SAN JOSE, Calif. — Silicon Valley is entering a fifth year of unfettered growth. The median household income is $90,000. The average single-family home sells for about $1 million. The airport is adding a multimillion-dollar private jet centre.

But the river of money flowing through America’s tech mecca has also driven housing costs to double while wages for low- and middle-skilled workers are stagnant. Now the widening income gap between the wealthy and those left behind is sparking debate, anger and sporadic protests.

Some even with jobs get supplies from a food bank. Rants against the 1 per cent are spray-painted on buildings in wealthy towns. Security guards rally outside Apple Inc. demanding better wages with a banner that reads: “What’s the matter with Silicon Valley? Prosperity for some, poverty for many. That’s what.”

Here’s a bit from local media, specifically an Oakland Tribune reporter who writers for the Bay Area News Group, from February:

“The wage distribution gap is actually growing,” Hancock said. “We are losing our middle class in Silicon Valley.” …

In 2006, 21 percent of the households of Silicon Valley had yearly income levels of less than $35,000, 40 percent — the middle class — had income ranges from $35,000 to $99,000, and 39 percent had annual income levels of $100,000 or more.

By 2012 … 20 percent of households had incomes less than $35,000, 35 percent were in the $35,000 to $99,000 range, and 45 percent had incomes of $100,000 or more … .

High poverty? Let them eat microchips

So how do the liberal Democrats who control local politics across Silicon Valley propose to deal with this? By making the problem even worse. This is from a story in Sunday’s Mercury-News:

SAN JOSE — Hoping to preserve scenic parklands, wildlife habitat and farmland around Silicon Valley, the board of the Santa Clara County Open Space Authority is scheduled to vote Thursday on placing a $24 per-parcel tax on the November ballot.

The tax, which would require a two-thirds majority for approval, would raise $120 million over the next 15 years to expand the agency’s network of open space preserves, currently located around Henry W. Coe State Park, Calero Reservoir and the hills east of San Jose.

“We need to pick up the pace of conservation in Silicon Valley,” said Andrea MacKenzie, general manager of the agency, which is based in San Jose.

Picking up “the pace of conservation” is code for blocking new construction and growth. Without new housing stock, Silicon Valley’s working class will remain impoverished or close to it by default. The main reason California has by far the highest poverty rate in the nation is the high cost of housing.

And now politicians in the Silicon Valley want to make that problem even worse. And the party they’re affiliated with claims to care about social justice.

Why? I think Dennis Prager is on to something with his theory about what’s driving this thinking:

Yes, of course, as individuals with a heart, most people, right and left, care about people losing their jobs. But in terms of what matters to the left and the policies they pursue, they don’t care. The left and the political party it controls do not care if their policies force to companies to leave the state (or the country). They don’t care about the …  job-depressing effects of high taxes, or energy prices that hurt the middle class, or compelling businesses to leave.

They don’t care because the left is not interested in prosperity; the left is interested in inequality and in the environment. Furthermore, the worse the economic situation, the more voters are likely to vote Democrat. The worse the economic situation, the greater the number of people receiving government assistance; the greater the number of people receiving government assistance, the greater the number of people who will vote Democrat.

Therefore, both philosophically and politically, the left has no reason to be troubled by bad economic news. And it isn’t. It is troubled by inequality and carbon emissions.

–In the last 20 years, about 4 million more people have left California than came in from other states. Most of those leaving are young families.

–In the last 15 years, one-third of California’s industrial employment base has disappeared. That’s 600,000 jobs that have disappeared.

–California has the 48th-worst business tax climate. (The Tax Foundation)

–California’s electricity prices are 50 percent higher than the national average.

–Middle-class workers, those who earn more than $48,000, pay a top income tax rate of 9.3 percent. That’s higher than what millionaires pay in 47 other states.

–California’s unemployment rate is fourth highest in the nation.

–From 2010-13, California produced fewer than 8,000 jobs, while the country added 510,000.

“Yet despite transit’s importance, most metropolitan transit systems are inadequate. In no major metropolitan area, for example, are more than 12.6% of jobs accessible within a 45-minute, one-way commute via transit. This is particularly problematic for poorer metropolitan-area residents, who are most likely to be transit-dependent.

“Why is transit so inadequate? One reason is that while many metropolitan areas maintain  ‘radial’ transit networks designed to transport workers to and from a traditional central business district, patterns of economic activity have actually become increasingly decentralized. Research shows that nearly half the jobs in the nation’s largest metropolitan areas are located more than 10 miles from the edge of the central business district, while only 20% of jobs are located within three miles of downtown. In this context, ‘grid’ transit networks—which do a much better job of connecting suburbs with one another—are more effective than radial ones.

‘Supposed to be the future of public transportation’

Fixed-rail mass transit just can’t compare with small bus fleets in getting people from where they live to where they work. So one would think that as a matter of social justice, bus rapid transit would be hugely popular in liberal communities?

Nope. Not even close. A San Francisco Chronicle story shows that in the Bay Area, the transit approach has been stalled:

“Bus rapid transit was supposed to be the future of public transportation.

“A technology combining more efficient buses and relatively simple improvements to streets, BRT, as it’s known, has been heralded as a fairly cheap high-capacity transit system — a subway on tires — that can be put on the streets quickly.

“But in the Bay Area, the introduction of bus rapid transit is advancing at a pace akin to that of a Muni bus stuck in rush-hour traffic. More than a dozen years after the region started talking about the speedy buses, the Bay Area is still waiting for its first one.

“Bus rapid transit projects in San Francisco, the East Bay and the South Bay are still in the works, but they have stalled after running into community skepticism and opposition to the removal of traffic lanes and parking spaces. The opposition from merchants and residents has caused some cities, even progressive bastions like Berkeley, to refuse to allow transit-only lanes or to drop out of BRT projects altogether.”

The Chronicle article ignores two crucial issues. The first is that the Bay Area loves the mass transit program whose main ridership is middle-class and upper-middle-class — the Bay Area Rapid Transit system. The second is that historically one of the reasons bus rapid transit has been so opposed is because it involves vehicles. Even if they’re vehicles that don’t have internal combustion engines, liberals don’t like vehicles — outside of their own.

Poor sued over rail-favoring transit policies in L.A.

In the early 1990s, this attitude led to a social-justice lawsuit in Los Angeles. This story is from the Dec. 31, 1996, Los Angeles Times:

“When it began in 1992 as the brainchild of labor and environmental activist Eric Mann, the Bus Riders Union was seen by some as a gadfly group whose members had been escorted out of MTA meetings by transit police.

“Now, the group has won official recognition and a place at the decision-making table. With the October settlement of its lawsuit against the MTA, the Bus Riders Union is included in a joint working group with MTA officials that will oversee the implementation of future bus improvements.

“But the group’s recent success is just one part of its broader goals.

“‘Building a first-class bus system is part of building a social movement,’ organizer Kikanza Ramsey said. To the Bus Riders Union, better buses are an important improvement–along with better wages and working conditions and a cleaner environment–to the quality of life of poor and minority Los Angeles residents.

“The union contends that improving the bus system is a civil rights issue because most bus riders are minorities and have low incomes. Forty-seven percent of bus riders are Latinos, 23% are African American, 19% are white and 8% are Asian Americans or Pacific Islanders.

“Its suit alleged that massive spending on rail projects diverted funds from poor and minority bus riders.”

Bingo.

“A 2014 initiative advanced by Jones, a Sacramento Democrat, and Consumer Watchdog would give the insurance commissioner the authority to deny health insurance rate increases his department deems excessive. …

“‘The health insurers and HMOs will do everything in their power to crush this, including attacking me and attacking the initiative,’ he said. ‘This is the last thing in the world they want to see happen.’

“Others say the health overhaul should be given an opportunity to work before imposing what they see as potentially costly new regulations that could undermine it. They say it would create more bureaucracy that would reduce access to care and drive up rates. Kim Stone, president of the Civil Justice Association of California, said the measure would be a bonanza for organizations that intervene in rate cases and increase costs.

“’This initiative isn’t about improving health care for millions of Californians,’ said Tom Scott, executive director at California Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse. ‘It’s really about putting money in the pockets of trial lawyers who could file costly legal challenges that will end up ultimately costing patients and consumers more money.”

Another way to look at the initiative is yet another expansion of government power over the private sector. In a state with the highest effective poverty rate in the nation, why would we want to make the status quo even harder on a big segment of the private economy?

Trial lawyers, Latino Dems should be like oil and water

Cadelago’s excellent analysis has lots of interesting details on Jones’ background, including plenty of evidence that not just Republicans but fellow Dems in Sacramento see him as a publicity-seeking stunt man.

But there’s one point about Jones’ key political ally — California’s trial lawyers — that can never be brought up enough. Just as it’s absurd for Latino Democrats to see the California Teachers Association — enforcers of the anti-Latino education status quo — as an ally, it’s absurd for Latino Democrats to see trial lawyers as an ally. Indeed, it’s absurd for any Democrat who actually believes in “social justice” and doesn’t just use the term as camouflage.

Why? The Trevor law firm scandal of a decade ago. Here’s my account from earlier this year:

“Consider what happened in 2003.  Early that year, a series of sickening media reports detailed how several L.A. area law firms, especially the Trevor Law Group, filed thousands of frivolous suits against small businesses such as restaurants, dry cleaners and car repair shops, many run by immigrants or minorities with a poor grasp of English and a lack of awareness of their legal rights. The suits, which were allowed under the state’s Unfair Competition Law, would allege minor technical infractions of various state codes and demand payments from $6,000 to $26,000 to drop the suits.

“Attorney General Bill Lockyer probed the scam, corroborated the media reports and denounced the suits as a despicable extortion scheme. L.A.-area Latino Democrats, especially Lou Correa of central Orange County, pushed hard for reforms.

“But the trial lawyers pushed back. And fearful of offending a key source of Democrats’ campaign funds, Democrats didn’t just cave and block reform measures. They actually offered a bill that would have exposed the small businesses being sued to even bigger court judgments — in other words, giving the extortionist law firms an even bigger club to threaten business owners.

“The Unfair Competition Law only ended up being fixed by a 2004 initiative.”

Preying on immigrants not social justice

The trial lawyers wanted the right to prey on poor English speakers. Oh, yeah, they’re natural allies for Latino Democrats.

I understand why people say Republicans are an uneasy and unnatural coalition. Social conservatives and libertarians have little to agree on nowadays besides the idea that big government is scary.

But the California Democratic Party is every bit as odd a coalition. Its richest backers — teachers unions and trial lawyers — have agendas that are inimical to the interests of its biggest voting bloc.

But among Latino Democrats, only former state Sen. Gloria Romero ever bothers to point this out.

But for three reasons, I don’t think the prospects for this reform are dead at all. I dealt with the first two in a U-T San Diego column today.

The first: My apologies to Jon Coupal and company, but I really think they were too clever by half with their measure last year:

” … the last time reformers brought paycheck protection before California voters — via Proposition 32 on the November 2012 ballot — they didn’t trust voters enough to just give them a straightforward up-or-down vote on whether union members should have a say on the use of their dues. Instead, the initiative included legally dubious provisions restricting corporate campaign spending that gave critics ample ammunition to depict it as a deceptive power play.

“The measure lost in a landslide. But state voters came fairly close to passing cleaner, simpler versions of paycheck protection in 1998 and 2005.”

The second: There has never been a more egregious case of union power trumping public sentiment than in this year’s Legislature:

“The appalling story of former Los Angeles Unified elementary schoolteacher Mark Berndt would make a simple version of paycheck protection much easier to pass in 2014 or 2016. After evidence turned up indicating Berndt had been feeding sperm to his students, district officials had no choice but to pay Berndt $35,000 to get him to quit because of job protections demanded and won by United Teachers Los Angeles.

“When the Berndt case triggered a public backlash, the state Legislature earlier this year passed a teacher-discipline measure that was billed as a smart way to keep perverts away from students. Instead, it actually gave teachers even more job protections.

“Nothing better illustrates the unions’ chokehold on Sacramento than this. If the CTA and the CFT had less money for political fights, maybe, just maybe, the public would have gotten its way — and parents wouldn’t have cause to think that state lawmakers worry more about protecting predatory teachers than the students of such teachers.”

The third reason is that quite a few veteran state journalists no longer have illusions about how unions have turned governance, especially at the local level, into something akin to looting. It’s no longer just Dan Walters and his occasional contrarian refusal to accept the surface motives claimed by Jerry Brown, Darrell Steinberg and John Perez. Instead, it’s the Bay Area News Group’s increasingly radicalized columnist and editorial writer Daniel Borenstein and a wave of younger reporters at the San Jose Mercury-News, the Sacramento Bee and many online sites.

Even L.A. Times knows which way the wind blows

And even though their concern is always muted, there’s plenty of evidence that the editorial board of the Los Angeles Times is worried, too.

Consider this editorial from last week, headlined “Spend money on the students it’s meant to help.” It makes the same basic point as my CalWatchdog story from three weeks ago about Gov. Jerry Brown’s bid to direct more funds to struggling students being hijacked to put more money in operating budgets for teacher compensation:

“Under the draft rules, if administrators spent all the extra funding on teacher raises, middle-class students would be receiving more of the benefit than needy ones. If those students’ scores rose even slightly, the district could claim it had fulfilled the requirements of the third option.”

If anything puts the spotlight on the gap between union Democrats and real, honest-to-God social-justice Democrats, it is this.

If unions follow up on their Mark Berndt scandal power play by hijacking what’s billed as the most socially progressive education reform in California history, I think opposition to a clean “paycheck protection” bill fades in the newsrooms around the Golden State.

If it doesn’t, God help California. There will be nothing unions can’t get away with.

But did Harris cut Filner a sweetheart deal in the recent plea-bargain over his serial sexual misconduct? A story in today's U-T San Diego raises that question and more by looking at how the courts dealt with another pervert.

“A man accused of groping three women in the Gaslamp Quarter at the height of former Mayor Bob Filner’s sexual harassment scandal will appear in court Wednesday to face three misdemeanor charges of sexual battery. …

“On the day of his arrest, around 2:25 p.m., two women reported to police that an apparently transient man grabbed their rear ends. About 10 minutes later, a federal officer saw a man grab a woman’s buttocks and chased the man down.

“Lopez has a long criminal history, including vandalism and weapons charges and a burglary conviction that landed him a 16-month prison sentence. …

“Lopez’s case was much lower profile than that of Filner, which played out on the front pages over a long political summer. But given his criminal history, it seems likely to end in more severe consequences.

“Filner, 71, has since pleaded guilty to three criminal counts related to sexual harassment allegations. He will serve three months home confinement and three years on probation. He won’t serve any jail time.

“Like Lopez, the Filner criminal case ended up with three victims, one of felony false imprisonment for being put in a 'Filner headlock.' Two were victims of misdemeanor battery, one for unwanted kissing and one for having her rear end groped while posing for a photo with Filner. …”

Filner avoided sex offender label

“The biggest difference in treatment may be, Filner was allowed to plead guilty to plain battery charges, as opposed to the sexual battery faced by Lopez.

“The distinction means that Filner won’t be on the Megan’s Law sexual offender list. If Lopez is found guilty, he will be — for life.”

The article includes comments from one lawyer who thinks Filner was overcharged for his three offenses. But given that Filner was accused by about 20 women of misconduct and horrible behavior, that seems a selective reading of the circumstances. He could have faced far, far more charges.

And it's tough to read state Penal Code 290 — which covers the offenses that require sex-offender designation — and not have this sentence fragment jump out at you. Convicts go on the sex-offender registry if they are guilty of unwanted sexual advances “involving the use of force.”

Kamala Harris may have thought a plea deal to end the Filner spectacle and help San Diego move on was an appropriate use of her discretion. But would a poor defendant without a good lawyer facing accusations from 20 women have escaped the sex-offender list?

Please. If you believe that, I've got a subdivision in Lake Perris you might want to buy.

And now who’s come to the City Hall circus in America’s Finest City to point out this ugly hypocrisy?

SocialistWorker.org! In a tightly written broadside, the website of the Socialist Workers’ Party tears into union leaders who tolerate Filner, the sociopath and misogynist:

The ‘progressive community’? Not so progressive

“A BREATHTAKING case study in sexism, sexual harassment and even assault is unfolding in San Diego, where a growing number of women have come forward to accuse Mayor Bob Filner of repeated sexual harassment–and some in the progressive community are refusing to call for the mayor’s resignation.

“News of Filner’s behavior was made public at a July 11 press conference, when several of his longtime allies, including former San Diego City Council member Donna Frye and lawyers Cory Briggs and Marco Gonzalez, called for his resignation.

“Since then, at least 13 women who say they experienced groping, sexist language, unwanted sexual advances and other physical and verbal harassment from Filner have come forward.  …

“At first, many liberal supporters rallied behind the mayor, calling for ‘due process,’ fearful that, if Filner was forced to resign, the agenda they had entrusted to him would be dashed by a Republican successor. Even some self-identified progressives who have supported and fought for women’s rights have defended Filner. …

“On the liberal OBRag website, one shameful, dismissive apology piece amounted to asking San Diegans why the women in the mayor’s office couldn’t just take one for the team in the name of progress. ‘Are we in for a decade of Republicanism delivered by Democrats in name only?’ questioned writer Bob Dorn, while suggesting that the charges against Finer were part of a ‘set-up.'”

Filner’s remaining defenders? Union leaders

“AS MORE and more of these brave women have come forward, support for the mayor has begun to slowly evaporate. …

“It appears now that only establishment union leadership is unwilling to demand the mayor’s immediate resignation. The San Diego and Imperial Counties Labor Council, with affiliate organizations representing 200,000 workers, has issued only a vague statement calling the allegations ‘serious.’ The head of the San Diego County Building and Construction Trades Council, with affiliates representing 30,000 workers, is standing by calls for ‘due process’ for Filner. Business Manager Tom Lemmon told the San Diego Union Tribune, ‘It’s an awkward situation, but we have a lot invested in him.’

“The women who have come forward in protest of sexual harassment by a person in their workplace might take issue with the description of their standing up and speaking out as ‘an awkward situation’ from a union organizer!

“Workers in San Diego should demand that their union leaders side with the women who have come forward in calling for the mayor’s resignation, no matter the apparent short-term political cost. We cannot afford to abandon anti-sexist principles in the hopes that Filner will “deliver” for labor.”

Now that’s what principle sounds like. A little more admirable than “we have a lot invested in him,” don’t you think?

I have no illusions about the fact that both parties act hypocritically when it comes to defending their own interests. But, really, it’s beyond the pale to see unions defending a mayor who hit on rape victims whom he only met because they were rape victims, and he was a congressman who was supposed to help them.

That’s industrial-strength depravity. But it’s no biggie to San Diego’s union “investors.”

One such group appears to be Young Invincibles, “a national organization representing 18- to 34-year-old Americans on the issues of affordable health care, employment and college affordability.”

Read the fine print, and the Young Invincibles website also says, “Young Invincibles is a national organization committed to mobilizing and expanding opportunities for young adults between 18 and 34 years of age on issues like higher education, health care, and jobs.”

Its website, Healthy Young America, claims to be part of the group’s outreach. “In some places, Young Invincibles will also serve as a state-funded navigator for the Affordable Care Act.”

Ah, now I get it.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services are practically throwing money at groups interested in being Obamacare navigators.  Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services  announced “Funding Opportunity Announcement on the availability of up to $54 million in cooperative agreements to fund Navigators in Federally-facilitated or State Partnership Marketplaces,” the CCMS website says. “The Affordable Care Act requires Marketplaces to establish a Navigator program to help consumers understand new coverage options and find the most affordable coverage that meets their health care needs.”

Reach out for the handout

And to drive home this “outreach,” Jennifer Mishory, deputy director and a founding staffer of Young Invincibles, wrote a recent op ed for the San Francisco Chronicle about the new insurance exchanges and Medicaid options under Obamacare. Mishory said these health exchanges “will make affordable coverage available to millions of uninsured Americans.”

The subtitle in the story told a slightly different story, and perhaps the one which goes to the heart of the true purpose of Obamacare: “The health care mandate takes effect soon, allowing people to compare and buy policies, but many people are unaware of available subsidies and Medicaid coverage.”

Obamacare is really just a giant wealth equalizer, and conduit for government subsidies.

Mishory said The Young Invincibles  will be serving as a “state funded navigator” for the ACA.

Young Invincibles

According to the Young Invincibles website,  Co-Founders Ari Matusiak and Aaron Smith, and a few law school friends created Young Invincibles “motivated by the recognition that young people’s voices were not being heard in the debate over health care reform.”

Only Ari Matusiak isn’t just your average entrepreneur — Matusiak works for the Obama Administration as Special Assistant to the President and Director of Private Sector Engagement.

Matusiak also served as a fellow on Senator Edward M. Kennedy’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee.

And to think that Martha Stewart went to prison for insider trading…

Funding for Young Invincibles

“YI is fiscally sponsored by the Center for Community Change, a longstanding organization committed to building the power and capacity of low-income people across the country,” the website says.

The Center for Community Change is a scary, far left group, reminiscent of ACORN. Even the address on the Young Invincibles website says:

Young Invincibles

c/o Center for Community Change
1536 U St. NW
Washington, DC 20009

I looked on both Charity Navigator and Guidestar for ‘Young Invincibles’, and ‘Healthy Young America’, but found nothing.

However, their funder, the Center for Community Change came up in Guidestar — claiming to be a “community organizer.” The IRS form 990 showed the group to have a $12 million  to $14 million yearly budget, made up of grants and contributions. The CCC said its mission is “to build the power and capacity of low-income people, especially low income people of color, to change their communities and public policies for the better.”

The Center for Community Change pays its community organizers well. The director makes more than $200,000 annually. And the five other administrative directors draw salaries of $134,000 up to $163,000.

The group spends a great amount of money on travel, offices, employee benefits, a pension plan, and spends $700,000 up to $1 million on lobbying.

They gave numerous grants to the Alliance For a Just Society, a politically-left group, focused on health care, immigration, and social and economic justice.

Government health care – the buck starts here

Even the Department of Health and Human Services offers opportunities to get government money with their offer to “Learn about available grants to assist with implementation of various aspects of ACA.”

“Search grants.gov for information about funding opportunities related to ACA including Health Information Technology (HIT) and other areas,” the HHS website says.

This is just the tip of the Obamacare iceberg. These groups are often inter-connected, and exist solely to fund other politically-left justice groups.

By Dave Roberts

Assembly Democrats, many of whom see themselves as champions of the downtrodden, instead became reverse Robin Hoods recently, robbing from the poor and middle class to give to the rich. Nearly every Democrat along with two Republicans approved AB 8 on June 27, which extends until 2024 a variety of vehicle fees that were due to expire next year.

Some of those fees, which are the same whether they are imposed on a $500 clunker or a $387,000 Lamborghini, subsidize the purchase of electric vehicles -– the kind of cars that tend to be purchased by the wealthy. The typical recipient of the state’s clean vehicle rebate earns more than $150,000 per year, according to the legislative analysis for AB 8.

Purchasers of Nissan Leafs receive a $7,500 federal tax credit and a $2,500 rebate from California taxpayers. More than 6,700 rebates had been dispensed as of Dec. 31, 2012. Nearly 450 rebates were also handed out to buyers of the Tesla Model S, which costs $70,000 for the base model and can exceed $100,000 with upgrades. As an added bonus, electric vehicle owners don’t have to pay the smog abatement fee that funds their rebate.

Subsidizing infrastructure for $200k cars

In addition, AB 8 authorizes spending $220 million from vehicle registration fees to fund the development of up to 100 hydrogen fueling stations. You’ll need to shell out nearly $200,000 to buy a hydrogen-powered car.

Sticking poor and middle class Californians with the tab in order to give hundreds of millions of dollars to benefit rich Californians was one of the concerns raised by Assemblyman Tim Donnelly, R-Twin Peaks, before the floor vote:

“This bill is going to cost taxpayers $2.3 billion over the next eight years. What are we doing creating a hydrogen highway that a handful of Californians are going to use, but we’re taxing every single driver? Every single Californian that is on their way to work right now is going to have to pay for something they may never use, may never be able to afford to use it. And we don’t have enough money in California to subsidize hydrogen vehicles for everybody. Maybe I shouldn’t give you any ideas.

“This is a terrible idea. It is a regressive tax. It is a tax that is going to hit the hardest working, most vulnerable, lowest income people where it hurts the most. The cost of fuel is continually going up. And every time we pile more taxes on those who drive an automobile, we are taxing progress. We are taxing the people who say, ‘Hey, I’m not just going to sit around and collect a check. I want to go to work.’ And we are creating an obstacle to them bettering themselves by their own efforts.”

Several Democrats defended the extension of the vehicle fees, arguing that the money is necessary to reduce air pollution.

“Californians suffer from the worst air pollution in the nation with over 90 percent of residents living in counties with unhealthy air,” said the bill’s author, Henry Perea, D-Fresno. “While great progress has been made in improving air quality, California has two of the most polluted regions in the nation: the South Coast air basin and the San Joaquin Valley. AB 8 seeks to expand California’s clean air and clean vehicle incentive programs in order to meet clean air, public health, climate and economic development goals.”

“Let’s not burden our constituents again and again and again”

Don Wagner, R-Irvine, acknowledged “that there are some good things to like in this bill.” But he argued that the cost is too high.

“What we are doing here is raising $250-$275 million each year on your constituents,” said Wagner. “And there’s no good reason for that. You can’t keep going back to the tax well over and over and over again. At some point we’re going to have the cleanest air in the world because we will have driven everybody out of the state. This is not the way to go. Let’s not burden our constituents again and again and again.”

A Senate version of the bill, SB 11, has been referred to the Senate Committee on Natural Resources and Water. SB 1455, which was nearly identical to AB 8, passed the Assembly last year but failed to gain the necessary two-thirds support in the Senate.

By Chris Reed

One of the most striking things about the debate over changing our immigration laws is the refusal to have a real discussion about what would happen to existing citizens with relatively few job skills if we allowed millions more unskilled people to become citizens. It’s striking that for much of his career as a union organizer, including when he was on the cover of TIME at right, Cesar Chavez was a strong critic of illegal immigration because he feared the negative effects on farm workers who were already here.

This should be a social justice issue with the left, one would think. But except in the blogging and columns of Los Angeles Democrat Mickey Kaus, this pretty much never comes up. That’s why it is so surprising, and welcome, to see a liberal writer, T.A. Frank of The New Republic, make this point, explaining how he started out with the standard views that “decent people” are supposed to have on immigration before his life experiences and growing familiarity with the history of immigration led him to a different conclusion:

‘Immense blow to America’s working class, poor’

“All in all, I became convinced that high levels of low-skill immigration are good for wealthy Americans and bad for poor Americans.  Far more important, high levels of illegal immigration—when you start to get into the millions, as we have—undermines unions and labor standards, lowers wages, heightens social tensions, strains state budgets, widens income inequality, subverts the rule of law, and exacerbates class divides. The effects go far beyond wages, because few undocumented workers earn enough to cover anything close to the cost of government services (such as education for their children) they require, and those services are most important to low-income Americans. In short, it’s an immense blow to America’s working class and poor. …

“… a lot of Democrats have also convinced themselves that even if there’s a wage loss to low-skilled workers, the massive new voting bloc of mostly left-leaning immigrants will ultimately help the little guy. But if millions of new Democratic voters oppose strict immigration control, then there will no Democratic support for meaningful immigration control. And generous social benefits cannot coexist with an open border.  (Nor can a more egalitarian society.)”

Good for Frank. He’s actually willing to think through the implications of what will happen if the House adopts legislation similar to what the Senate passed Thursday.

Unfortunately, we can’t have a real debate about this because skeptics of immigration reform, as Frank notes, are not considered to be “decent people.” But such skeptics aren’t all nativists by any means. Some of them are realists. And some of these realists think hurting the job prospects of existing low-skill Americans isn’t the right thing to do.