Gov. Gavin Newsom continues to make headlines — this month for his trips to Montana and Washington, DC.

First, after spending weeks on the airwaves bashing the residents of red states as slack-jawed, buck-toothed yokels resisting the current Great Wokening, Newsom snuck off to Montana for a “family vacation.” Montana, you likely know, is among the 22 states that California has declared off-limits for state-funded travel. That may be why Newsom did not announce his destination (per the usual practice of his office), but was instead exposed by an intrepid reporter. 

Montana made California’s naughty list last year for passing a law banning transgender females (biological males) from participating in school sports for girls. When news broke of Newsom’s secret trip, the response from the governor’s team was indignation that anyone would dare point out the hypocrisy.

“The Governor’s travel is not being paid by the state. Connecting the two is an attempt at gotcha journalism that is neither gotcha nor journalism,” tweeted Newsom's Senior Communications Advisor Anthony York.

“Connecting the two is irresponsible and falsely implies there is something untoward,” Newsom Communications Director Erin Mellon told reporters. 

Newsom finally acknowledged that he traveled to Montana with an official security detail paid for by California taxpayers. But Newsom said that’s not a technical violation of the state ban because, well, there’s a public-safety exemption for his vacation.

While Newsom’s staff doesn’t want voters to connect the dots, it’s not hard to see that Newsom is, at his core, a spoiled elitist who thinks he doesn’t have to live by the same rules he imposes on everyone else. Recall the photos during the COVID-19 lockdowns of Newsom famously celebrating elbow-to-elbow with friends at the exclusive French Laundry restaurant in Napa, and the snapshots of his child attending basketball camp sans mask. Or that he chose to send his kids to one of Sacramento’s most expensive private schools while closing public schools throughout the state.

But Newsom’s summer saga did not end in Montana! This week, the governor flew to Washington, DC to accept an award recognizing “California’s transformative improvements to education." 

It’s conceivable, of course, that the award highlights the remarkable ability to transform billions of dollars into an educational dumpster fire. But the Education Commission of the States, the organization behind the Frank Newman Award for State Innovation, explained that it chose California for this year’s award for “its historic financial investments to ensure educational equity” and an “investment of funding and other resources that recognize and honor whole-child approaches to education, not only instruction.”

Translation: the award goes to California for dumping money into everything from universal pre-K to transgender studies instead of teaching kids to be proficient in things like reading and math. 

“No one in America today has a worse education record than Newsom,” said Assemblyman Kevin Kiley in response to the award, which he called “a slap in the face to the countless underprivileged kids harmed by his corrupt policies.” In a letter to the Education Commission of the States this week, Kiley derided the Commission’s decision to honor Newsom:

“As it stands today, California has the lowest literacy rate of any state and its 8th graders are performing at a 5th grade level in math. Even before the pandemic California consistently ranked near the bottom nationally in academic test scores and had an abysmal achievement gap. ... When considering future award recipients, I urge your organization to consider data driven academic outcomes rather than measuring success solely on the amount of dollars spent.”

As Newsom’s presidential ambitions become increasingly apparent, we’ll surely see more of him receiving vacuous accolades to deflect from his most blatant failures.
 

California Policy Center will invest $1 million in a new Janus campaign.

California Policy Center will invest $1 million in a new campaign to help hundreds of thousands of government employees understand their constitutional right to drop their memberships in government unions.

“We believe the moment is absolutely right to reach the men and women who work at every level of government in California — state, county, city, schools and other districts — with good news: leave your union, save hundreds of dollars per year, and keep your employee benefits. That’s the law,” said Will Swaim, president of the California Policy Center.

The Center’s campaign has already helped 21% of the state’s public employees leave their unions, driving government union membership to its lowest level since 2000.

“The departure of those 300,000 people from those unions has already deprived the state’s government unions of nearly a quarter of a billion dollars annually — money union leaders use to run governments at every level and in every California community,” Swaim said.

The decline began in 2018 with the Supreme Court’s decision in Mark Janus v American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME). In Janus, the Court concluded that governments can no longer require their employees to join unions as a condition of employment.

“Government unions for teachers, police, administrative workers and others have never been weaker than they are today,” said Jackson Reese, the director of CPC’s Janus Project. “Unions just don’t have the bandwidth to focus on their members anymore. If union leaders focus on divisive politics, they lose members. If they focus on legitimate member services, union leaders lose their grip on politicians.”

Supreme Court leaves California’s independent truckers in the dust.

Like a zombie that just won’t die, former Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez’s AB 5 roams the state in search of delicious brains. This week, the law, which seeks to eliminate independent contracting, brought down California’s independent truck drivers.

Following the Supreme Court’s June 30 refusal to hear the truckers’ case against AB 5, upwards of 70,000 men and women who own and operate their own rigs suddenly found themselves out of business — unless, as the law requires, they become employees of major trucking firms where (and here’s Gonzalez’s real goal) they’ll be easy pickings for a union organizing effort carried out by — you guessed it — Gonzalez’s new employer, the state’s Teamsters union.

Eliminating independent trucking in the midst of a supply-chain crisis might seem like a catastrophic policy error that will add fuel to record-setting inflation and seems likely to trigger a recession. And destroying the small businesses of those 70,000 truck drivers might seem downright illegal and immoral. That’s how the state’s independent truckers see it. While Gonzalez celebrated the SCOTUS decision, the state’s independent truckers responded in a truly revolutionary way — with massive protests that stalled traffic outside the Ports of L.A. and Long Beach on Wednesday, and plans for similar protests outside the Port of Oakland next week.

“We worked for a company that served the ports of LA/LB that offered us some benefits and paid for diesel fuel and permit costs, but we also got paid peanuts, didn’t get to choose our loads, and instead of owning the whole pizza, we only got a slice,” said Cindy Perez, co-owner of Southern California-based Aztec Enterprises. “Instead, we worked hard to save our money to become owner-operators and purchase our own trucks. Yes, we are aware that we incur more costs as owner-operators, but we’re no longer company drivers, and we get paid as business owners.”

That’s anathema to California’s governing class. Their greatest ambition is to destroy that sort of American entrepreneurship and to convert all of us to union members and employees of mega corps. That’s AB 5 — a law that will make big trucking firms bigger and help near-dead unions find a new source of yummy, yummy brains.
 

New Book: The Abundance Choice — Our Fight for More Water in California

California needs more water. Ongoing droughts, worsening in duration and severity, make it obvious that the state needs much more water than we can conserve by swapping out our lush green lawns for trendy “drought-resistant landscape.”

But where are California’s leaders? Instead of investing in water supply infrastructure to meet Californians’ water needs, lawmakers seem resigned to a future based on rationing and shortages. From capturing water runoff to desalination, there are plenty of ways to build our water supplies for generations to come. So why are California elites so wedded to a narrative rooted in failure?

These questions are asked and answered in the just-released book, The Abundance Choice: Our Fight for More Water in California, by California Policy Center co-founder and senior fellow Edward Ring. The book, made possible with the support of generous CPC supporters like you, is a must-read for anyone who cares about California’s future.

Ring examines California’s failed water politics from his perspective as the lead proponent of the Water Infrastructure Funding Act, a proposed ballot initiative that emanated from CPC’s in-depth research into California’s water crisis. Ring reflects on lessons learned from the initiative’s early development along with the obstacles that must be overcome to get it on the ballot in 2024.

A ballot initiative approved by voters would force the state legislature to make massive investments in new water supply infrastructure and streamline the process for approving new water projects so results are felt in years instead of decades. 

Can voters take back California’s future when it comes to water? With the initiative process, Ring says, anything is possible.

Will you support CPC today?

California Policy Center is breaking new ground to help Californians take back our great state! From our $1 million investment in helping hundreds of thousands of government employees understand their right to leave their unions to our work advocating for more water infrastructure in California, CPC is making a real difference in the lives of Californians every day. If you are inspired by the work we are doing, will you consider making a tax-deductible donation to CPC today?


Your generous donation will help advance the movement to save California. Click HERE to access our secure online portal. Thank you for your partnership!
 

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