What happened?  Scott Carpenter, one of my field representatives, was pulled over yesterday morning by one of Irvine’s finest.  The crime?  Violating section 23123 of the Vehicle Code by talking on a cell phone without a hands-free device while driving.

The trouble was, Mr. Carpenter wasn’t on his cell phone, he simply had his left hand up by his left ear at a stop light.  From behind the car and to the left it certainly LOOKED like Mr. Carpenter may have been violating the new law, but he wasn’t.  You can see the potential for confusion from this series of three photos I took of Mr. Carpenter in his car.

As the police car’s lights flashed from behind, Mr. Carpenter wondered, “What could I have done?”  He pulled over.  The cop walked up to the car and said, “I noticed you were on your cell phone.”  A violation of section 23123 is punishable by a $76 fine ($20 for the fine and another $56 for “penalty assessments”) for a first offense.

Mr. Carpenter replied, “With all due respect, I think you’re mistaken.  I was not on my cell phone.”

The officer smugly replied, “I saw you.  I was right behind you.”

Mr. Carpenter politely responded, “Well, sir, my hand was just at my ear.  I’ll show you my call log, if you like.”

The cop said, “Sure, let’s have a look.”

After looking at Mr. Carpenter’s cell phone, and seeing that the last call was at least 20 minutes prior, the officer, disappointment written on his face, said, “I must have been mistaken.  But you know that’s the new law, so be careful.”

Mr. Carpenter speculated that the traffic officer was looking to write his first cell phone ticket.  Regardless, this exchange shows what can begin to happen as we cede more and more of our personal responsibility to the state.  Law enforcement officers begin the long migration from people whose main job is to catch criminals to people who become our keepers - minding our safety, telling us what to do.

Imagine if Mr. Carpenter challenged the officer and took his cell phone ticket to court.  What a supreme waste of time and public safety money.

Unfortunately, the bill that outlawed some cell phone usage, SB 1613 by Sen. Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto), was signed into law by Gov. Schwarzenegger in 2006 after being supported by five Republicans in the Assembly and one in the Senate.  I argued at the time that existing law was sufficient to the task of public safety, since Section 23103 of the Vehicle Code already makes it a crime to drive “…a vehicle upon a highway in willful or wanton disregard for the safety of persons or property…” meaning that police officers already had the right to pull over a driver when their actual bad driving endangered other people.

To make matters worse, the new law won’t have the public safety benefit it was touted to have, since studies published in the British Medical Journal, the “Human Factors” journal and others show that just talking while in a car, especially to someone not in the car, increases distraction, hands-free device or no.

Of course, some drivers appear to be able to drive and talk at the same time, which is why I thought Section 23103 on reckless driving was adequate to the task.

I’ll offer this prediction: after Californians spend millions of dollars to buy all those wireless attachments for their cell phones, a study will come out showing no difference in California’s accident rate, leading to another new law that will simply ban all cell phone use by drivers.  Thus, liberty withers, bit by bit, as we use the law to compensate for our lack of common sense and personal responsibility.

Today, we find out that California overspent its 2007-08 budget by $3.9 billion for a total of $107.3 billion, a 51.6 percent increase in government spending over the approved budget five years ago.

So, how did we spend almost $4 billion more than budgeted last year?  If the past is any guide, most of the overspending will be in two categories: entitlement spending and the prisons system.

Entitlement spending usually constitutes the bulk of the overspending because, based on income and other factors, some people are “entitled” to tax-funded government health or welfare services.  Since they are “entitled,” they must be served, regardless of what was budgeted.  Government simply gives benefits to all who apply and adds the bills up afterward; then we all pay.  Since California has among the most generous health and welfare eligibility thresholds in the nation, a lot of people qualify for benefits.

If California is to have any chance at getting its budget under control, it must reform its health and welfare system starting with eligibility criteria.

In addition, most small business owners pay taxes on their earning as individuals; having the nation’s highest personal income tax rate acts as a powerful disincentive to job creation and economic activity in California.  Rather than raising taxes, we should be cutting tax rates to encourage job creation in California. 

Lastly, while the Democrats propose spending billions more for welfare, including expanded taxpayer handouts to illegal immigrants, they propose cutting funds to public safety, threatening the loss of more than 1,000 front-line police officers.  In addition, their idea to save money on inmate parolees would have thousands of major offenders go unsupervised on our streets without having to check in with their parole officer.

I’ll be going on the John & Ken Show on KFI 640 AM at 5 PM today to discuss the budget and taxes.  You can listen live by going to: http://www.kfi640.com/cc-common/ondemand/player.html?world=st

In an article entitled, “Sparks fly over rate plan by Southern California Edison,” http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-ratehike2-2008jul02,0,801347.story tells of SCE’s proposed 16% plus rate hike for 2009, with more hikes planned for 2010 and 2011.  The article nails the main reason for this, “…Edison bills will go up because of the soaring cost of natural gas, which runs most of California’s power plants.”  As of last year, 42 percent of California’s power to be exact.

Meanwhile, to the north, Pacific Gas and Electric announced an 11 percent increase in electricity costs from January of this year to January of next.  (I blogged about that here: http://www.chuckdevore.com/blog/2008/06/11/power-costs-to-increase-11-percent-year-over-year/.)

The Los Angeles Times article covered a hearing at Compton City Hall where residents packed a room to protest the proposed rate increase.  Due to increasing electrical costs and increasingly challenging economic times in California, Edison’s past-due delinquencies increased by 14 percent last year.  

The proposed rate hike would add more than $7 a month to the average customer’s bill.  Many elderly and poor would be shielded from the rate increase, though, because current law dragoons utilities into yet another government program designed to transfer wealth from the middle class to the less-fortunate - a form of off-the-books welfare that liberals are trying to expand at every turn. 

Most of the electrical rate hikes have so far been due to the rapidly rising cost of natural gas, most of which must be imported into the state.  However, an increasing amount of the price hikes are due to California’s environmental mandates for renewable energy, such as costly solar and unreliable wind.  And soon, a big chunk of the high cost of electricity will be driven by California’s global warming law. 

So, while hard working Californians, such as those who packed Compton City Hall yesterday, suffer, California’s political elites fiddle around, trying vainly to solve a worldwide issue: global warming. 

If only they would display a modicum of vision and courage and agree to lift California’s archaic 32-year ban on the construction of modern nuclear power plants, each one of which would supply 5 percent of California’s electrical needs while saving $2 billion a year worth of natural gas and preventing the emission of almost 9 million metric tons of carbon dioxide. 

Simply put, more nuclear power is a “threefer” for California, since, by reducing the consumption of natural gas, we can reduce electrical rate hikes, dramatically reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, and import less natural gas from overseas, keeping dollars here at home. 

Perhaps soon elected representatives from Los Angeles, the Inland Empire and the Central Valley will care more for their hard working constituents than they do for the Sierra Club and other elitist groups who have welcomed recent energy price hikes. 

The unelected communist government in Beijing sent me a warning letter in May, telling me that everything is fine in China and that I should cooperate so as not to hurt their feelings. 

I sent the government of China my formal reply earlier this month.  I reminded the Chinese government officials that they are part of a repressive government that allows no opposition groups and “…has consistently shown itself to be unworthy of the longsuffering and noble people of China.”  I closed by remarking that I will continue to speak out for human rights in China because, “…I innately understand, as an American, that liberty is our strongest ally and that any great people, when truly free, are our natural friends.”

My full letter to the Consulate General of the People’s Republic of China follows:

               June 6, 2008

Consul General Zhang Yun
Consulate General of the People’s Republic of China
443 Shatto Place
Los Angeles, California 90020

Dear Consul General:

Before I attend to the main purpose of my letter, please allow me to express my condolences to the victims and the survivors of the “5·12” Wenchuan earthquake.  Californians are all too familiar with the destructive energy of earthquakes and our hearts go out to the people of Wenchuan. 

I am in receipt of your letter dated May 1, 2008 regarding my attendance at the Human Rights Torch Relay in Santa Monica on April 6.  I was rather taken aback for two reasons: First, for receiving a letter from a representative of an unelected dictatorship as an elected official in a democratic nation for simply exercising my free speech rights; and, Second, for the content of the letter itself. 

The Chinese people are a great and historic people who deserve more than one-party rule under the Chinese Communist Party.  The Chinese people deserve liberty and freedom – the liberty to vote for whomever they wish and the freedom to worship and to express their views. 

Unfortunately, the government you represent cannot countenance opposition in any form.  From the purges and terrors of the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s where millions perished at the hands of the Chinese Communist Party to 1989 and the organized massacre of thousands of innocent unarmed Chinese civilians in Tiananmen Square, your government has consistently shown itself to be unworthy of the longsuffering and noble people of China.  As such, the harsh attack on the Falun Gong spiritual movement in your letter to me betrays your fear of internal dissent.  As you point out, your government outlawed Falun Gong in 1999.  You fail to mention that Falun Gong was at first encouraged by your government, then, in the wake of the Tiananmen Square massacre, your government banned it – perhaps because there were far more Falun Gong practitioners than there were members of the Chinese Communist Party. 

My government states on its Central Intelligence Agency World Fact Book that “…no substantial political opposition groups exist (in China), although the government has identified the Falungong spiritual movement and the China Democracy Party as subversive groups.”  It is precisely for that reason, there being no political opposition groups in China, that I chose to help give voice to the voiceless in China and in Tibet.  So I proudly attended and spoke at the Human Rights Torch Relay sponsored by Falun Gong and others and would gladly do so again because I innately understand, as an American, that liberty is our strongest ally and that any great people, when truly free, are our natural friends.              

             Sincerely,
     
     
             Assemblyman Chuck DeVore
             Seventieth District

Lastly, regarding offshore oil, might public opinion be further swayed when the people discover that slant drilling technology has advanced to the point that offshore rigs aren’t really needed to access California’s offshore oil deposits.  Slant drilling from near the shore can reach oil fields miles off the coast - all without an offshore rig.  Further, the safety record of offshore rigs is actually better than that of oil tankers, which are statistically far more prone to accidents. 

Keeping in mind one of Yogi Berra’s great truisms, “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future,” I’ll go out on a limb and predict that this rate hike will be the first of many. 

As I wrote last month, “California needs to get serious about energy.  Failure to get energy policy right will cause California to hemorrhage good paying jobs while doing absolutely nothing for the environment.  Since California is the most electrically efficient state in the U.S. and the most environmentally advanced, it makes no sense for us to effectively ship jobs to coal-fired states back East, or, worst yet, to India or China.  In fact, the most environmentally intelligent thing to do would be to encourage an increase in California goods and services since our environmental impact per value of goods produced is low compared to dirty, coal-fired economies such as China.” 

In other words, we need to build some modern nuclear power plants here in California. 

(For more on nuclear power, greenhouse gas emissions and imported fuel, see my paper in UC Berkeley’s Ecology Law Currents, “Relative Risk: Global Warming and Imported Fossil Fuels vs. Nuclear Power” http://www.boalt.org/elq/C35.01_05_DeVore_2008.04.10.php).

Chuck DeVore
California State Assemblyman, 70th District
www.ChuckDeVore.com