CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, JUNE 28, 2022, OR THEREAFTER
BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“CALIFORNIA’S NATIONAL ROLE BECOMES MORE ACTIVIST”
California
has long had a major role in national affairs, often defined by personalities
as disparate as Earl Warren, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Kamala Harris, Nancy
Pelosi and Kevin McCarthy. They’ve been chief justice, presidents, vice
presidents, speaker of the House and a possible speaker-to-be.
For sure,
without California’s two Democratic senators and the huge Democratic majority
in its delegation to the House of Representatives, plus its 55 electoral votes
in 2020, Republicans today would have solid control of both Congress and the White
House.
And
California state laws have often been precursors of major national trends, as
befits the Union’s most populous state. There have been the Proposition 13
property tax limits, imitated in 26 other states at last count, and
California’s path-breaking anti-smog rules, copied automatically by more than a
dozen other states. Plus many more examples.
Only
rarely has this state acted in direct reaction to the politics of other
locales, but that’s probably about to change within the next few months.
As states
big and small, from Texas and Florida to Mississippi and Arkansas, limit
abortion rights and even discussion of eons-old realities like homosexuality
and transgender life, California officials exhibit a new determination to
counteract those moves.
It’s yet
to be determined whether this strategy will somehow reverse at least partially
the pandemic induced half-percent drop in California’s population over the last
two years.
But the
contrasts between California laws and the new ones elsewhere are already
stirring rumblings in places like Austin, TX and Jacksonville, FL. Women
seeking abortions have reportedly begun coming to California, a repeat of what
began happening 55 years ago, after Reagan signed a liberal therapeutic
abortion law in his first months as governor. This is partly in anticipation of
a U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding Mississippi’s new and very restrictive
law limiting women’s reproductive choices.
Flights
from Texas, Mississippi, Florida and other states are far cheaper than half a
century ago, so even poor and lower-middle class women can likely get here for
procedures if they feel desperate.
What
about the Texas law allowing citizens to sue doctors and others who help women
get abortions or provide them, even in other states? That law has been upheld
by the Supreme Court, but it’s doubtful any such lawsuit would survive
dismissal motions in any California court. The same for New York or Illinois,
two other likely abortion destinations.
But
California politicians are not merely relying on longstanding state law to
resist the trend toward taking away a variety of rights, from schoolteachers
discussing sexual roles to parents aiding transgender children as they try to
find their way.
Where
Florida has legally classed helping children deal with gender role confusion as
a form of child abuse and other states attack rights like same sex marriage or
gay couples adopting children, California’s Legislature now appears set to pass
laws making this state a legal haven for anyone affected by some of the changes
and planned changes in other states.
No one
knows how many of the affected might migrate here, but some teachers in Florida
schools have said they might if their current state enforces its new elementary
school “don’t say gay” law.
Then
there are guns, especially illegal “ghost guns” lacking serial numbers, like
some apparently used in last month’s early morning massacre on a Sacramento
street.
Taking a
flier on the Texas abortion law, legislators – with vocal support from Gov. Gavin
Newsom – are advancing a plan letting citizens sue anyone who distributes
illegal assault weapons or their parts. Unlike other lawsuits, where plaintiffs
must prove they were harmed, no such showing will be needed if this law passes.
It’s an open question whether this putative law will actually produce
penalties, or merely further discussion of what one state senator calls “the
absurdity of the Texas law.”
It’s a
brand-new phenomenon for California politicians to openly admit they are
reacting to laws passed in other states. But it also promises to be a new,
personal and perhaps permanent way for California to exert its influence on
politicians elsewhere.
-30-
Email
Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough:
The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch
It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias
columns, visit www.californiafocus.net
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