Meg Whitman Launches Her Campaign for a New California
Under the faded letters on a building wall spelling out CALIFORNIA, hung a banner declaring: Meg 2010, A New California. The juxtaposition of the faded letters with the hope of renewal was quite intentional as Meg Whitman announced the theme for her gubernatorial campaign.
Declaring her candidacy under a blazing sun in Fullerton, Whitman promised to focus on three key issues to build a New California: creating jobs, stopping and slashing regulations, and improving education.
Timing is everything, they say, and the candidate’s hard-hitting attack on business regulations could not have been better timed. Less than a day before the announcement, a study mandated by the legislature on the cost of regulation on California small business was released. It revealed some staggering numbers.
The report said that regulation costs small business nearly $493 billion and 3.8 million jobs in California. In her speech, Whitman promised, “On my first day in office, I’ll issue a moratorium on all new regulations until our economy has begun to recover.”
Why Voters Favor an Open Primary but not a Part Time Legislature
The Public Policy Institute of California’s September survey asked several questions on proposed political reforms, and one that that caught the attention of PPIC head Mark Baldassare and a number of observers was an apparently contradiction on issues of legislative reform. Voter confusion about political reforms is nothing new, but this one stood out.
When asked whether an open primary with a top two runoff was a good or bad idea, 70 percent of voters favored it. But when asked if a part time legislature was a good or bad idea, only 23 percent were in favor.
“Californians seem to be yearning for political reforms that will build on the independent redistricting initiative that they passed last November. Seven in 10 voters across party lines would like to change the closed primary system to an open primary – allowing the top two vote-getters regardless of party affiliation to square off in the general election,” Baldassare wrote in the San Francisco Chronicle.
California Businesses Waterboarded by Governmental Overregulation
Have you ever wondered about the real costs of government on our society? Not just the cost in taxes to pay for government services, but the costs government imposes on our daily lives? As Californians suffer through the worst recession in decades, is our government working to make things easier for us, or harder? When the State Legislature imposes new regulations on business, what is the impact on our pocket books? How many jobs are lost when agencies like the California Air Resources Board (CARB) or the Cal EPA impose new regulatory burdens on those employers who seek to create jobs and wealth?
I have spent the last three weeks lobbying the Governor’s office urging the release of an historic study that spells out the costs imposed on jobs and businesses in this state by overregulation. This report is now available to the public. This study outlines the real costs to businesses in our state that are caused by our own government. The study originated from AB 2330 (Arambula), which passed with bi-partisan support in 2006. This was a quantitative study that focused on the actual losses in economic output, losses in jobs, the indirect losses in business taxes, and finally losses in labor income (the monies a family would normally spend as part of household disposable income). The study can be found on the Governor’s website athttps://www.sba.ca.gov/.
Class Action Insanity
The other day I received a notice of a class action settlement regarding Troyk vs. Farmers Group Inc. It seems like recently I get about one of these a month. This one caught my attention. I have not been with Farmers Insurance for some time and during the period in question I must have been with them for only a brief time.
The class representative in this case is claiming that monthly service charges collected for monthly billing and payment of premiums on Farmers Insurance Exchange auto policies in California and Nevada were illegal. So Farmers is settling the case and the settlement notices go out to current or former policy holders.
As a former policy holder I am entitled to a check for $37.50. Mr. or Mrs. Troyk is entitled to $5,000 for his or her costs, time and effort as acting as the class representative. And the law firm representing “my interests” is getting $5,400,000. This law firm is none other than Bill Lerach’s former firm, Coughlin Stoia Geller Rudman & Robbins. Did I mention that Bill Lerach is serving two years in a federal prison?