California State Senator Richard Pan, a Democrat representing the Sacramento suburbs, was the author of Senate Bill 277, one of the most controversial California bills of 2015.

SB 277 is supposed to result in eventual “total immunization of appropriate age groups” against ten childhood diseases and possibly other diseases to be added to the list later. Governor Jerry Brown signed SB 277 in June 2015 after it passed the Assembly 46-31-3 and the Senate 24-14-2. It is now in effect as California law.

The law eliminates a statutory exemption from immunization requirements based upon personal beliefs. Private or public elementary or secondary schools, child care centers, day nurseries, nursery schools, family day care homes, or development centers are no longer allowed to admit a pupil unconditionally unless that that pupil has been immunized for listed diseases.

Vaccines have helped modern civilizations to flourish by controlling infectious diseases. And Senator Pan repeatedly referred to “science” as justification for his bill. Nevertheless, some Californians objected vehemently to a new government mandate to inject substances… Read More

What’s the point of having a constitution if the government punishes The People for exercising their rights guaranteed in it?

Article XI, Section 3 of the California Constitution gives the state’s 121 charter cities the authority to govern their own municipal affairs. In recent years, city councils have proposed charters and voters have approved charters in order to circumvent costly and unnecessary state mandates imposed by the California State Legislature on local governments. Many of these mandates are pushed into state law by union lobbyists.

In 2012 the California Supreme Court upheld a right practiced by dozens of charter cities. The court ruled that charter cities could establish their own policies concerning government-mandated wage rates (so-called “prevailing wages”) for public projects funded exclusively with city funds and private projects getting city financial assistance.

To stifle this little local rebellion, State Senate President pro Tem Darrell Steinberg and Republican Senator Anthony Cannella introduced a bill in 2013 sponsored by the State Building and Construction Trades Council of California. Senate Bill 7 cuts off… Read More

Two Republicans in the California State Legislature are now voting for legislation sponsored by the state’s construction unions, following several years of unified, principled caucus resistance to such schemes. One might think that former Republican legislators Brett Granlund, Anthony Pescetti, and Ken Maddox are back from term-limited exile, in disguise.

Union leaders and lobbyists are thrilled! They can now label their costly, self-serving bills as “bipartisan” while labeling their more principled critics as “extremist.”

A Bipartisan Attack on Constitutional Rights, Local Control, and Fiscal Responsibility

Most prominent among the union-backed bills with Republican support is Senate Bill 7. This bill would withhold state funding for any of the state’s 121 charter cities that exercise their right under the state constitution to set their own government-mandated wage rate policies for purely municipal construction.

SB 7 undermines the principle of local control over local funds and the fundamental structure of constitutional federalism. It also punishes fiscally responsible cities that recognize how state-mandated… Read More