Jill Stewart busts the Calif Legislature on three bad laws. Sacramento has some good columnists!
The Worst Laws I Have Ever Seen
What You Should Have Been Watching Instead of that Boring Debate
(Sept 4, 2003)
~ By Jill Stewart
Wednesday's recall debate broke little new ground as meek journalists and inexperienced citizens lobbed softballs at Gov. Gray Davis and the candidates, failed to ask the toughest questions and let false statements go unchallenged.
The utter fallacy, repeated two or three times by Cruz Bustamante, that illegal immigrants pour $1,400 more into California's economy than they get back, for example, should have been stopped cold. Look closely at his wording, and you will see that each time Bustamante was asked about all the troubles surrounding "illegal immigrants," he altered his answer and spoke only of what we gain from "immigrants."
He well knows, or sure as hell ought to know by now, that an in-depth state audit showed only 19% of illegals bother to file taxes, and the best data on illegal immigrants, from the late 1990s National Science Foundation study, shows that each citizen-headed household in California pays out a net extra $1,178 to shore up 3 million mostly low-income illegal immigrants. Bustamante also knows that underground cash-for-work economy created by the 3 million illegal immigrants in California is one reason income taxes paid to California state coffers are so out of balance.
Shame, shame on our newest statehouse liar, Cruz Bustamante.
Now, is the $1,400 he cited a figure Bustamante got from some think tank study about how much money our legal immigrants pour into California? Faced with experienced tough journalists, Bustamante would never have gotten away with that kind of slimy word game during a debate.
But look at who was doing the questioning: small-market journalists from public radio, a small Bay Area paper and a Spanish-language paper, whose questions about abortion rights and other irrelevancies betrayed their left-leaning sympathies and their intellectual flaccidity in the face of phony Davis propaganda.
(Abortion rights in California have never been threatened, despite a number of conservative Republican governors during the past 25 years, and never will be. This is a media/Davis/NOW concoction that the media should slap down now and stop pandering to.)
Why was Cruz Bustamante silent during the gross overspending of the Davis years? Why did Davis ignore former chief economist Ted Gibson's data indicating the state's revenue had dried up? Is Arianna Huffington, the anti-tax loophole candidate who uses tax loopholes, merely gathering anecdotes for a book?
The questions we wanted to hear weren't asked. The debate merely distracted journalists while some of the worst legislation in years hurtled toward Davis' desk.
Let's review some of the worst stinker bills in Sacramento, shall we?
· Senate Bill 2 comes closer to socialism than anything I've seen heading for approval in 20 years. It would force California's hard-hit small and medium-sized businesses, with 20 or more employees, to pay 80 percent of employees' health coverage. Companies with more than 200 employees would be forced to pay that for the whole family. Even part-timers get this big perk.
SB 2 will spawn layoffs as small businesses pare down to get below the 20-employee cutoff. Bigger struggling companies will close.
It is widely known among insiders that key details of SB 2, by state Sen. John Burton, were ghost-written by the Service Employees International Union. I am told Davis recently chatted with the SEIU about this dog. Then, miraculously, the SEIU handed Davis a check for $250,000 a few days ago.
I doubt SEIU's bosses care if they wipe out thousands of jobs. The SEIU---and Davis---will merely blame President Bush. The goal here is to co-opt workers before the recall, then let the chips fall. They'll say: "We won free health care for you! We made history!" No kidding. Watch for businesses to stream out of state.
· Davis says he'll sign SB 18, giving the obscure Native American Heritage Commission the power to stop development on anyone's land in California if tribes feel construction interferes with a sacred site anywhere in the region.
Initially, this turkey included a five-mile zone around each sacred site, meaning construction could be challenged five miles down the freeway from a burial grounds or other site.
SB 18 was idiotic, and opposition by cities was intense. But Sacramento is Backwards World. So its authors (Burton again, and also ditzy San Diego Democrat state Sen. Denise Ducheny) changed the law. Now, tribes can challenge development even further removed from sacred sites. Now, there's no five-mile limit at all.
This bizarre bill also allows the public to be barred from the Heritage Commission's proceedings. Bowing to religious pressure, the location of the sacred sites will be secret. This means the media will sue very quickly.
is would never sign this blatantly unconstitutional bill but for one thing: rich tribes have already poured $2 million into Bustamante's campaign, and money-grubbing Davis wants some.
emember how Davis vowed to reform workers compensation because California's is the most expensive yet provides almost the worst benefits in the nation?
redicted the Dems would buckle to greedy trial lawyers, unions and others bleeding the system dry. Sadly, I was right.
Although you cannot find this fact in the shallow media coverage, the real reforms were quietly killed weeks ago. True reform, proposed in a package of highly detailed bills by the Republicans that copied the top workers comp programs in the nation, were all wiped out in a quiet Democratic massacre over the summer. The media ignored this.
A Democrat-dominated conference committee now claims that its heavily watered-down proposal will give major relief to California. It won't. Davis was too gutless to force through the two basic reforms that make all others mere fingers in the dike.
First, (although the media rarely explains this) California?s nutty rules allow the workers to essentially determine if they were injured on the job. Many doctors who make their living off workers comp are happy to oblige, proof or no proof. Only three states give workers so much say in this important matter---and naturally California clings more than any other state to this grossly abused and terribly subjective practice.
In 47 normal states, determining if a worker was injured on the job isn't largely up to the worker because that would be crazy! These states use "objective standards"---basically, an independent doctor who makes no money treating workers comp, and who utilizes American Medical Association guidelines.
But in California, we don't allow independent doctors to make the judgement. The unions view the rampant abuses as a form of paid time off---a perk for their workers. And here's the proof: years ago, special interest groups including the unions pressured the politicos to make it illegal to use the AMA guidelines.
Good Lord.
Second, when determining if a worker should get permanent disability payments---a huge slice of California's crisis---our Orwellian "no fault" laws encourage the parties to go fight it out for months in court (as the trial lawyer lobby insisted so it could get rich off the system). As a result, 50 percent of all California workers comp cases hit court. In Utah, where independent doctors determine permanent disability, 4 percent of cases hit court.
The end result is, truly injured workers get screwed and are forced into court for months, and everybody else from doctors who look the other way to lawyers who string cases along, sucks the system dry.
Reforms you'll hear touted this week by less-than-honest media spinners like Los Angeles state Sen. Richard Alarcon, such as capping some medical fees and chiropractor visits, won't end the crisis.
The reason highly irritated Costco CEO Jim Sinegal delivered 150,000 signatures from Costco workers demanding reform to the capitol this week is that businesses---and now even the workers---are sick of the lying and delaying out of Sacramento. Costco operates in 36 states in the U.S., but 70 percent of its workers compensation costs come from California. Think about that math. That's as good a measure of the level of corruption and wealth-creation inside California's workers compensation system as any I've heard.
The plain truth is, only by copying how the top-rated states use "objective standards" will we see major relief. Any politico who says otherwise is ignorant or lying. Despite the recall, what else is new?
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