Lame Duck Laundry List

Political columnist Jill Stewart lists some of the stinky, recently-passed Democratic bills sitting on Gov. Gray Davis' desk. Among them:

AB 1309, by Jackie Goldberg. After a school district tears down houses to build a school, this allows a district to go tear down somebody else's house, somewhere else, to put up housing for those originally displaced. The intent is to make white suburbanites, whom Goldberg detests, suffer instead of brown urbanites. Watch for lawsuits by broad-sided homeowners.

AB 1742. If your taxman has more than 100 clients, he now must send your return in via Internet.

Comments

[jack]

Isn’t there also a new bill waiting for the governors approval that will force any business with 20+ employees to provide health insurance for them all? So much for your job if you are lucky number 20… I’d imagine most companies will just downsize to 19.

[Steve Smith]

Did Ms. Stewart even read AB1309? Her description of the bill is so far off the mark as to be mendacious.

[joe]

What a hack.

AB1245. She loves public initiatives and people power so much, that she’s offended by an effort to remove the Attorney General from the position of editing them. Tell me, are you afraid that your moronic right wing friends will mangle the grammar of the English First initiative, or is granting the head of law enforcement censorhip power over what goes on a ballot some sort of populist statement?

AB1309. It’s amazing where people like her can find a Brown Peril.

AB587. “A box asking your skin color will now go on voter registration forms. It’s voluntary—but expect a move next to make it required.” Expect, huh? I don’t think I’ve seen a mandatory race box in my entire life.

SB796. I wonder what this woman considers a “tiny” workplace safety violation. Tell you what, get a callus, then talk to me about workplace conditions.

And of course, AB 231. Welfare queens with Cadillacs, blah blah.

I wouldn’t trust this woman if she told me my house was on fire, and I smelled smoke.

[hey joe]

Why not just call her an “ignorant slut” while you’re at it? You hit the other namecalling pretty well.

[Dan]

Expect, huh? I don’t think I’ve seen a mandatory race box in my entire life.

Well, it was a mandatory field when I applied to UCSD back in 1989. Maybe it isn’t today, I don’t know. It’s also mandatory for my employer to record and report my race, so in that sense the very act of applying for a job features a mandatory “race box”. The thing is, joe, if the box isn’t mandatory, the data it collects is useless — it becomes the equivalent of a web poll. The bill is either (a) a waste of the state’s time and money, (b) an attempt to sleaze race-data collection in through the back door, or (c) both.

I wonder what this woman considers a “tiny” workplace safety violation.

The example she gives is “using the wrong font size for your employee notices”. And it’s “labor violations”, not “safety violations” — you probably should have actually read either her article, or the bill itself, before attempting to sound clever. The bill does not deal with safety violations or employee injury/death; it deals with violations of the state Labor Code.

There are thousands of obscure codes that most employers (who cannot afford their own small army of lawyers) have little way of knowing about, let alone obeying. The bill allows for massive payouts — $100 or $200 per pay period, per employee, plus legal expenses. Oh, did I mention that the state gets to keep 75% of the payout? The whole purpose of the bill is to help raise more money for regulatory agencies by encouraging “vigilante” activity by employees — the bill says as much in its summary.

It would probably be a good idea if you actually read articles before slamming them. 🙂

[Steve Smith]

The only provision of the Labor Code that deals with font size that I’ve been able to find is Section 5432(a), which deals with workers comp advertisements. The only employers who would have to worry about the scenario drawn up by Ms. Stewart are law firms and doctors who a) specialize in workers comp cases, b) employ fifty people, c) solicit the workers comp business of one of those fifty using an ad with the faulty font size, and d) continue using said font size after being initially cited.

Yep, I can just see all of those workers comp attorneys fleeing the state because of our oppressive business climate.

[Barton]

Jill should always be taken with a grain of salt. She’s a classic demagogue who would never let the facts get in the way of a good head-slap to power. She’s entertaining and useful for her ability to get under the skin of self-dealing and self-righteous pols. But nobody should mistake her rhetoric for fact. She bends facts — maybe even twists them a little — to make her point. Does that make her a hack? Maybe. But with a deliciously sharp needle.

[brendan]

Commentary or Journalism? I’d say Jill falls into the former category, which gives license for her to give her take on the issues… everthing she says is plausible, if not likely given these folks in Sacto. Give her a break!

[Amy Alkon]

Jill’s not just doing a straight-on read of the bills, but expressing her opinion, based on years of experience studying California politics. If you say some of what she says isn’t so, don’t just link to the bills, Mr. Smith, but state why you think she’s wrong. Substantively, I mean. Look at Dan’s post above. He’s shown just a few examples of why Jill’s right. Font size? Ridiculous. And regarding health insurance; I pay my own; I don’t see why businesses should be forced to subsidize the lifestyle choices of those who have children, in turn, costing workers who don’t. (Duh…those health insurance for dependents dollars have to come from somewhere.) I’m neither dem nor republican, but I must say, it’s the demi-commies who seem to have serious problems with elementary math.

[Steve Smith]

She is entitled to her opinion, her “takes”, and I’m entitled to show that her opinion is worthless. If she were to use her column to argue in favor of creationism, she would be taking a “plausible” position on the origins of man, but it would be a false one. Her description of the legislative enactments, particularly AB 1309 and SB 796, are no less false because they are couched in the form of “opinion”.

[Steve Smith]

Actually, I did give several examples, both on my website and in the comments, above. The font size “issue” was particularly bad, since the only employers that it applied to were workers compensation professionals that employed more than fifty people that solicited business from their own employees, hardly the typical California business. As an opinion writer, she should be treated no differently than Michael Moore, Noam Chomsky, Robert Fisk, and Ann Coulter; if facts upon which her opinions are based do not support her conclusions, she should be called on it.

[Jansson Stephanie]

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DATE: 01/26/2004 08:27:07
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