A California Republican

The initiative process in California is abused, overused, and produces bad laws. It was intended to function to legislate when the Legislature wouldn’t legislate on issues. It has become over-used to the point that there are so many initiatives on the ballot that voters are confused. The presence of this abuse leads the Legislature to abandon their responsibilities and place everything on the ballot that they should be doing - water, high spped rail, education funding are just a few issues to use as examples.

Coming on the ballot soon, although it hasn’t finished the signature process, is an initiative to replace marriage with domestic partnerships for all - at least in California. The thought behind the measure is that if homosexual couples cannot marry, then neither should heterosexual couples. Basically, if the homosexuals cannot have the word marriage, then neither should the heterosexual couples.

This is ridiculous. Homosexual marriages were never the same as heterosexual marriages. There was never going to be an equality between the two in California, and to say that replacing everything with domestic partnerships will be “equal” is ridiculous. Homosexual couples, even if they were married, would not be counted as married for federal purposes, for the census or for federal taxes. There was never going to be equality on the marriage issue, so to remove the word marriage from law is ridiculous. Additionally, marriage is a recognized state for federal law for heterosexual couples. Removing the term marriage from California law doesn’t equal that out.

There is no equality on this issue, and there likely won’t be for decades to come. It is unclear whether there should be equality on this issue. There are many things still to be decided.

The CA Supreme Court seems to be in favor of letting Prop. 8 stand - meaning that only marriage between a man and a woman will be recognized as marriage in California. The people voted. This is what they came up with.

In a bit of news sure to surprise and delight state workers who have to work with the Receivership - some of the top carryovers are gone. The Receivership, under the old Receiver, had top executives who did not like working with the state, and who threw up roadblocks to working with the state any time they could. These executives included the Chief of Staff - John Hagar. The new Receiver, Kelso, held over these people and kept them in their same jobs. Now they are gone, and that news is sure good news.

Many state workers that have worked with the Receivership knew that Hagar was making a niche for himself. He wasn’t trying to cooperate with the state, work with the state, or keep the state informed. Instead he was presiding over his fiefdom. Everyone knew that nothing would change within the Receivership until Hagar was gone.

Now Hagar is gone. He claims, via email, that it is due to “irreconcilable differences.” Surely those differences were irreconcilable. Kelso wanted the state to take over the job of CDCR Health-care ASAP. Hagar wanted the Receivership to hold onto it as long as possible.

Maybe with him gone, things can start to change. Perhaps there will be more transparency so that people know what the state money is funding at the Receivership. Perhaps the Receivership will try and figure out what the money they have is funding so they know what they might still need. Maybe the Receivership will also be also to see the difference that the improvements have already made, and realize that spending another $10 billion is out of the question.

Whatever the result, getting rid of Hagar and his cronies can only be a good thing.