The Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, in its “Freedom in the 50 States” report divided liberty into three categories: personal, fiscal and regulatory. And while the Golden State ranked high (16th) in personal liberty, it was near the bottom in fiscal (46th) and regulatory (48th).

Overall, New Hampshire ranked the highest. New York was the only state with a lower overall liberty score than California.

For context, Cato defines libertarianism, in part, as “the belief that each person has the right to live his life as he chooses so long as he respects the equal rights of others.” And while the data used to compile the score gives a good snapshot of life in the state, many of the metrics used are sure to be viewed differently from person to person.

For example, gun “rights” account for more than 3 percent of the total score — and while the study sees gun-control measures as a threat to liberty, many Californians view restrictions on firearm usage and access as a necessity. But the study’s guiding principal is based on how governmental policies and regulations affect an individual’s ability to make his or her own decisions.

“In the American system, even ‘benefit to others’ cannot justify trampling on certain freedoms,” wrote the study’s authors. “Books may not be banned simply because the ideas and arguments they present offend some readers. Racial segregation would be unjustified even in the unlikely event it were somehow considered efficient. Likewise, state and local governments ought to respect basic rights and liberties, such as the right to practice an honest trade or the right to make lifetime partnership contracts, whether or not respecting these rights ‘maximizes utility.'”

Personal freedom

The most heavily weighted category in personal liberty is incarceration, where California ranks 12th — a steady improvement since 2010 as incarceration and drug arrest rates have fallen. 

California was tied for first with many states for marriage equality and ranked high in cannabis and alcohol liberty, but middle of the road in tobacco restrictions. The state ranked low in terms of school choice under the belief that taxpayers paying for public schools should have some freedom to choose where their children go.

Fiscal freedom 

As for fiscal freedom, California has relatively high state taxes and average local taxes, which, when combined, account for 10.8 percent of personal income. California ranks near the bottom (40th) for government debt, which comes to 22.8 percent of personal income.

Meanwhile, government employment in the state is actually well below the national average.

Regulatory Freedom

Regulatory freedom is where California scores the worst of the three categories. Land use is the highest-weighted category in regulatory policy, and it includes eminent domain rules and renewable portfolio standards for power companies, as well as smaller factors.

Labor law was also weighted heavily in regulatory policy, like right-to-work laws, minimum wage, mandated paid family leave and worker’s compensation as it relates to federal law. California ranks 50th in this category.

Recommendations

The study makes several suggestions on how to improve the state’s freedom score, which are included here:

• Fiscal: Cut spending in the areas of general administration, housing and community development, and employee retirement, where it exceeds the national average, and use the proceeds to reduce indebtedness.
• Regulatory: Eliminate the California Coastal Commission’s authority to regulate private land use. Instead, give it the authority to overturn local zoning rules that undermine sound environmental objectives, such as housing density.
• Personal: Expand legal gambling. California’s political culture is unlikely to have many qualms about gaming, but legalizing nontribal casinos would require a constitutional amendment. If California’s gambling regime rose, consistently with that culture, to a standard deviation better than the national average, it would rise from 16th to 9th on personal freedom.

The controversy, which made national news, pitted festival organizers against the Federal Bureau of Land Management, the agency that has the power to renew or withhold the necessary permits for so-called burners to convene at the Black Rock Desert site that draws many Californians to the sands of Nevada.

Backing down

After making what were widely interpreted as exorbitant demands, the Bureau of Land Management withdrew the new requirements at the last minute, drawing sighs of relief from organizers including Marian Goodell. “We’ve made tremendous progress over the past six weeks to agree on common sense solutions that meet BLM’s needs and ensure the health and safety of those supporting and participating in the Burning Man event,” said Goodell in a statement reported by The Hill.

“That being said, there’s an important amount of work to do after the 2015 event,” she continued. “We’re all committed to further discussion regarding the permitor–permittee relationship and what is required for BLM to properly administer the permit.”

In scrapping their plans to make Burning Man foot the bill to put up the officials sent to oversee the event,  BLM “also announced that it granted Burning Man its special recreation permit for the 2015 event,” the Reno Gazette-Journal noted, allowing up to 70,000 people on site from the 30th of August to the 7th of September.

The Nevada office of the BLM insisted that it had maintained necessary standards despite backing down. “We took a very hard look at what is essential to maintain core operational needs to provide appropriate health, safety and environmental safeguards on the playa,” said spokesman Stephen Clutter, according to the Gazette-Journal.

Mandatory ice cream

According to the original list of demands, BLM staff would have received a laundry list of special perks and costly amenities. In order to receive its permit, Burning Man would have been responsible for building, at its own expense, a separate compound for officials including “refrigerators, washing machines, vanity mirrors, flush toilets and food choices including ice cream and steak,” as the Las Vegas Review-Journal observed. (Regulators had even specified that Choco Tacos had to be available 24 hours a day, according to documents obtained by the Sacramento Bee.)

In fact, however, top BLM officials themselves caught on to the million-dollar ploy. “BLM officials, including Deputy Director Steve Ellis, took notice,” according to The Hill. “Ellis sent a public memo in June urging the agency to work closely with Burning Man organizers to reduce costs and reconsider demands.” According to the Bee, “BLM Director Neil Kornze has called some of the requests ‘lavish’ and ‘outlandish.'”

All told, the added expenditures would have tacked some $1 million onto Burning Man’s budget — a big increase from its typical permit costs, which have ballooned to $4 million since the event first put down Nevada stakes in 1990; the tab increased “substantially over the past four years, despite the unchanged population cap. In 2011, Burning Man paid $858,000; in 2012, $1.4 million and in 2013, $2.9 million.”

An uneasy balance

The attempt at quasi-extortion underscored the degree to which festival organizers have found themselves at the mercy of federal regulators. For political and cultural allies, longstanding suspicion toward the federal government was poised to increase in the wake of the ordeal. Burning Man, as Reason’s Brian Doherty suggested, “survives only by paying off and adjusting to the demands of the federal government that ostensibly ‘owns’ the land the event is held on.”

For now, the delicate balance was set to hold. “BLM staffers will have the same caterer used by Burning Man organizers, and they’ll stay in the town of Gerlach as they have in the past, although the BLM will still have an on-site command center where officials can coordinate safety, security and environmental efforts,” according to the Bee.

By Brian Calle

Here’s an upbeat message on selling liberty from Judd Weiss, a libertarian activist. We mention pies.

Happy Thanksgiving!

By John Seiler

We appreciate our commentators adding to our articles. But the past two days I have spent several hours deleting abusive posts, in particular from one commentator who has contributed interesting, civil comments in the past. He has been banned until Monday. If the abuse continues after that, he will be banned permanently.

In one post, he accused us of “censoring” him, something a “libertarian” organization is not supposed to do. But libertarianism means property rights. CalWatchDog.com is not owned by him, but by the Pacific Research Institute. PRI has hired myself and other editors to set specific standards of journalistic probity, including for commentators. We have done that.

Property rights and free speech mean that this person, or anyone, has a right to set up his own Internet news site, which nowadays can be done for free here or here. We will defend his right to do so.

All of the editors come from newspaper backgrounds, most recently the Orange County Register. I have worked for three major newspapers. We have adapted the common industry practice of allowing wide latitude to comments, especially those that disagree with us, but not abusive comments. This will continue.

In deleting some of the abusive posts, in some cases comment threads have become disjointed. That is unfortunate. But I do not have all day to try to repair the continuity of every thread. This is a shoestring operation that already does a great deal with a limited staff.

We also have gone outside newspaper practice somewhat by allowing anonymous comments. If the abuses continue, we may have to end that, although I don’t want that.

I enjoy the give and take, and many contributors have provided insight and even corrections where we have made mistakes.

But incivility will not be tolerated.