually hurts the people of California because it stops and curtails negotiations, creativity.”

Sorry, but that kind of “creativity,” we think, is exactly what the people don’t need.

De León also called it a “holier than thou, sanctimonious argument” that bills need 72 hours of public review before passage.

Well, call us sanctimonious. Call us holy, if you will. (No one ever has before.) We happen to think a little public sunshine on the sometimes dark negotiations that produce California’s laws is a very good thing.

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Sept. 18

Santa Cruz Sentinel on the high cost of allowing free speech at UC Berkeley

University of California at Berkeley Chancellor Carol Christ was willing to pay the price to defend free speech on the campus.

Who would have known that defense would cost $600,000?

Christ, who is in her first year leading Berkeley, decided a few months ago to press ahead with a decision to allow the university’s College Republicans to host conservative author Ben Shapiro. At the time Christ said that the university believed in free speech rights and the right of student groups to invite speakers of their choice on campus.

Unlike what happened last spring on campus, when alt-right provocateur Milos Yiannopolous didn’t follow through on a scheduled speech on campus after leftist protesters went on full meltdown mode, Shapiro, a former Breitbart writer, was able to deliver his speech Thursday without a fullscale violent protest launched to prevent it. This time nine protesters were arrested, including four charged with carrying weapons.

But last week’s pricey security could spiral later this month when Milo Yiannopolous shows up (at least he says he will show up), joined by a phalanx of other speakers from the right including Ann Coulter, Pamela Gellar and … Steve Bannon.

Shapiro at least has credentials as an alternative voice on the right; he’s no “fascist” as some protest banners proclaimed last week and he had a lively debate with students and others representing a diversity of viewpoints.

But if the next lineup of speakers truly is slouching toward Berkeley, it’s not hard to imagine the scale and sheer bombast of the protest. A number of Berkeley faculty have already called for a boycott of the Yiannopolous return engagement, which they claim would be dangerous to the health and safety of students.

Yiannopolous most likely only wants to throw fresh meat into the lion’s den and stand back and enjoy the reaction. Perhaps this storm will pass since the campus’ self-billed “Patriots” group had not yet returned signed speaker contracts and other information required by campus police in connection with speaking events. The Patriots were behind the Free Speech Week designation aimed at opening up dialogue on campus - regardless, it seems, if students’ sensibilities and serenity might be disturbed by hearing contrary opinions.

But if campus conservatives truly do want to foster a diversity of opinions on campus, perhaps they should consider inviting speakers less obviously courting a furious reaction from Antifa and other leftist groups who will surely show up in Berkeley if the Yiannopolous brigade marches in. Since Christ has come through for the conservatives’ event, we hope they will show their support for the chancellor, and the rights of students who are not personing the barricades, by not deliberately scheduling speakers whose only desire is to provoke mayhem to show the world the intolerance of the progressive left.

Christ for her part should be commended for not buckling under the threats of violence from the far left, even as she stated post-Shapiro talk that spending $600,000 on future events is not financially sustainable for the university.

Then again, perhaps UC will just hike tuition or add new fees to cover the costs of simply allowing a person to speak without being violently drowned out.

Costs aside, Berkeley, the home of the Free Speech Movement a half century ago, has become the prime battleground for the modern skirmish over free speech. Chancellor Christ deserves credit for defending the First Amendment and for putting money and muscle to stand against those who would silence contrary opinions.

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Sept. 18

Orange County Register on Congress needing to pass new war authorizations

As Americans observed the 16th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, U.S. military action continued across the greater Mideast under the same old authorizations that lawmakers passed into law in 2001 and 2002.

Far too much time has passed since those congressional authorizations for use of military force, or AUMFs. The world has changed. The battlefields have expanded. New enemies have arisen. It’s time to bring the AUMFs to an official end and vote on what to replace them with.

Unfortunately, given that opportunity to begin that work, Congress declined. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., forced a vote on the issue last week by threatening to scrap the amendments legislators wanted attached to the latest big defense bill. His opponents gave in, but they gained enough support to simply table his amendment to repeal the 2001 AUMF.

“We have fought the longest war in U.S. history under an original authorization to go after the people who attacked us on 9/11,” a frustrated Paul told his colleagues on the Senate floor. “That war is long since over,” Paul said, and it has been a long time since Congress has had a debate “over whether we should be at war or not. It is the constitutional role of Congress.”

Not everyone agrees, though. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., slammed Paul’s amendment as “premature” and “irresponsible,” even though he supports a new AUMF specific to the war against the Islamic State that the United States is already deep into waging.

Paul’s amendment wouldn’t have left our wars and our warriors hanging. It would have given Congress a six-month window within which new AUMFs could be deliberated, debated and passed properly into law - if the people’s representatives so chose.

It’s reasonable to claim that the U.S. can’t risk just walking away from the many conflicts now being fought under color of the old AUMFs. But, over the years, the number of such conflicts has approached 40, with no end in sight.

Lawmakers are seriously miscalculating the political winds - and their constitutional responsibilities - if they think they can table the matter indefinitely. Earlier this summer, the Republican-controlled House Appropriations Committee adopted an AUMF repeal measure introduced by Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif. That effort, too, was scuttled - after all, it was rather out of place, tacked onto a spending bill. Still, the depth of bipartisan support for facing up to the AUMF problem was put on stark display.

Voters and sympathetic lawmakers should keep the pressure on. It’s not as if a serious debate over the AUMFs will result in chaos and confusion on the field of battle, or a sudden stoppage of funds. In Congress, opposition to “endless war” isn’t extensive or extreme enough to trigger that kind of crisis. The firm consensus is in favor of adjusting policy in an orderly fashion.

But Americans know that some of the battles we’re fighting lack a clear legal connection to the military actions Congress approved 16 years ago. That’s bad for our legitimacy, damaging to our integrity and corrosive to our patriotism.

Sharp disagreements over the scope of our wars will continue for years to come. Waging those wars in a deliberate state of constitutional limbo should stop as soon as possible.

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Sept. 17

The Modesto Bee on Gray’s new law possibly adding fairness to water disputes

The odds were against Assemblyman Adam Gray in his long-shot effort to force additional fairness on decisions made by the State Water Resources Control Board.

Most of the board was against him. Its five appointees have virtually unchecked power to decide water disputes - including those the board’s own staff creates.

The environmental community was against him. With a majority of the water board almost always on their side, any loss of the board’s prerogative is, by extension, a loss for them. They marshaled support from the Los Angeles Times, among others.

The Save-the-Delta crowd, who rail against the state’s Delta-draining WaterFix, dislikes any plan that doesn’t end with the Delta getting more water - even if that water has lawfully been used by others for more than a century.

Despite these formidable foes, at around 3 a.m. on Saturday morning, Assembly Bill 313 passed in the state senate and now awaits Gov. Jerry Brown’s signature.

AB313 is about one thing - fairness.

Since the late 1960s, the state water board has written the rules, issued the citations then decided if its own staff is right. You can appeal, but they hear the appeals, too.

“The current process is judge, jury and prosecutor all in one place,” said Gray. “They’ll tell you there’s a firewall, but the same executive director is in charge of both sides of the house.”

Gray’s bill inserts a state-certified administrative law judge, like those used in disputes with other state agencies, between enforcement and appeal. The judge will rule on appeals. Only then will the case proceed to the water board. If the board overrules a neutral judge’s decision, red flags would fly.

Why is this important?

There have been 2,560 complaints since 2012 involving water board decisions. Most never got to a hearing, but of the few that did only four were overturned. Roughly speaking, you’ve got about a 1-in-640 chance of prevailing against the water board. In the face of such futility, most are intimidated and don’t even try.

Then there’s the board’s pending decision on our region’s water rights, rooted in 130 years of legal precedent and careful use. Board staff is demanding that double the water from the Merced, Tuolumne and Stanislaus rivers flow to the Pacific. A board ruling is expected in October; if it agrees with its own staff, our region’s economic losses could run in the hundreds of millions of dollars per year.

It would be nice to have a neutral party looking over the board’s shoulder as we try to balance science and the plight of both salmon and farmers.

Gray’s AB313 will help create fairness in a regulatory process. Fairness in the face of bureaucracy is a rare commodity, which might explain why so many worked to get this bill passed.

On the senate floor, Republican Anthony Cannella and Democrat Cathleen Galgiani led the fight. They got help from Sen. Jim Nielsen of Tehama and from southern Californian Bob Hertzberg.

“He is a Los Angeles senator with a strong environmental bend,” said Gray. “But he’s also a very fair-minded person. . He was instrumental in helping us.”

It passed 26-7. Now, more help is needed.

“We need to rally the community,” said Gray, “to call, write, text and support the bill. We’ve got to impress upon the governor’s office to sign this. I’m sure the water board will lobby the governor - they don’t want to lose any authority.”

Gray, Cannella and Galgiani engineered an important but improbable win on AB313. Now it’s up to the rest of us to help convince the man with the final say.

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Sept. 15

The Press-Enterprise on rent control defying basic economics

Despite all the housing-related proposals in Sacramento, lawmakers have apparently yet to learn that more government involvement, making housing more expensive and less profitable, is never going to solve the state’s housing affordability problems.

Discussions of housing oftentimes tend to focus on single-family developments or other types of housing for purchase, and neglect rental properties, which is unfortunate, since rentals make up nearly half of the housing stock in California.

As housing prices and consumer debt, particularly student loan debt, have increased, and the housing crash of a decade ago still makes some wary of buying a home, renting has become a more attractive option for an increasing number of people - in California and nationwide.

Last year, nearly 37 percent of the nation’s housing units were rental properties - the highest rate in 52 years, according to a July report from the Pew Research Center based on U.S. Census Bureau data. And California relies on rentals more than most, with rental properties making up more than 46 percent of the state’s housing units.

So it is a shame that, just as with owned housing, lawmakers are failing to grasp the basic economics of the housing market, and embarking instead on policies that will only make rental housing less available and less affordable.

A chief example of this is the increasing calls for rent control, a movement which has experienced somewhat of a revival since its heyday during the late-1970s to mid-1980s, when 13 cities - including Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Jose, Berkeley and Oakland - adopted rent-control ordinances. It was fairly dormant, or at least unsuccessful, for a long time, but the Sacramento Bee reports that rent-control battles are heating up again, with voters in Richmond and Mountain View adopting rent-control measures in 2016 and similar campaigns being launched “up and down the state, from Sacramento to Pacifica to Glendale.”

But, just as with other kinds of government-mandated price ceilings, rent control creates shortages, as more people want housing at the artificially-low price than developers and property managers are willing to provide. A small number who are lucky enough to obtain below-market apartments will benefit, but many others will not, and they will be left with even less affordable options than would exist in the absence of rent control. In some cases, rent-controlled buildings are merely replaced with pricier - and more profitable - forms of housing.

By making housing less profitable, lawmakers reduce the incentive to create more housing in the first place. Rent control also diminishes the quality of housing, since landlords have less money left over to devote to repairs, and less incentive to do so, given the artificially high demand for their units.

“The moment you start talking about rent control, it creates this pause, and that affects where people are willing to invest their capital,” Tom Bannon, CEO of the California Apartment Association, told the Bee. “Rent control has never built a new unit. My other big concern is you lose focus, and that should be on increasing supply. If California wants to continue to be a vibrant state and attract jobs, we need to focus on building.”

Given his position, Bannon may not be an impartial source, but he is absolutely correct. Yet, politicians in Sacramento and local governments continue to restrict the supply of housing through more price controls, more taxes and fees, more costly and time-consuming labor and environmental regulations, more zoning restrictions - and then wonder why prices continue to rise more than the rest of the country, and why we have such a severe housing affordability crisis.