Tag: Jerry Brown

Categories
free trade & free markets general freedom national politics & policies

Quota Requirement Overturned

Jerry Brown, California, racism, quota, colors

In 2018, Jerry Brown, then California governor, signed a bill requiring corporate boards to include a high percentage of women. 

Now a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge has determined that the state failed to show that “gender-​based classification was necessary to boost California’s economy, improve opportunities for women in the workplace, and protect California taxpayers, public employees, pensions and retirees.”

No news yet on whether the state will appeal.

In 2018, Brown had conceded that the law was probably doomed to be judged unconstitutional. But he apparently regarded questions of legality or constitutionality as irrelevant.

“It’s high time corporate boards include the people who constitute more than half the ‘persons’ in America,” he burbled in his signing message.

Fines for disobedience were to be steep: $100,000 for initial violations, $300,000 for subsequent violations.

Of course, it is neither immoral nor a crime to choose a man instead of a woman for a post. Making specific hires criminal depending upon the complexion of a business’s other hires amounts to the politicization of everything, swapping the goals of business for the goals of ideologues. It is destructive of individual rights and the requirements of conducting business profitably to compel employers choosing personnel to be guided by any considerations other than relevant qualifications. Or by any assessment but their own.

Managers of all non-​government organizations should be free to use their own best judgment in hiring and contracting, whether the work involved is that of clerk, CEO, or board member. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Categories
crime and punishment general freedom local leaders moral hazard nannyism responsibility too much government

Decriminalizing Balloon Release

California, Jerry Brown, law, balloon, metallic, criminal liability

I’m sure I disagree with most of the policies California Governor Jerry Brown seeks to propose and impose. But let’s give credit where credit is due. He’s right that people should not be treated like criminals when in a burst of celebratory excess they commit the sin of unleashing helium balloons.

California lawmakers thought it would be smart to make criminals out of toddlers and other Snidely Whiplashes who “willfully release” helium balloons made of electrically conductive material.

The potential problem is real enough. When the balloons collide with power lines, they may cause power surges or brief power outages. Squirrels and birds can also cause power outages, and are far more likely to do so. Luckily, though, nobody (so far) has thought of prosecuting wayward warblers.

In vetoing the legislation to criminalize balloon release, Governor Brown said he didn’t believe “that expanded criminal liability is the best solution to the problem of electrically conductive balloons interfering with power lines. As I have said before, our Penal Code is already far too complex and unnecessarily proscriptive. Criminal penalties are not the solution to every problem.”

Correct.

Brown’s veto message may seem like simple common sense. But in an age in which kids can be suspended from school for doodling a gun or carrying a maple leaf, we have learned that rudimentary reasonableness is not necessarily standard operating procedure. 

Hence, any instance of firmly refraining from lunacy must receive our heartfelt thanks and appreciation.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Categories
folly free trade & free markets general freedom moral hazard nannyism responsibility too much government

Signature Nonsense

nanny state, too much government, books, authentication, California, busybody, Brian Doherty’s Radicals for Capitalism, Jerry Brown

Did anyone really need this?

Last year, California’s Governor Jerry Brown signed into law Assembly Bill No. 1570, which concerns collectibles, particularly signed-​by-​author or artist books. But it doesn’t mention books, and is confusingly written. What a mess.

Who asked for it?

It certainly wasn’t the struggling booksellers who have come to depend on signed authors’ copies. In the Age of Amazon​.com, book vendors need to add value to stay afloat.* Author-​signed copies help.

The law says that for signed-​by-​creator collectibles sold for more than $5 — yes, a mere five smackers — sellers must provide customers a Certificate of Authentication. The law specifies nine “helpful” directions for said certificates. So imagine an edition of Brian Doherty’s Radicals for Capitalism, signed by the author at, say, a non-​profit dinner, or at a bookstore signing, or even a late-​night bar —discounted to not much over five bucks.** The bookseller must not only provide a certificate, but list the book’s provenance. Talk about an added cost of doing business.

I mention Mr. Doherty not merely because of his excellent book, but because he has not unreasonably confessed that “my own interests could be harmed by any attempt to actually enforce the letter of this law.”

This week on EconTalk, economist Mike Munger mentioned the market’s built-​in regulatory features — reputation being the most obvious — for helping consumers avoid getting ripped off buying books … and paintings … and anything else improved by creator signature.

But, really, can’t we make do with a little caveat emptor as well as caveat lector? Better than regulations this dense.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* The number of independent bookstores plummeted (down a thousand) around the country between 2000 and 2007. But there seems to be an increase since then, despite (or because of?) Abebooks and Alibris and other dot coms.

** I found a signed copy of Doherty’s history at Abebooks for $10.

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Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall

A Veto for the People

The war on democracy is ongoing. One of the ironies some folks note is that the biggest opponents of citizens’ direct say in government tend to be sitting Democratic politicians. But Democrats who earnestly support democracy can take heart, for not only can they remind Republicans of recent GOP-​led jihads against initiative rights, but Governor Jerry Brown, a Democrat, just vetoed an initiative-​silencing bill in California.

Of course, it was concocted by labor unions for their benefit, and was supported by Democrats in the Assembly, but still: Huzzahs for Jerry Brown!

Assembly Bill 857, advanced by Cupertino’s Paul Fong, would have placed hurdles on the petitioning process by limiting the paying of petitioners to qualify initiatives for the ballot. The vetoed law, if enacted, would have required 10 percent of valid signatures to be volunteers. But “volunteer” included union workers who were, in fact, being paid to circulate petitions.

And that was one of the governor’s complaints about the weaselly legislation.

The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association had gone on record opposing the measure, charging that it would have made the process more difficult for most groups with its cumbersome record-​keeping requirements. And another part of the bill, as Neal Hobson summarized at Citizens in Charge,

would have established a right for any California citizen to sue the sponsors of initiative petitions by claiming they had turned in any fraudulent signatures. Whether such charges could be substantiated or not, the resultant litigation could bankrupt initiative campaigns with legal fees.

Devious political minds obviously cooked up this bill. Exclude Gov. Brown from that designation.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
government transparency too much government

Nothing But Blue Skies

It was the thirteenth day of the century’s thirteenth year, yesterday, and the worst I got was a cold.

Meanwhile, the Russian government is trying to stop a triskaidekaphobic panic. Russian media folk have been making much of Apophis, the near-​Earth asteroid that will come within spitting distance on a Friday the 13th in 2029, and which will return for a closer, more dangerous fly-​by on another Friday the 13th, April 2036. 

Russian media had dubbed Apophis the “space threat of the century.” But the Russian emergency experts — government officials, charged with calming things down — have countered paranoia with statements like, “In 2013, none of the known asteroids will pass by the Earth at a dangerous distance.”

Well, nice to know. But this year had never been a worry to scientists. The crucial years were 2029 and 2036. The folks at Goldstone say they have ruled out any impact in 2036, and scientists had already determined the earlier date non-hazardous.

Good. But, if you are like me, when government officials all agree that the sky is blue, you’ll call it “cerulean.”

But maybe it’s only about budgets, taxes, and special ops that governments lie.

Take Jerry Brown, California’s governor and a most interesting fellow. He insists that his state’s deficit problems are nearly over. Great! Well, he bases his cheery picture on future growth projections, and he’s just so optimistic that he’s advocating still more spending! Now.

I once defined pessimism as the lazy stepchild of vigilance. Brown’s optimism has no vigilance in it. I don’t believe him.

I hope the government-​paid scientists charting Apophis’s transits are more rigorous and trustworthy.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
ballot access initiative, referendum, and recall

Grinding Down Democracy

California’s Democratic legislative majority is anything but lazy. On July 3, when most politicians had long-​since left their posts to begin vacationing, California legislators kept their collective nose to the grindstone, busy trying to grind down the right of citizens to petition their government.

Again.

Last year, California’s initiative process withstood multiple attacks. One would have required petitioners to wear signs on their chest stating whether or not they were paid. Another would have outlawed paying petitioners per signature.

Nary a Republican voted for these bills; thankfully, Governor Jerry Brown, a Democrat, vetoed both. He suggested government shouldn’t force citizens to wear signs on their chests and noted, “It doesn’t seem very practical to me to create a system that makes productivity goals a crime.”

Undeterred, the Assembly Elections Committee passed ACA 10, which would require constitutional amendment initiatives to qualify by running petition drives in 27 state senate districts. This, on top of the current requirement to gather more than a million voter signatures statewide,

Well-​heeled interests would be able to afford the higher costs. Grassroots groups? Not so much.

Further, ACA 10 mandates that constitutional amendments proposed by citizens through the initiative must garner a supermajority of 55 percent to pass. This would allow big spending-​unions or wealthy individuals or big corporations to defeat reform measures even when a majority of voters favor the measure.

Legislators claim the constitution should not be changed by a slim majority. Yet, ACA 10 doesn’t increase the simple majority currently required when it comes to amendments that legislators propose.

Legislators are working overtime to get those pesky citizen reformers out of their way.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.