FOCUS IS ON CANDIDATES, BUT PROPS ALSO OFFER KEY CHOICES

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, JUNE 1, 2018, OR THEREAFTER


BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
     “FOCUS IS ON CANDIDATES, BUT PROPS ALSO OFFER KEY CHOICES”

          Very rightly, the focus in this ongoing California primary election season is on candidates for offices from Congress to the governor’s office in the state Capitol’s “Horseshoe” suite.

          But this spring’s ballot also features five significant propositions, and if voters overlook them, they may come to rue the inattention.

          No, the spring propositions (no initiatives here) are not as sexy as what the fall ballot will bring, with heated campaigns upcoming on everything from gasoline taxes to carving California into three states and an attempt by paint companies to make taxpayers bail them out of liability for cleaning up problems caused by lead in their products.

          That timing is by Democratic Party design: The party’s legislators three years ago adopted a law putting all initiative propositions – those making the ballot via voter signatures – into the November general election, with none contested in the primary. Their thinking was (still is) that general elections bring out many more voters than primaries, giving liberal causes a better chance in the fall.

          But propositions placed on the ballot by the Legislature still go to the primary ballot. So we now face five measures lawmakers want passed.

          But voters might hesitate over at least some. Take Prop. 70, the product of a political deal allowing the state’s cap-and-trade program to continue long after its previous expiration date last year. In this system, the state auctions off to corporations a limited number of permits to produce greenhouse gas pollutants, sometimes collecting more than $3 billion a year.

          The money is supposed to be used for reducing the same kinds of gases in other places, but some cash has lately been diverted to the ongoing bullet train project and other causes. In order to get cap-and-trade extended to 2030, Gov. Jerry Brown and Democrats agreed to require two-thirds legislative majorities after 2024 in deciding whether to spend that money and on what.

          That compromise flies in the face of an earlier initiative that did away with the prior two-thirds-majority requirement for passing state budgets. If a majority vote is good enough to decide on spending the many more billions of dollars in the general fund budget, why require a supermajority for this one cash source?

          Despite its support from Brown and the state Chamber of Commerce, this deal makes little sense and voters may want to nix it.

          There’s also Prop. 68, a $4 billion parks and water quality bond measure including $200 million for restoration of the Salton Sea in the state’s southeastern corner. California’s largest lake, a product of a 1905 flood on the Colorado River, the Salton Sea has evaporated gradually since San Diego’s water agency stopped supplying it early this year. That is causing new levels of dust pollution in the air of the Imperial Valley and threatens the habitats of hundreds of migratory bird species.

          Creating ponds and channels around that lake to control dust is just one of many projects in this proposed bond; others include $370 million for ground water recharges, $725 million for parks in neighborhoods that now have few, $218 million for state park restoration and $443 million for “climate preparedness.”

          Voters usually go almost automatically for water bonds, but may hesitate this time after watching the state Water Commission take years to fund projects using money from a prior bond passed in 2014.

          Many will see the other three measures on this ballot as virtual no-brainers. Prop. 69 would confine use of new transportation tax revenues, including gasoline taxes, only to transportation. These funds have occasionally been diverted elsewhere, infuriating some. Similar propositions have passed previously, but are sometimes circumvented.

          The simplest proposal here is Prop. 71, which sets the effective date for all winning ballot measures five days after election results are certified, usually about month after Election Day. There is no substantial opposition to this one.

     And there’s Prop. 72, allowing new rain-capture systems to be exempted from property tax reassessments. The aim is to encourage property owners to catch more rain water, helping the state’s water supply.

     All of which adds up to a proposition list that includes a few relatively minor measures, but also a couple that require significant decisions.

         

         
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     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, go to www.californiafocus.net

TOP TWO TEST? GOP COULD DECIDE AN ALL-DEMO RUNOFF

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, MAY 29, 2018, OR THEREAFTER


BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
     “TOP TWO TEST? GOP COULD DECIDE AN ALL-DEMO RUNOFF”

          As California’s run for governor nears its June primary election milestone, there’s still a strong possibility this will wind up as a two-Democrat race for the state’s top office.

          If so, it will be the ultimate playing out and test of the 2010 Proposition 14, which set up the top two “jungle primary” system here, with the two leading vote-getters in any primary election making the November runoff ballot, even if both come from the same party.

          The historically huge voter registration advantage now enjoyed by Democrats in this state is the main reason recent polls showed one Democrat – Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom – far ahead of the rest of the 27-person field as a majority of voters began receiving their mail-in ballots.

          Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, a former San Francisco mayor, led those surveys and ex-Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was in a three-person scrum of significantly publicized candidates competing for the second November ballot slot.

          If the two Republicans running, Orange County Assemblyman Travis Allen and San Diego County businessman John Cox, split the Republican vote, it’s highly possible neither will beat out Villaraigosa for second place.

          So a lack of discipline among Republicans, who could not settle on one candidate even as late as their early-May state convention, could create a runoff race matching two Democrats.

          Of course, in this new era of #MeToo focus on sexual behavior and harassment, no one can be sure whether Newsom and Villaraigosa, both former participants in well-publicized extra-marital affairs, can maintain their current status with the women who cast the majority of Democratic votes. Both apologize profusely whenever they discuss those affairs. Both also purport to be better men today than before.

          The bottom line is that because Newsom and Villaraigosa have far outstripped their competition in the vital area of fundraising, they could face off in the fall. Both are liberals, Newsom somewhat to the left of Villaraigosa, a onetime labor union organizer who refused to cave in to public employee unions while he was mayor, one reason Newsom is Big Labor’s favorite in this contest.

          If they do match up, Newsom and Villaraigosa will test the basic premise of the top two system. When it was proposed, sponsors like then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and his appointed lieutenant governor Abel Maldonado argued the new system would assure the election of more moderates from each major party. They figured that in one-party races like this year’s gubernatorial contest might become, members of the other party would choose the more moderate available candidate.

          Reality has been that in most such races, almost all occurring so far in legislative or congressional contests, voters from the party left out of the runoff have voted in small numbers, staying home or skipping over an office on their ballots and not bothering to choose what they see as the lesser of two evils.

          But Republicans will be motivated to turn out this fall, especially in the seven or eight Congressional swing districts Democrats believe they must flip from the Republican column in order to take over the House of Representatives.

          If turnout is heavy, the GOP’s almost 26 percent of the registered electorate could strongly influence the outcome, even if there’s no Republican on the ballot.

          One springtime poll from the Public Policy Institute of California showed that by a narrow 6 percent to 4 percent margin, GOP voters preferred Villaraigosa over Newsom in a putative matchup between the two. That’s not a very big slice of the GOP vote, but if higher percentages of GOP voters actually cast ballots for one of the two, they could be decisive.

          Villaraigosa’s margin among conservative voters was higher when party wasn’t figured in. Conservatives favored him over Newsom by a 15-6 percent margin, while he held a 6-point edge among self-described moderates.

          These numbers suggest that this just might be the year the top two system works precisely as it was planned and advertised. But all that, of course, depends on how the June primary plays out and it is far from finished.

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    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

WHY THE POLLS ARE WILDLY VARIABLE THIS SPRING

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE:  FRIDAY, MAY 25, 2018, OR THEREAFTER

   BY THOMAS D. ELIAS

      “WHY THE POLLS ARE WILDLY VARIABLE THIS SPRING”

          Modern life may have caught up with political polling. Just as they have shaken up industries and activities from newspapers to taxis, from telephones to shopping, today’s technologies are making old reliable survey research techniques and tactics obsolete or inaccurate.

          That’s one big reason California has wild variability this spring in political polls leading into next month’s primary elections for governor and the U.S. Senate, especially for governor.

          In the space of two days in late April, the Survey USA polling firm found Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom leading with 21 percent support from likely voters to 18 percent for former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and 15 percent for mostly self-funded San Diego County businessman John Cox. Newsom and Villaraigosa are Democrats; Cox a Republican. Running fourth was Orange County Republican Assemblyman Travis Allen with 10 percent, just one point ahead of Democratic state Treasurer John Chiang. The top two vote-getters in the June 5 count will make the November runoff election.

          But just one day later came very different results from the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll, run by Mark DiCamillo, former head of the longtime and usually reliable California Field Poll, which no longer conducts surveys on public affairs.

          That gauge, like every other of the last 18 months, showed Newsom ahead, but with 30 percent support, almost 50 percent more than reported the previous day. The really big difference came in the next three slots, which were completely scrambled from every previous poll. Cox was now second, with 18 percent, while Allen vaulted past Villaraigosa to a 16 percent showing and the ex-Los Angeles mayor plummeted to 9 percent, with others far behind.

          About two weeks earlier, still another poll from the Public Policy Institute of California put Newsom ahead and Cox and Villaraigosa in a virtual dead heat for second, with Allen well behind.

          Never in a half century of political polling has California seen such variance.

          Most likely, it’s because of greatly varied techniques used by the three most significant outfits working here. Survey USA, whose national results in 2016 were as close as anyone’s to the actual outcome, uses many “robot” phone calls, trying to reach cell phone users who now dominate telephonic communications. Fewer than half of Californians now have land lines.

          The PPIC uses a lot of live callers, while the Berkeley IGS poll employs mostly email.

          “Let’s wait until after the election to see which is best,” says DiCamillo, perhaps a little irritated that some academics quickly called his results “peculiar” and “an outlier.”

          DiCamillo says it’s not merely technology, but also telephone users’ preferences that have upset the pollsters’ apple carts. “A declining share of voters are willing to participate when called randomly,” he said. “Forty years ago, about two-thirds of people called would take part. Now cooperation rates are below 10 percent. A lot of people simply screen our calls out.”

          This forces pollsters to experiment while seeking a method that matches the old reliability once generated by his former California Poll, founded by the late Mervin Field, DeCamillo said.

          “Polling is at a crossroads,” DiCamillo concludes. “That’s why we’re trying the internet. It gives us a lot of advantages.”

          For one thing, he said, it allows for listing all candidates, not merely those with the most money or prior prominence. That’s probably why his Berkeley IGS survey had little-known Republican James Baldwin in a statistical second-place tie with the far better-known Democratic state Sen. Kevin de Leon, both far behind incumbent Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein in the primary run for the U.S. Senate. No other poll has even listed Baldwin, whose fund-raising is so slim he hasn’t needed to file reports with the Federal Elections Commission.

          “It’s very different from doing it by phone,” DeCamillo said, describing his panel of likely voters as chosen both for willingness to participate and their past primary election voting history. They also must list an email address on their voter registration forms, something many longtime, regular voters never did.

          So it’s a brave new world for the pollsters, and as DiCamillo said, the proof will be in the pudding, when real votes are counted on Election Night.

         

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     Elias is author of the current book “The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government's Campaign to Squelch It,” now available in an updated third edition. His email address is tdelias@aol.com

SOUNDING FUTURISTIC, NEWSOM SEES HUGE CHANGES

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, MAY 22, 2018, OR THEREAFTER


(One in a series of interviews with significant candidates for governor of California)


BY THOMAS D. ELIAS

   “SOUNDING FUTURISTIC, NEWSOM SEES HUGE CHANGES”        

          Picture a California where it’s illegal to drive on freeways, now populated instead by layer upon layer of robotic drones. A California where new housing is mostly placed near rapid transit and bus stops and people actually do shift from their cars onto trains and buses. A California where high speed rail enables home ownership in remote locations for many thousands who can’t afford to buy now. A California where self-guided drone taxis are common.

          Gavin Newsom, the state’s Democratic lieutenant governor and the former mayor of San Francisco, sees all this and much more change in California’s not so distant future.

          Sitting with him can feel a lot like talking with Alvin Toffler in 1970. Back then, the futurist in a pre-Internet time forecast a long era of very fast change that could drive some people crazy, a worldwide information-based economy, chatrooms and devises that would remind people of their appointments. “Future Shock,” Toffler called his book covering these subjects and more.

          “Mobility in California will change radically,” said Newsom, the leader so far in every poll on the governor’s race. “We can have automated vehicles that interact with other new technologies like the hyperloop and other things like flying drone taxis, which are being tested in Dubai right now. All these things can interact with high speed rail very well.”

          Newsom believes California’s bullet train, now under constant attack even as construction continues in the Central Valley, will be built out. “We need to finish the first segment, from Bakersfield to San Francisco. Get that done and we might be able to draw private investment and more federal money to finish the line,” he said. “I think we’ll see huge prosperity along the route between the Central Valley and the Silicon Valley. But we do need to prove ourselves.”

          How about another statewide vote on the project, as some high speed rail opponents demand? “That train has left the station,” he said.

          But Newsom brings more to an interview than high-tech razzle-dazzle talk. Among his first acts as governor, he said, would be to change the state budget to promote much more pre-natal and early-childhood care. “I’m profoundly interested in this and it’s very underfunded,” Newsom said. “This is so important because that’s when most of human brain development takes place.”

          Newsom also wants companies to do more for contract workers who get few benefits as they move from firm to firm and project to project in today’s economy. He supports a recent state Supreme Court decision calling for companies to give those mobile workers more benefits, saying “Businesses need to do something for their employees’ future.

          “There is no silver bullet that will wholly solve the displacement from future technology, but the right solutions can help ease the transition and protect the workers most vulnerable…to automation,” he said. “It’s the job of the next governor to get ahead of this disruption and smooth that transition.”

The candidate also pledges fiscal discipline like what outgoing Gov. Jerry Brown has imposed. “We don’t need to be profligate to be progressive,” Newsom said.

          And he pledges to go after corruption in state government wherever he can, citing information technology procurement as a potentially fruitful area. “It’s manifest in many (state) requests for proposals that they are designed to be filled only by a single source,” Newsom said. “It’s an incumbent protection racket.”

          Newsom also indicated he will look hard at agencies like the scandal-ridden Public Utilities Commission and the Energy Commission, which often favors large corporations over small operators in awarding grants.

          And Newsom indicates there will be no letup in California’s resistance to policies of President Trump if he’s elected. “I’m a big fan of (state Atty. Gen.) Xavier Becerra,” he said, “especially because of how quick he’s been to lead on this.” But he stopped short of endorsing Becerra.

          It’s when he discusses the state’s possible future that Newsom seems most animated. “I’ve prided myself that we’ve always been able to look around the corner, from same sex marriage to marijuana legalization and gun safety. Californians should demand this kind of forward thinking from our next governor.”

         

                  

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     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, go to www.californiafocus.net

’JANUS’ DECISION COULD CHANGE CALIFORNIA POLITICS

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, MAY 18, 2018 OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
      “’JANUS’ DECISION COULD CHANGE CALIFORNIA POLITICS”

          Few California primary elections in non-presidential election years have been so anticipated as the one that starts soon, with millions of mail-in ballots arriving in mailboxes long before the official June 5 Election Day.

          This vote will yield clues about who will replace Gov. Jerry Brown and begin a new era in state politics. It could also give strong inklings about whether Dianne Feinstein’s long tenure in the U.S. Senate will continue.

          But another June event may prove even more important to the future of California’s public affairs. This will come about mid-month, when the U.S. Supreme Court is due to deliver a decision in the landmark Illinois case of Janus vs. American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. The case gets its name from Mark Janus, a child-support specialist with his state’s child welfare agency who is challenging the right of AFSCME, a huge public employee union, to collect money from workers who don’t share its political views and are not union members.

          This case echoes the 2016 California case of Friedrichs vs. California Teachers Assn., where Anaheim elementary school teacher Rebecca Friedrichs challenged the CTA’s right to collect money from her.

          If Janus wins, politics and civic life in California could change dramatically. For decades, public employee unions have been a driving force in this state’s politics, financially and in providing campaign manpower. They are one big reason for the Democratic dominance in virtually all aspects of state government.

          Unions also have driven very tough contract bargains, empowered in part by their huge political influence, which sees officials from Brown down through legislative leaders and key members of many county boards of supervisors back them strongly.

          Back in early 2016, when the Friedrichs case was argued in Washington, D.C., it was fairly obvious after oral arguments and public discussion by the U.S. Supreme Court that unions would lose on a 5-4 court vote. But Justice Antonin Scalia then died suddenly in a hunting lodge and the court deadlocked, letting unions continue to collect “agency fees” from non-members who are nevertheless covered by contracts they negotiate.

          Like Friedrichs, Janus argued this spring that this infringes on his First Amendment rights. And it was again obvious after oral arguments and comments by court members that unions would likely lose on a 5-4 vote, with new Justice Neil Gorsuch replacing Scalia.

          One typical comment indicating how this will likely go came from the court’s frequent swing vote, Justice Anthony Kennedy. He blasted unions for advocating “massive government, increasing bonded indebtedness, increasing taxes.”

          Recognizing that a Janus/Friedrichs win is virtually certain, Brown and union-allied legislators created a state law giving public employee unions the right to meet and sign up new workers at least every 120 days. Union leaders said this is crucial for them, as they expect soon to need to shore up worker solidarity.

          But things may not go quite as desired by the big business interests (including major Republican donors like Charles and David Koch, owners of Koch Industries) who have bankrolled both Janus and Friedrichs.

          Forced union dues from non-members may stop, but as they do whenever their backs are to the wall, unions can be expected to become more militant. This could mean many more public employee strikes, including bus and light rail drivers, sanitation workers, Department of Motor Vehicles clerks, court workers, Caltrans road repair workers and many more.

          That would be the end of a long era of labor peace essentially brought about by unions’ political domination. For unions may believe they need to drive ever tougher bargains in order to increase worker loyalty and drive membership up.

          Plus, the movement away from compelling payment from those who don’t like what’s being done with their money could spread. There could be new objections to bar association dues, student fees, continuing education for doctors and other professionals and other currently required expenses that have essentially been justified by the same arguments as agency fees.

          There could even be more tax resistance on free-speech grounds from persons opposed to government policies.

          So Janus, like Friedrichs, is a potential can of worms, a Pandora’s Box whose backers and the Supreme Court may come to regret having opened.

                

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    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

THIS ‘RESISTANCE’ LEGAL ACTION ON PESTICIDE IS VITAL

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, MAY 15, 2018 OR THEREAFTER


BY THOMAS D. ELIAS

  “THIS ‘RESISTANCE’ LEGAL ACTION ON PESTICIDE IS VITAL”

          It is, quite simply, not within California’s power to rid its own food and fields – let alone all of America’s fields – of a pesticide derived from chemicals developed as a nerve gas by Nazi Germans who used them to fatally gas Jews, gypsies and others they crammed into airtight mobile vans before and during World War II.

          That’s why it was important for California Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra to intervene in a federal lawsuit aiming to force the federal Environmental Protection Agency to make a required safety finding (more likely, a finding that the chemical is unsafe) in a case that has dragged on more than half a decade.

          As Barack Obama left office, the EPA appeared about to issue such a ruling on chlorpyrifos, an organophosphate used on crops as diverse as nuts, apples, broccoli, melons, citrus, corn and soybeans.

          After almost 10 years of delay, the EPA in late 2015 proposed a rule banning even slight residues of chlorpyrifos on food because of safety concerns. Less than 18 months later, after President Trump had been in office only about two months, his EPA administrator, Scott Pruitt, abruptly reversed course, ended the rulemaking process and issued an order in effect leaving alone the existing standard for acceptable levels of the pesticide in food. Neither he nor anyone else has gone so far as to find the substance safe.

          It may be politically smart and opportune for Becerra to involve California in the ongoing case to force action by Pruitt, whose decisions so far have universally favored big business over consumers, and never mind safety. Even for essentials like drinking water.

          Sure, Becerra prides himself on filing lawsuits seemingly every week to challenge Trump administration actions, billing himself as a leader of the “resistance.” Staying in the news that way gives him an advantage over primary election competitors like current state Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones, a fellow Democrat, and retired Judge Steven Bailey, a Republican.

          But there is little doubt about chlorpyrifos. It’s unsafe. A detailed 2016 study by an independent group of academic scientists found that “Children…are at an unacceptably high risk of neurodevelopmental disorders that affect the brain and nervous system, including autism, intellectual disabilities and…behavioral disabilities.” The nerve gas derivative can lead to lower IQ, attention deficit disorders and childhood tremors, just to name a few deleterious effects.

          The Obama EPA’s proposed rule recognized this, finding chlorpyrifos adversely affects brain development. Might the chemical be one reason for the current seeming epidemic of ADHD? In any case, if this pesticide is used on orchards, it’s a safe bet that an apple a day will no longer keep the doctor away.

          It’s not that farmers have to use chlorpyrifos, either. Some have voluntarily shifted to another family of insecticides known as neonicitinoids. One problem with those products, though, is that they are harder on bees than chlorpyrifos, even while they are easier on humans.

          Becerra’s action, taken in a 30-page brief, saw California join New York, Washington, Vermont, Maryland, Massachusetts and Hawaii in backing a lawsuit against Pruitt by the League of Latin American Citizens.

          “Pruitt is not above the law,” said Becerra. “He has a legal responsibility to make a safety (or unsafety) finding… He must be held accountable. The stakes are high for our state and states across the country.”

          That seemed clear from a 2016 finding by the Obama-era EPA, which held there is no safe use of chlorpyrifos. A scientific panel of California’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment last winter voted unanimously to place the chemical on the list of dangerous substances under the 1986 Proposition 65.

          Prop. 65 warnings are common on gasoline pumps and tanker trucks, but might someday have to be placed on the produce bins of supermarkets if use of this substance is not outlawed. That’s because California farms now use about 1 million tons of it yearly on crops, about one-fourth of the national total.

          The bottom line: It’s high time California rids itself of this highly hazardous pesticide, tainted origins and all. But that won’t happen without EPA action. Which justifies the Becerra move to help force an EPA ruling, even if there’s unquestionably some political motivation behind it.

    -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

A CHANCE TO FIX BIGGEST BULLET TRAIN MISTAKE

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, MAY 11, 2018, OR THEREAFTER


BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
      “A CHANCE TO FIX BIGGEST BULLET TRAIN MISTAKE”

          By the beginning of next year, California will have a new governor and perhaps a new perspective on its largest building project of this and the next decade – the fractionally-built and ultra-controversial bullet train now under construction in Madera and Fresno counties.

          A new governor can mean a new board of directors for the High Speed Rail Authority and a new outlook on the current management’s biggest error – its insistence on routing the new train through the most populated parts of the Central Valley rather than along the much more open route of Interstate 5 on that valley’s western edge.

          It’s not often that a state agency can reverse course, give up on a mistake and still give Californians something they would need and use. But this is such an opportunity.

          There are many reasons the bullet train project, whose almost $10 billion in state bonding authority was OK’d at the polls 10 years ago, has lost much of its support, with fewer than half the voters polled early this year supporting its continuance.

          But a need for fast ground transportation between Northern and Southern California remains. Anyone who has fought traffic at the main airports of the Los Angeles and San Francisco areas knows congestion there grows steadily, making flying far more difficult than it was a few years ago.

          The obvious solution from the beginning was to route high speed trains along the state’s most traveled and shortest north-south route, Interstate 5. That route has very wide medians for much of the distance between Grapevine at the northern foot of the Tehachapi Mountains and either the California 152 highway west over Pacheco Pass to Gilroy and the Silicon Valley or the Altamont Pass east of Livermore and the East Bay suburbs of San Francisco.

          But High Speed Rail Authority members appointed first by ex-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and later by current, but outgoing, Gov. Jerry Brown wouldn’t hear of this. Instead, they opted to send the bullet train through Bakersfield, Fresno, Madera and Merced before heading it west along the 152.

          That choice spurred myriad lawsuits from farmers and other landowners whose livelihoods could be disrupted by the train’s tracks and viaducts. It led to fierce opposition from San Joaquin Valley Republicans in Congress backing their supporters in agriculture.

It has caused delays of half a decade or so in the project’s predicted completion date and contributes heavily to cost overruns forecast to double the original $35 billion cost estimate. This forecast comes from the rail authority’s own latest business plan, which also has cut expected speeds far below the originally promised 220 mph for much of the current route.

Imagine how many more lawsuits, delays and cost overruns the bullet train will encounter when and if construction reaches the San Francisco Peninsula, where Silicon Valley’s massive wealth could be arrayed against it.

          There’s also the issue of whether intermediate stops in cities like Fresno and Merced are worth having. The experience of Europe’s Paris-to-Amsterdam Thalys bullet train is instructive here. That line stops at major cities like Brussels and Rotterdam, but almost no one enters or exits there.  Almost all riders stay aboard for the full run.

          If stops in much larger cities are barely used during a European run of almost the same distance as Los Angeles to San Francisco, why believe many will use stations in the smaller California cities?

          The latest official cost and speed estimates for the California train have plainly put this project in peril. There’s a strong risk the bridges and viaducts already built will someday be monuments to a huge failure.

          Better to abandon them now, before investing billions of dollars in even more prospective white elephants, and switch to a far saner, cheaper and less disruptive route up I-5 and over the Altamont Pass to Livermore, where passengers could easily switch to new high-speed Bay Area Rapid Transit trains for the rest of the ride into San Francisco.

  

          The time and money saved would be phenomenal, even if some politicians and their appointees would lose face in the process.

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     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, go to www.californiafocus.net