Too Many Laws
I’m no supporter of Barbara Boxer, never have been and am not now, but I don’t object, as Carly Fiorina does, that Boxer has authored only five measures that became law in her time in the U. S. Senate. We have too many laws already.
The San Jose Mercury News ran articles focusing on the number of bills sponsored by lobbyists in Sacramento. The paper reported that there were 1,883 sponsored bills in the 2007-2008 two-year legislative session on top of 2,982 bills with no sponsors offered by legislators.
That’s 4,865 bills that were introduced in one session of which about 1500 became law. Fifteen-hundred new laws in one legislative session! Each session the law books get fatter and fatter and no one can know all the laws in those books and how they interact with each other.
For Whom Does Bell Toll?
The story of $800,000.00 per year city officials and $100,000.00 per year elected officials in the small Los Angeles-area city of Bell has become news from California to China. While legitimate scorn has been heaped on these 6-figure "public servants", and both the Los Angeles County DA’s office as well as the Attorney General, Jerry Brown, have ordered investigations into possible illegalities, initial reviews of how things got so bad in Bell reveal an inconvenient truth: it’s the citizens’ fault.
As the head of the LA district attorney’s Public Integrity Division, David Demerjian recently told the Los Angeles Times,?"We deal with the crime. What people consider corruption may not be a crime. I tell them, ‘Any dysfunction within the government has to be handled by you.’ The residents have a lot of power."??
It was that great chronicler of the American democratic republic, Alexis De Tocqueville, who once noted, "in a democracy, the people get the government they deserve", but reading some of the reports and opinion pieces about the current fiasco, one is left to wonder whether this long-accepted axiom is still true. Within days of the Los Angeles Time’s cover story blowing the lid off of Bell’s City Hall, defenders arose to protect the civic virtue of its residents for reasons both self-serving and condescending.
Off The Presses
Who says money and politics don’t mix? (Well, nobody).
On this week’s episode of Off
The Presses radio program, we spoke with Bob Stern of the Center for
Governmental Studies who commented on the organization’s new report, Money &
Power in the City of Angels. Among its findings is that L.A. city
incumbents were all easily reelected and outraised their opponents, 19-1, and
that 99.993% of L.A. City Council votes were unanimous last year.
We also chatted with PR guru and political pundit Michael
Levine who publishes the LBNElert and
explained why we’re fascinated with Lindsay Lohan’s and Mel
Gibson’s troubles and how he’s leading a boycott of Scotland over
its role in releasing convicted Lockarbie terrorist Abdel Baset al-Megrahi and
if BP had any influence in return for new oil agreements in Libya. Michael also
revealed who won’t be the next GOP nominee for president.
Two Steps Forward for the City of Los Angeles
At
a time when local government must reinvent its approach to job
creation, the City of Los Angeles made two major strides last week. The
L.A. City Council unanimously approved the L.A. Area Chamber’s proposed Office of Economic Analysis and also endorsed the L.A. County Strategic Plan for Economic Development. Both are important opportunities to make good policies that incentivize business growth in our City.
The Office of
Economic Analysis will finally give City officials the information they
need to evaluate whether a proposed policy will drive businesses away
or encourage them to invest even more in Los Angeles. Under the new
program, the City will contract with respected, independent economists
to study how proposed legislation would affect the business climate,
job creation and overall economy.
Championed by City
Council President Eric Garcetti and Councilmember Greig Smith, the City
approved $250,000 in initial funding and will begin compiling a bullpen
of respected economists to contract with on an as-needed basis. The
Chamber’s ultimate goal is to make this office a permanent part of our
city government to provide this type of evaluation on a wide-range of
city policies and programs. In the meantime, the Chamber will be
working with City Council members to make sure that policies deserving
of this review are studied.