Heated rhetoric

Pressing ahead with the environmental emphasis characterizing his final term in office, Brown asked the presidential hopefuls to outline their own policies. “Longer fire seasons, extreme weather and severe droughts aren’t on the horizon, they’re […] here to stay,” he wrote, as the Sacramento Bee reported. “Given the challenge and the stakes, my question for you is simple: What are you going to do about it? What is your plan to deal with the threat of climate change?”

Brown’s office told the Bee he submitted his question via the Facebook page of Fox News, which solicited questions from viewers of the debates, which it hosted and televised.

This month, as the San Gabriel Valley Tribute noted, Brown hit out against the field again, using a fresh report on July temperatures to lambaste “Republicans, foot-dragging corporations and other deniers.” Surveying the damage to the fire-stricken Clear Lake area, Brown “repeated his challenge to Republican presidential candidates,” the Los Angeles Times reported, warning that “California is burning” and asking, bluntly, “What the hell are you going to do about it?”

Republican responses

So far, at least three Republican candidates have touched on environmental issues in the wake of Brown’s challenges.

Not all their remarks have been directly responsive, however. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker recently took the opportunity to critique “radical environmental policies that stop things like dams from going in so that water … can be used effectively,” according to the Bee.

But Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and former HP CEO Carly Fiorina, who had challenged Sen. Barbara Boxer’s re-election, both addressed Brown head on, the Bee added. While Cruz dismissed “alarmists” as power-hungry schemers, Fiorina took a more nuanced approach; although she first conceded it “may well be true” that California’s drought was worsened by climate change, she also criticized policymakers for failing to prepare for the kind of droughts the state has had “for millennia.”

Shifting opinions

Republicans on the campaign trail have broadly reflected opinions among constituents nationwide. Even in California, Republicans have demonstrated consistent skepticism toward claims that human activity has fostered dangerous alterations in temperatures and weather. In a new poll conducted by the Public Policy Institute of California, a majority of Golden State Republicans said “they don’t believe that climate change is happening and that they don’t think it will be a serious problem in the future,” as the San Jose Mercury News reported. “They also support expanding fossil fuel production — from increasing offshore oil drilling along California’s coast to expanding fracking.”

Yet the poll evinced some wiggle room on environmental policy issues. Fully 43 percent of California Republican respondents supported stricter in-state climate rules than what the federal government has passed into law. “Californians of all parties said they support increasing tax credits for electric vehicles and solar power,” the Mercury News added.

In a recent nonpartisan poll commissioned by a water policy foundation, Californians seemed to confirm that the drought had become a leading issue of worry across the ideological spectrum. According to the Los Angeles Times, “62 percent of poll subjects said they would be very willing or somewhat willing to pay $4 more a month for water if the funds were used to improve water supply reliability. Such an increase, if applied to the entire state, would generate about a billion dollars, according to poll sponsors.”

Environmentalists divided

Brown’s environmentalist policies haven’t satisfied all critics. His administration’s emphasis on reducing emissions, for instance, has led some to wonder why he hasn’t pushed harder for cheaper electricity rates, which would benefit owners of many zero-emissions vehicles. One objection, recently voiced in the San Diego Daily Transcript, warned that Brown’s policies “will systematically shift profits into a few private hands instead of building, managing and maintaining a solid and reliable electric-charging infrastructure comparable to our utility grid.”

Video 1: Scott Walker on right-to-work and Obama criticism.

Video 2: Scott Walker on Iran, Russia and Keystone XL.

Video 3: Scott Walker on medical marijuana, same-sex marriage.

Video 4: Scott Walker advances immigration plan.

Video 5: Scott Walker on winning the millennial vote.

Video 6: 2016 Showdown: Scott Walker vs. Jeb Bush.

More videos from Calle’s interview with Walker will be released soon.

…. use the case, Harris v. Quinn, to strike down laws in 26 states requiring teachers, police officers, firefighters and other public-sector employees to pay dues to the unions that negotiate contracts on their behalf, even if the workers don’t want to become union members. …

How bad could the Supreme Court decision be for unions? Consider that in the two years after [Wisconsin Gov. Scott] Walker ended compulsory union membership in his state, the American Federation of Teachers lost 65 percent of its statewide members and the National Education Association shrank by 19 percent. Other public-sector unions also took big hits, with revenue plunging by 40 percent or more.

Instead, the ruling was limited in scope, per AP:

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court dealt a blow to public sector unions Monday, ruling that thousands of home health care workers in Illinois cannot be required to pay fees that help cover the union’s costs of collective bargaining.

In a 5-4 split along ideological lines, the justices said the practice violates the First Amendment rights of nonmembers who disagree with the positions that unions take.

But if this wasn’t the bombshell that some expected, it still could have major impact in California, where 400,000 state-paid in-home care workers are represented by the SEIU. This month, they’ve been celebrating a huge victory. The state budget for the fiscal year starting Tuesday for the first time allows them to receive overtime.

But we can expect efforts prompted by today’s Supreme Court ruling to get these workers to opt in to union coverage. These efforts could well succeed. As the Wisconsin numbers cited by Politico show, a lot of union-represented workers don’t much like unions.

Fortunately, public sector union reform is something even Democrats are realizing is essential if governments are going to get budgets under control, implement labor-saving new technologies, reform public education, and have funds left over to rebuild and upgrade infrastructure.

Now a Democratic state senator in Wisconsin, Tim Carpenter, has picked up where Gov. Walker left off. An article in the Wisconsin Reporter entitled “Police union says Dem proposal on collective bargaining is retaliation,” describes Carpenter’s “Act 10 Equity” legislation that would “expand the state’s controversial restrictions on collective bargaining to the two sectors spared from the new law more than two years ago.”

Again, a cynic might suggest this is indeed retaliation — if those liberal teachers unions are going to be restricted, so should those conservative police unions. But if conservatives truly adhere to the fundamental principles of limited government and individual freedoms, it is the right thing to do.

‘Intrinsically in favor of less freedom’

With all public employee unions, the more restrictions on property rights or personal freedoms there are, the more public employees are needed to enforce them. Public employee unions are intrinsically in favor of bigger government and less freedom because that is how they serve their members and build their organizations. Even if public employee unions were banned entirely, public employees would still be extremely active and influential in politics, because their livelyhoods are intimately affected by public policy.

This conflict of interests — the fact that a bigger, more intrusive government serves the interests of government employees but does not necessarily serve the interests of private citizens — is magnified in the case of public safety unions. As noted in a UnionWatch editorial earlier this year “How Public Sector Unions Skew America’s Public Safety and National Security Agenda,” as we enter an era of ubiquitous surveillance and automated law-enforcement tactics, it is vital that civil libertarians on both sides of the political spectrum recognize that government unions have a vested interest in expanding the size and the powers of government.

There are compelling reasons why law enforcement is more challenging that it has ever been. The globalization of crime, the emergence of cyber-crime, asymmetric terror threats and cultural upheaval, all combine to require police work of unprecedented scope and sophistication. But how we maintain the precarious balance between security and liberty should be a discussion that isn’t preempted by public safety unions whose primary agenda is to increase the payroll and power of their agencies. In Wisconsin, for example, they will still wield tremendous political influence even if their unions are subjected to the same restrictions as unions representing other public employees.

Walker may ‘finish the job’  in Wisconsin

Gov. Walker has recently opened the door to completing the work he started. As reported last week in Wisconsin Public Radio News and the Huffington Post, he said “state Republicans might expand the state’s controversial restrictions on collective bargaining to the two sectors spared from the new law more than two years ago.”

If Walker decides to try to finish the job, he may encounter resistance from Republicans who lack the courage of their convictions because they need to accept political contributions from public safety unions. But Walker may find unexpected support from Democrats.

Wisconsin, along with most states in America right now, is in the midst of an epic debate over whether or not public sector unions should be more heavily regulated, if not outlawed entirely. In a partisan, and very superficial context, it is a debate between Democrats and Republicans. In an economic context, it is a debate as to whether or not government employees should be permitted to use union clout to elevate themselves to positions of extraordinary economic privilege, exempting themselves from the challenges facing their fellow citizens. And in the related context of civil liberties, it is a debate as to whether or not unionized government workers are enabling a police state that ensures perpetuation of a status quo favoring anti-competitive monopolies, wealthy elites and government workers.

Ring is the executive director of the California Public Policy Center, and the editor of UnionWatch.org.