Where the Protests Should Be

Forget occupying Berkeley or the freeway, someone should occupy this new public school in LA. It was built - in the midst of teacher layoffs and the financial crisis - for the bargin price of $578 - million. For comparison, that's about 2% of the state's annual budget for K-12 education.

Exhibit number one of why you shouldn't believe anyone who tells you we have gotten rid of all the wasteful spending in California. Also exhibit A for why we don't need higher taxes, just smarter spending.

Nanny State Wins

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the controversy concerning the completely voluntary and anonymous DNA sampling offered to incoming freshman. Well, today the state Department of Public Health put an end to the project. Apparently they were concerned freshmen might misinterpret the results.

Of course, they could have simply required the school to put a disclaimer on the results advising not to take the results as a medical diagnosis. But that wasn't enough for the nanny state. Nope, citizens, including the best and brightest who are admitted to Cal, aren't responsible enough to make their own decisions. So instead, no one gets to see the results, even if they want to.

Thank you government.

Bearcardo Watch - Free Speech Only for Me

As you may recall, a couple of weeks ago we brought you the first installment of what I fear will be an ongoing series, Bearcardo Watch (not becasue we are after the guy but because he keeps giving us easy material).

As you may recall, Bearcardo is a self proclaimed radical who got himself elected External Affairs Vice President of the ASUC. Like most radicals, he believes in free speech, even if that speech interfeers with the rights of others. He has posted in support of those who occupied Wheeler Hall last spring and has complained that the university actually has a plan to deal with civil disobedience, as if there is no difference between that and lawful demonstration. He's the ultimate free speech advocate.

Or at least I thought until I recieved an invitation to this Facebook event. It is from George Beier, a candidate for Berkeley City Council. It isn't an event so much as an event within an event - he plans to meet with and register students to vote at the annual Calapalooza festival.

Scrolling down the page, Bearcardo apparently has other ideas:

Hi,

I'm Ricardo Gomez, the External Affairs Vice President of the
ASUC. I appreciate that you want to engage with students at Cal. I was one of
the people in charge of voter reg in 2008 when we registered over 10,000
students on campus and the EAVP voter registration team will be registering
students as it always does a...t welcome week events. Calapalooza is a space for
students to connect to other student groups. As one of the primary points of
contact on campus in regards to both voter registration and public officials, I
don't know if it is appropriate for candidates to register students to vote at
an event that is uniquely student-to-student, and I strongly urge you to
consider different ways of engaging with students.

Uh-oh, looks like someone feel off the free speech wagon.

Seriously, how can Ricardo Gomez object to a candidate walking around and talking to students during a public event? Especially after apparently having no problem with students taking over buildings and doing things that are actually destructive? Is Calapalooza an adult free zone? What could prompt such a sudden turn against the first amendment?

It couldn't possibly have anything to do with Bearcardo's outspoken support of Mr. Beier's opponent, could it?

Same Sex Marriage Ban - Time to Give it Up

If you've been under a rock today, you might not know that a federal judge in San Francisco issued an opinion finding California's same sex marriage ban unconstitutional. The ruling itself is fairly inconsequential as it has been stayed and is expected to be appealed all the way up to the US Supreme Court.

To be clear, I don't agree with the ruling. I don't think that the right to have the label marriage applied to a relationship, especially when domestic partnership rights are almost a mirror of marriage rights, trumps the right of the people to decide how to govern their state. That said, I do believe it is time for conservatives to move on.

In the end it comes down to a simple issue: Is there any harm caused by allowing same sex couples to marry? Not is it right or wrong, but does it cause any harm? After years of gay marriage being legal in several other states (and for a few months in our own) I think we can generally say the answer is no. There may be some technical issues to work out - like making sure no entity is forced to perform such marriages, for example - but that can be done easily by statute and does not necessitate banning same sex unions alltogether.

There is great harm being done to the conservative movement, however. Young people who generally support same sex marriage rights are refusing to vote for candidates becasue of their position on this one issue. I have spoken personally with many of them. They may support our opposition to higher taxes, efforts to streamline government and create jobs, and even right to life stance but simply cannot vote for our candidates because they see opposition to same sex marriage as discriminatory and irrational. Although there are no studies on this subject, my guess is that we lose 5-10% of the youth vote based on this one issue, enough to swing some elections (and even more as those youth get older and vote more).

So it comes down to this, what do we value more? Keeping the word marriage from being applied to same sex relationship or moving our country forward? For better or worse, they do seem to be mutually exclusive.

Jerry Brown Slapped by CA Supreme Court

The California State Supreme Court yesturday rejected a frivillous challenge to California's landmark anti-Affirmative Action law by a 6-1 margin. As the constitutional officer tasked with defending the state's interests in court, you might expect Attorney General and Gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown to be pleased with the decision. But Brown was on the other side, against the people's vote:

The city's argument was that Prop. 209 stacks the deck against minorities and women by passing restrictions that can be dislodged only by another ballot measure, while groups like veterans and local businesses remain free to lobby
lawmakers for preferential treatment.

Attorney General Jerry Brown endorsed the argument, saying in a court filing that Prop. 209 fosters the discrimination it was supposed to eliminate. But the justices were unpersuaded.

This marks at least the second time that Attorney General Brown has gone against the will of the voters. He endorsed a challenge to Proposition 8 in 2009, after previously saying he would defend the people's vote. In that case as well, his opinion was rejected by the court.

Fortunately, even without the Attorney General's cooperation, these measures have been defended by other entities. However, that might not be the case if he is elected governor. The governor has a great deal of power to affect litigation involving the state. The 1994 Proposition 187 was never implememnted not because of a federal court ruling, but becasue then Governor Gray Davis refused to appeal. As governor, Brown could kill ballot measures he disagrees with simply by refusing the defend them in court. Given his actions as Attorney General, that seems like a very real possibility.