CALIFORNIA A LEADER AS GUN CONTROLS WORKING – FOR NOW

 

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 2024 OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS

        “CALIFORNIA A LEADER AS GUN CONTROLS WORKING – FOR NOW”

 

        State-by-state standings on deaths from gunfire form a striking contrast between Republican- and Democratic-led states as one reality becomes ever more clear: The stronger Republican control of a particular state, the more deadly gunfire that state will see.

 

        So it's plain that onetime Californians who left for cheaper housing and more conservative politics in states from Florida and Texas to Wyoming and Missouri have increased their chances of dying from gunshots.

 

        That’s beyond question in the state standings published by many organizations, but never by the National Rifle Assn., whose anti-control lobbying remains as determined as ever.

 

        It’s still too early to assess the full consequences of the U.S. Supreme Court’s mid-2023 shootdown of New York’s tough concealed carry law, but before that decision, New York was the fifth least likely state for dying from a gunshot, at a mere 5 such deaths per 100,000 population.

 

        New York is almost as Democratic-dominated as California, which was the eighth-safest gunfire death state at just 8.5 per 100,000.

 

        These statistics come from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, better known as the CDC.

 

        The CDC rankings may serve as a safety barometer for persons wanting to move. By far the safest state, gun-wise, is Hawaii, with just 3.4 firearm deaths per 100,000, or a total of 50 such killings in 2022. With only a brief two-year exception during which gun laws did not change, Hawaii’s governor and legislature have been Democratic for decades.

 

        Second-safest has been Massachusetts, another generally ultra-blue state which has had only occasional Republican governors since 1970, both of them moderates.

 

        Of the 10 safest states, all are consistently blue in presidential elections. Meanwhile, the 10 states with the highest gun death rates (Mississippi and Louisiana rank 1-2) all are dominated by Republicans, except No. 7 New Mexico, at 22.7 gun deaths per 100,000.

 

        California Gov. Gavin Newsom tried to focus on this during his fall debate with Florida’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, who made unlicensed concealed carrying of guns completely legal in his state (14.1 gun deaths per 100,000, almost double the California toll).

 

        Where California demands universal background checks before allowing gun purchases, Florida has none. Concealed carry can legally be done only with a license in California, while Florida has no licensing. California has among the strongest laws against domestic violence, Florida’s are among the most lenient. California has restrictions on high capacity gun magazines, Florida has none. And where California funds community interventions to prevent violence, Florida does not.

 

        Of DeSantis and Newsom, former Arizona Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, survivor of a would-be assassin’s gunshot to her head, said this: “One governor had the courage to stand up to the gun lobby… The other is Ron DeSantis.”

 

        Said Newsom, “Strong gun laws save lives. I want (people) to expect to see some significantly increased activity on this issue this year.”

 

        But no one is quite certain how far Newsom or anyone else can get in making America safer from gun violence so long as there’s no change in the Supreme Court’s decision in the case of New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn. vs. Bruen (the state police superintendent).

 

        Lower courts here and in a few other places have ruled that the case does not apply in California and several other locales whose concealed carry laws are worded differently from New York’s.

 

        But all it would take is a few words from the high court’s 6-3 conservative majority to shoot all that down.

 

        This could leave the entire country in a position much like what prevails in Texas, where Republicans have passed more than 100 pro-gun laws since 2000. That state has virtually unfettered unlicensed concealed carry except on college campuses, which can make their own rules. There’s also no concealed carry in Texas elementary and high schools, but those very limited rules may also fall soon to the reasoning of the Bruen case.

 

        It’s a pessimistic situation that calls for concerted pressure on Congress to pass federal laws and dare the Supreme Court to shoot them down. But so far, Newsom is the only major politician ready to push for anything that big.       

 -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

GOOD REASON FOR A GAS TAX HOLIDAY

 

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, MARCH 15, 2022, OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
     “GOOD REASON FOR A GAS TAX HOLIDAY”

 

     It was a gutsy call when Gov. Gavin Newsom in late February suggested a gas tax holiday. That kind of move has been anathema for California governors since the 2003 recall of Democrat Gray Davis in favor of movie muscleman Arnold Schwarzenegger.

 

        Schwarzenegger made hay on the false assertion that Davis added a new gas tax that year, even though all he really did was restore a levy he previously put on pause for more than a year.

 

        It became Schwarzenegger’s key issue during that campaign, and it worked. No one remembered that Davis saved millions of people hundreds of dollars each over the preceding year. All they noticed was that they were paying more at the pump.

 

        Now comes Newsom, not exactly calling for a tax reduction. He recommends putting in abeyance indefinitely a 51-cent gas tax increase scheduled to take effect this summer. He has to know there will come a time when the state will need that money and either he or a subsequent governor will have to let the tax hike take hold.

 

        He knows this could lead to a second recall against him even if his likely reelection this fall goes smoothly.

 

        While Newsom acts unfazed about that possible outcome, Sacramento’s other two top leaders hesitate to give Californians this little bit of inflation relief.

 

        In a joint appearance before the Sacramento Press Club, both state Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon and state Senate President Toni Atkins expressed misgivings.

 

        Both said they think not charging the new tax, mandated by a years-old law, could cost jobs by reducing funds for transit operations, road maintenance and highway construction.

 

        Said Rendon, “I think that’s something that could potentially jeopardize a tremendous amount of jobs…it could inhibit economic growth in certain sectors in this state.”

 

        He and Atkins showed most concern about effects on members of building trades unions, outfits among the leading backers of Democratic legislative campaigns.

 

        But there’s no reality to this worry, and they both know it. The approximately $500 million a one-year gas tax holiday would cost can easily be made up by tapping California’s current huge budget surplus.

 

        Said Senate Republican leader Scott Wilk of Santa Clarita, “Democrats are tone deaf if they think people don’t need a break at the pump.” In fact, California gas prices in late February averaged $4.82, highest in the nation. In some places, posted prices climbed well over the $5 landmark.

 

        Wilk is correct. There’s no doubt the state can afford to give drivers – most Californians – a break when it is spending billions of dollars on the homeless, a highly visible but actually tiny portion of the populace.       

 

        This is especially true now, when some legislators are actively considering a proposed new tax on the stuff owned by – not the incomes of -- persons with assets valued at more than $50 million.

 

        Even if they are not producing income, say these ultra-liberal Democratic lawmakers, those assets further the passing on of generational wealth and passively but steadily add value. Assets involved include homes and stocks that pay no dividends, but consistently gain market value.

 

        The measure is sponsored by Assemblyman Alex Lee of San Jose, who aims at the 15,000-plus wealthiest folks in California. He would tax anyone with a net worth over $50 million at 1 percent and apply a $1.5 percent levy on those with more than $1 billion in net assets.

 

        “We want the obscenely ultra-rich to be paying their fair share,” Lee told a reporter.

 

        This, he says, would add about $22 billion to the revenues of a state which already sports a budget surplus almost double that amount, with legislators unsure what to do with all the money at their fingertips. The asset taxation plan, novel except in the property tax realm, would need voter approval to be effective even in the unlikely event legislators pass it.

 

        This is but one example of the kind of funding source the state could tap to replace any gas taxes it forgives. Which is just one more reason why it’s a good idea to give average people a break right now at a very visible place, the gas pump.

     -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

 

LET'S MAKE THE PUC ELECTIVE

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 2019 OR THEREAFTER


BY THOMAS D. ELIAS

          “LET'S MAKE THE PUC ELECTIVE”

          Travel back in time to the mid-1980s, when California’s insurance rates for both cars and property were nearly the highest in America and climbing fast. In that era, state insurance commissioners, who held the power to stop much of that acceleration, were appointed by the governor.

          Then came 1988, when a consumer group called the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights (now known as Consumer Watchdog) and its leader decided to change all that. The group ran a ballot initiative known as Proposition 103, which made the insurance commissioner an elected official. Since then, California insurance rates have risen slower than those in any other state, saving customers over $100 billion. Coverage here remained as good as anywhere.

          It’s now high time to regulate utility companies as firmly as insurance companies and to make utility regulators responsible to the public and the voters just like the elected insurance commissioner.

          No industry has been cozier with those who regulate it than electric and gas utilities, which regularly get large rate increases, deserved or not. Debacles like the blunder-caused closure of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station and the 2010 San Bruno gas pipeline explosion never dented the ever-rising rates and steady profits of companies like Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric.

          Lax regulation also may have contributed to several of the huge wildfires that have plagued California over the last two years.

          Into this scene now steps new Gov. Gavin Newsom, who vowed in an interview during his campaign to fight corruption that was allowed to fester in some parts of state government under predecessor Jerry Brown.

          “I will not be timid about this or anything else,” he said. “Jerry Brown said reform is overrated. I say it’s underrated.”

          The obvious way for Newsom to reform the state Public Utilities Commission would be to appoint some new members to the five-person panel. But the state Constitution doesn’t allow that to happen fast.

          PUC members serve staggered six-year terms, so no governor can name the entire complement unless he or she gets two terms, like Brown did. Brown filled the group with former aides, including current PUC President Michael Picker, who voted, as just one example, for a San Onofre settlement plan originating in an illegal meeting between former PUC boss Michael Peevey and Edison executives. It had customers paying 70 percent of the cost of Edison’s shutdown error, until public outcries caused the arrangement to be changed four years later.

          Barring sudden resignations or the death of a member, Newsom is to get only three PUC appointees, one already named this year, and two more at the beginning of 2021. In January, he appointed Genevieve Shiroma, a farmer’s daughter and longtime member of the state Agricultural Labor Relations Board and elected board member for the Sacramento Municipal Utility District. Quick change is unlikely at the current pace.

          The obvious way to create faster, orderly reform is to make PUC commissioners elected officials. This could be done via a 2020 ballot proposition, with an election to follow.

          Even this would be slow and frustrating, with the current PUC majority continuing policies that favor utilities and cost consumers billions of dollars they probably should not be paying. Simultaneously, the PUC tries to delay and hamstring creating and expanding municipally-controlled Community Choice Aggregations, which often supply greener energy than the utilities at lower prices.

          Newsom wasn’t specific about how he’ll combat corruption, except to say he will try to alter state contracting practices to make sure they always involve competitive bidding.

          All this leads to the reality that it’s high time to take the PUC down a peg or three from its current exalted position, where members cannot be fired even by the governor who appointed them and their decisions are not subject to lawsuits in ordinary courts.

          It will take time to make this 104-year-old agency answer to the voters. But that would be time well spent, even though the commission can be counted on to do whatever it can to maintain its status quo and quash any attempt to reduce its privileged status.

         

          -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

STATE AND NATIONAL GOP IN SUICIDE PACT?

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, MARCH 15, 2016, OR THEREAFTER


BY THOMAS D. ELIAS

    “STATE AND NATIONAL GOP IN SUICIDE PACT?”

          Watch the primary election process now playing out both nationally and in California, and you almost have to wonder whether the state and national wings of the Republican Party have made a suicide pact.

          Yes, the result this year might see either candidate Donald Trump or rival hopeful Ted Cruz win the party nomination for president, but if one of them or someone else sharing their harsh ideas on immigration does, it will almost certainly mean long-term disaster for the GOP.

          It’s hard to understand why the GOP still hasn’t learned that lesson from California.

          Equally hard to fathom is the state party’s adamant stance on purity of registration: It’s about the only political party, major or minor, in California that insists on allowing only registered party members to vote in its presidential primary.

          The national party’s suicidal tendencies are getting to be as obvious as those of the state GOP organization. You can see the self-destructiveness in what’s happened to California Republicans since they went ultra-hard line on illegal immigration in 1994, when then-Gov. Pete Wilson won reelection on a platform of strong support for that year’s Proposition 187. This was the anti-illegal immigrant measure aiming to remove children of the undocumented from public schools and health clinics and to deny even emergency room care to all illegals.

          Eventually, every part of this proposition was struck down by federal courts, even though it passed by a 2-1 margin and was a major reason for Wilson’s win over Democratic rival Kathleen Brown, former state treasurer and sister of the present governor.

          The vote and the campaign leading up to it struck fear in many hundreds of thousands of immigrants who had lived here for years, even decades, but not become citizens. More than 2.5 million of these legal immigrants became citizens and then registered to vote. Only two Republicans have won statewide elections since – out of 30 who tried. Before 1994, California was a swing state in presidential elections, going for Republicans most of the time.

          Now it is so solidly Democratic that neither party bothers to campaign much here in national elections.

          When candidates like Trump and Cruz insist they will deport all or most of the 11 million-odd undocumented in this country, they spur fear in millions of legal immigrants who wonder if they’ll be the next target. If they register to vote in percentages similar to the post-187 California push, currently solid Republican states like Texas, South Carolina, Georgia and more would become swing states, while swing states like North Carolina, Iowa, Colorado and Nevada could become as Democrat-dominated as California.

          So the anti-immigrant talk may have won for candidates among hard-line Republican voters in Iowa, New Hampshire and other early primary election states, but it could prove disastrous in the long term for the party, just as similar rhetoric did here.

          Then there’s the seeming insanity of the state GOP organization, which has opted to keep its presidential primary purely Republican (presidential primaries are the only significant California races where the top two system does not apply). On the strictly fiscal level, this makes no sense: Taxpayers finance all primaries here. Why should any of them not be allowed into any election they like? If Republicans want to close their primary, shouldn’t the party foot its own bill?

          By contrast, most other parties in this state’s June balloting will allow no-party-preference independent voters to participate. That includes the Democrats, Libertarians and American Independents.

          Besides the fact it makes no sense for independent voters to help pay for the GOP primary and then not be able to vote in it, there’s some other reliable, academically-developed information Republican officials ought to consider:

          When a voter casts a ballot for someone in a primary, he or she becomes much more inclined to vote for that person or his or her party again later.

          By excluding no-party-preference voters from their primary, then, Republicans are essentially ceding many of their votes to the Democrats, who have long let independents take part in their primaries.

          So Republicans, already suffering from a 16 percent voter registration deficit compared with Democrats, are denying themselves the opportunity to build loyalty among independents.

          It’s suicidal, almost crazy, just like what the national party is doing.

                     

  -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

IMMIGRATION AMNESTY A SURE THING? DON’T BET THE HOUSE

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 2013 OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS

“IMMIGRATION AMNESTY A SURE THING? DON’T BET THE HOUSE”

          Major politicians both nationally and in California are talking as if changes in America’s immigration system are now inevitable, including a guest worker program and “amnesty,” the code name for allowing some kind of pathway for illegal immigrants eventually to become U.S. citizens.

          Don’t bet the house on it. Especially don’t bet on the House going along.

          Yes, the tide of anti-illegal immigrant sentiment has waned considerably in the past year, as reported here. Yes, many Republican politicians are coming to realize their party might be doomed to perpetual minority status if it doesn’t appease Latino voters, who have taken out their anger at the GOP’s tough immigration stance by voting overwhelmingly for Democrats. Latinos are the nation’s fastest-growing voter bloc; they are also on pace to achieve population parity with Anglos in California by 2030.

          And yes, immigration amnesty, even with the very tough requirements in plans proposed by both President Obama and a bipartisan group of eight influential U.S. senators, is the most humane way to go.

          But Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada might have been prematurely optimistic when he said the other day that “Republicans can no longer stop this. They’ve tried it; it hasn’t worked.”

          Reid has not always been a good reader of tea leaves. He might be wrong again.

          To pass, any amnesty plan would need a significant number of votes from Republican members of Congress – and while some GOP politicians have broken lately from their party’s previously-solid anti-illegal immigrant stance, it’s yet to be determined how many might do it.

          One reason they might be reluctant: As with the Democrats, the majority of Republicans in the House hail from districts where their party is dominant. Most GOP representatives win reelection by consistent margins of 55-45 percent or more. The only time politicians in these solidly “red” districts usually lose is in primaries, where they can be attacked by more conservative candidates.

Despite an overall national sense that amnesty is appropriate for illegal immigrants who have worked here for many years, paid their back taxes, paid a fine and not committed any crimes (evidenced in several major polls over the last three months and the essence of both President Obama’s plan and that of the Senate group), that feeling still does not prevail in the more conservative precincts whence most Republicans in Congress hail.

          Listen to Rosemary Jenks, director of government affairs for the anti-illegal immigrant group NumbersUSA: “If the Senate were serious about reforming our failed immigration system, the first step of their plan would be immediate, mandatory use of E-Verify (the federal system under which employers can check the immigration status of new hires). Instead, the Senate gang’s proposal – Amnesty 2.0 – tries to out-amnesty Obama with meaningless enforcement measures, mass amnesty and increases in legal immigration, with taxpayers left to foot the bill.”

          Of the current proposals, Republican Congressman Lamar Smith of Texas, a longtime leading amnesty opponent, said: “If you legalize 11 million people, it is going to cost taxpayers when they become eligible for government benefits, it’s going to cost Americans their jobs when they have to compete with millions more people for scarce jobs. I don’t see much good here for Americans.”

          The great likelihood is that neither will the majority of voters in the most preponderantly Republican districts around the nation and that GOP congress members will hear about it in town halls they regularly hold. That happened in late February to Arizona Sen. John McCain, a recent Republican convert to the amnesty concept.

          What’s more, despite their seeming enthusiasm for immigration changes including a path to citizenship, many Democrats probably would not mind all that much if their Republican colleagues remained adamant against it.

          That’s because the longer the GOP holds out against the kind of changes outlined in both Obama’s plan and the Senate proposal, the more the Latino vote will solidify in the Democratic column. So there will be outward frowns from Democrats if immigration amnesty passes the Senate but gets stuck in the House, but inwardly many will be glad to have another albatross to hang around Republican necks.

          For Democrats everywhere well know how far the GOP has fallen in California and how tarnished the Republican brand has become among Latinos here since then-Gov. Pete Wilson campaigned in 1994 as a staunch foe of illegal immigrants.

          All of which makes this a key moment for Republicans. Voting for change would give them a shot at winning back at least some Latino votes, while voting no would allow many of them to please their local constituents but set back their party’s national chances potentially for decades to come.
          

          -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

RDA BATTLE INTENSIFIES AS CONCESSIONS FLOATED

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, MARCH 15, 2011, OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“RDA BATTLE INTENSIFIES AS CONCESSIONS FLOATED”

Whether or not he manages to eliminate all of the more than 400 city redevelopment agencies that have thrived around California for six decades, it now appears Gov. Jerry Brown will at the very least spur them to do some things they probably should have done long ago.

Things like turning over large amounts of the tax dollars they raise to public schools and paying to pave city streets. Basic government functions.

Since redevelopment agencies (often simply called RDAs) get all their money from property taxes that ordinarily go for such purposes, these concessions might seem like common sense items that should have been happening all along.

But that’s not often been how things worked. RDAs are local agencies authorized to declare certain parts of their cities blighted, then buy up the land and sell or give it to developers of shopping malls, hotels, stadiums, condominiums, apartments or office buildings. The difference between taxes paid on the property in its “blighted” pre-redevelopment condition and what’s paid on the new structures goes to the RDAs, which use it to buy up more allegedly blighted land for more new buildings that in turn raise more new property tax money.

Most RDA governing boards are made up of the same people who sit on city councils, with hundreds of councils holding RDA meetings right after their regular sessions, adjourning one meeting only to switch hats and call another to order.

Brown’s budget proposal calls for eliminating all RDAs and letting cities use other means to encourage new construction. Money now flowing to them would instead go to the state, to the tune of $1.7 billion per year. Those funds could be used to keep parks open, prevent shortening of the school year, preclude larger-than-planned cuts in Medi-Cal and in-home care for the disabled elderly, blind or developmentally disabled, and more.

The RDAs’ counterproposal, floated by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and backed by California’s 10 largest cities, would see the RDAs divert $200 million a year to the state for the next 25 years, that money to be used in part as collateral letting the state borrow $1.7 billion a year for awhile – thus bringing the state payments equal to what it would get each year if there were no RDAs.

Sensing he has the city officials on the run in spite of their defiant talk about lawsuits and their attempts to approve tens of billions of dollars worth of future projects before RDAs can be eliminated – all in the hope of keeping most of their money away from the state – Brown has not bitten at the compromise RDA offer.

"He’s made it clear that any (budgeting) plan involving smoke, mirrors or gimmicks will be dead on arrival,” press secretary Gil Duran told a reporter.

Which means the RDA offer may never become official. Even if it doesn’t, it is a sign city officials are not so sure about their frequent claim that last year’s Proposition 22, which prohibits the state from dunning RDAs as it did the last two years, would also prevent state officials from simply disbanding them.

The League of California Cities, often derided by Republicans as a liberal group, claims RDAs are fully protected by that initiative, which passed on a 60-40 percent vote.

The large margin, in a general election, ought to contain some notes of caution for Brown. It was a statement that voters trust local governments more than the state.

If Brown rejects all the cities’ overtures and insists on an all-or-nothing approach, city officials may campaign against his entire budget plan if there’s a special election this June. Such an election would in any case figure to draw fewer voters and a more conservative electorate than any general election or statewide primary. The Proposition 22 results indicate the cities might defeat Brown’s plan and force him to accept a cuts-only approach to the next budget.

That, says the non-partisan state legislative analyst’s office, could lead to massively reduced spending for public schools and colleges, courts, Medi-Cal and more, a long-term halt to all sales of state bonds and switching to a pay-as-you-go system for new highways and other infrastructure projects, to name just a few likelihoods.

This would be atop the cuts Brown already proposes.

What’s developing, then, amounts to an unprecedented game of political “chicken,” with neither Brown nor the cities wanting to capitulate until the public’s views on RDAs become much more clear.

-30-
Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net