California Capitol, home of the Assembly and Senate. Photo by Anne Wernikoff for CalMatters
In summary
Separating the Capitol’s grain (serious legislation) from the chaff (symbolic fluff) is now always easy.
During the pre-industrial era, crops of wheat were planted,
cultivated, harvested and processed by hand.
The latter included “winnowing,” typically by using a
shallow basket to toss the crushed kernels of wheat into the air, allowing the
wind to separate edible grain from the lighter and disposable chaff.
The term is also quite applicable as the state Legislature
resumes its biennial session.
Winnowing weighty grains of policy wheat from lightweight
legislative chaff is not always easy, since the authors of both always profess
serious intent.
Eventually, however, their true nature emerges. A few years ago, for example, the state Senate, amidst much oratory, passed a bill that professed to create a state-managed “single-payer” medical care system to cover every Californian.
The legislation, however, lacked an element to make it a
serious proposal: a way to pay for it. Supposedly, all current public and
private health care spending would be absorbed by the state, but it also would
require at least $100 billion a year in new taxes.
The speaker of the Assembly, Anthony Rendon, quickly and
correctly put the bill on the legislative shelf, citing its lack of a financing
method.
Three new — or at least semi-new — proposals also illustrate the need for winnowing.
Sen. Scott Wiener, a San Francisco Democrat, is trying for
the third straight year to enact legislation to ease California’s chronic lack of housing.
Wiener wants to overcome the not-in-my-backyard sentiment that blocks local high-density housing projects and in his newly amended version, Senate Bill 50 has softened what had been a tough mandate by giving local governments more leeway to comply with state housing quotas.
Whether one likes or dislikes Wiener’s bill, it’s certainly
a serious approach to a very serious problem.
SB 50 stands in contrast with a bit of chaff being offered by Assemblywoman Autumn Burke, a Los Angeles Democrat. Her amendments to Assembly Bill 22 “declare that it is the policy of the state that every childand family has the right tohousing, which includes homelessness prevention, emergency accommodations, and permanent housing …”
“It is $81,000 a year to incarcerate a person (but) for a two-bedroom apartment, it’s $25,000 a year,” she told Politico. “It is not just morally incumbent on us to provide a right to housing but financially it is the responsible thing to do.”
That is, at
best, sophomoric reasoning. Declaring a “right to housing” is one thing but generating
tens of billions of dollars to build it is quite another. If Burke is serious
about creating such a right, then she should tell us how she’d finance it.
Otherwise, it’s just symbolism.
Speaking of which, Rob Bonta, a Democratic Assemblyman from Oakland, has introduced Assembly Bill 1839, which he describes as a “California Green New Deal” aimed at rapidly eliminating fossil fuels from the state’s economy.
“California,” he says, “has been recognized as a world leader in implementing strong and innovative environmental policies. The California Green New Deal will build on that leadership to further protect the planet and ensure that disadvantaged communities that have been harmed by the fossil fuel economy are first in line to benefit from our state’s green advances.”
So how would he
do that? Who would pay for the conversion and how would it affect the economy
and those now employed in fossil fuel-related industries? He doesn’t say.
Rather, AB 1839 would just create an advisory organization that would tell us something
two years hence.
Dan Walters has been a journalist for more than 60 years, spending all but a few of those years working for California newspapers. He began his professional career in 1960, at age 16, at the Humboldt Times...
More by Dan Walters
Winnowing legislative grain from chaff
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In summary
Separating the Capitol’s grain (serious legislation) from the chaff (symbolic fluff) is now always easy.
During the pre-industrial era, crops of wheat were planted, cultivated, harvested and processed by hand.
The latter included “winnowing,” typically by using a shallow basket to toss the crushed kernels of wheat into the air, allowing the wind to separate edible grain from the lighter and disposable chaff.
The term is also quite applicable as the state Legislature resumes its biennial session.
Winnowing weighty grains of policy wheat from lightweight legislative chaff is not always easy, since the authors of both always profess serious intent.
Eventually, however, their true nature emerges. A few years ago, for example, the state Senate, amidst much oratory, passed a bill that professed to create a state-managed “single-payer” medical care system to cover every Californian.
The legislation, however, lacked an element to make it a serious proposal: a way to pay for it. Supposedly, all current public and private health care spending would be absorbed by the state, but it also would require at least $100 billion a year in new taxes.
The speaker of the Assembly, Anthony Rendon, quickly and correctly put the bill on the legislative shelf, citing its lack of a financing method.
Three new — or at least semi-new — proposals also illustrate the need for winnowing.
Sen. Scott Wiener, a San Francisco Democrat, is trying for the third straight year to enact legislation to ease California’s chronic lack of housing.
Wiener wants to overcome the not-in-my-backyard sentiment that blocks local high-density housing projects and in his newly amended version, Senate Bill 50 has softened what had been a tough mandate by giving local governments more leeway to comply with state housing quotas.
Whether one likes or dislikes Wiener’s bill, it’s certainly a serious approach to a very serious problem.
SB 50 stands in contrast with a bit of chaff being offered by Assemblywoman Autumn Burke, a Los Angeles Democrat. Her amendments to Assembly Bill 22 “declare that it is the policy of the state that every child and family has the right to housing, which includes homelessness prevention, emergency accommodations, and permanent housing …”
“It is $81,000 a year to incarcerate a person (but) for a two-bedroom apartment, it’s $25,000 a year,” she told Politico. “It is not just morally incumbent on us to provide a right to housing but financially it is the responsible thing to do.”
That is, at best, sophomoric reasoning. Declaring a “right to housing” is one thing but generating tens of billions of dollars to build it is quite another. If Burke is serious about creating such a right, then she should tell us how she’d finance it. Otherwise, it’s just symbolism.
Speaking of which, Rob Bonta, a Democratic Assemblyman from Oakland, has introduced Assembly Bill 1839, which he describes as a “California Green New Deal” aimed at rapidly eliminating fossil fuels from the state’s economy.
“California,” he says, “has been recognized as a world leader in implementing strong and innovative environmental policies. The California Green New Deal will build on that leadership to further protect the planet and ensure that disadvantaged communities that have been harmed by the fossil fuel economy are first in line to benefit from our state’s green advances.”
So how would he do that? Who would pay for the conversion and how would it affect the economy and those now employed in fossil fuel-related industries? He doesn’t say. Rather, AB 1839 would just create an advisory organization that would tell us something two years hence.
It’s just more symbolic chaff.
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Dan WaltersOpinion Columnist
Dan Walters has been a journalist for more than 60 years, spending all but a few of those years working for California newspapers. He began his professional career in 1960, at age 16, at the Humboldt Times... More by Dan Walters