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SEPTEMBER

**3, 2020**

Meyerson on TAP

California Falls Flat

Nearly 60 years ago, when Jesse Unruh became Speaker of the California
Assembly, the state's legislature became a model for legislatures all
across the land. Unlike most legislatures, which met briefly and
sporadically and had little if any staff to help members do the research
required for new legislation, California's lawmaking body
professionalized under Unruh, passing landmark civil rights bills,
enlarging the nation's best system of public colleges and
universities, and generally treating lawmaking as a serious business.

Would that could be said of California's legislature today. In its
just-completed session, it failed to enact significant police reform or
any bill that would have increased the state's completely insufficient
housing stock. This despite the fact that the Democrats have
supermajorities in both houses, not to mention a Democratic governor.

Part of the problem was the legislature's inability to finish its work
before its self-imposed deadline for adjournment, which was exacerbated
by having some legislators working remotely and also by Republican
delaying tactics. But part was due to the baffling timidity of some
Democrats to support such police reforms as stopping the practice of
cities or counties hiring officers who'd been fired for brutality in
other cities or counties. Part of it was due to the NIMBYism of some
Democrats who blocked a bill that would have permitted
duplexes-duplexes, O the horror!-in neighborhoods zoned solely for
single-family dwellings.

There's a short-term solution to these failings: Gov. Gavin Newsom
could call the legislature back into special session, inasmuch as most
Californians realize their state faces crises in policing and housing. A
longer-term solution would be for progressives to run challengers in the
next round of primaries against those Democrats who couldn't bring
themselves to rein in abusive cops or take even a first timid step to
address the state's chronic and acute housing shortage.

To my fellow California progressives: This is why God invented
primaries.

~ HAROLD MEYERSON

Follow Harold Meyerson on Twitter

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