Newsom is right to oppose Prop. 30
When California Gov. Gavin Newsom and California Republicans agree on something, it’s probably best to listen.
What they agree on is opposing Proposition 30, which is on the ballot in November. If passed, the proposal would increase the annual tax on personal income above $2 million by 1.75%, shifting that tax revenue to zero-emission vehicle subsidies, electric-vehicle charging stations and wildfire suppression and prevention initiatives (among other government programs). Projected to raise up to $5 billion in new tax revenue each year, Proposition 30 effectively would be an annual fee paid by California millionaires for climate-change programs.
Behind the measure is Lyft, the ride-sharing company. It has bankrolled Proposition 30 to the tune of $25 million (and counting). And Lyft’s support is no coincidence: all ride-sharing companies that operate in California are required to transition their fleets to zeroemission vehicles by 2030. The clock is ticking, hence the incentive for Lyft to back a taxpayer-funded “clean energy transition.”
Joining forces with the California Republican Party, California Small Business Association and California Teachers Association (quite the alliance), Newsom views the ballot measure as a corporate giveaway masquerading as environmental do-goodery. In his words, “Proposition 30 is a Trojan horse that puts corporate welfare above the fiscal welfare of our entire state.”
Newsom accuses Lyft of attempting to “funnel state income taxes” to corporate coffers directly or indirectly. And he’s not wrong. Proposition 30 would only expand crony capitalism in California.
But the real problem is much bigger, and it’s been a uniquely Californian problem for years: the reckless impulse to tax, spend, tax and spend some more. The state’s budget for this fiscal year clocks in at $300 billion, nearly $40 billion of which will be spent tackling climate change. That $300 billion is already more than the entire annual economic outputof Finland, Iran, Portugal, Romania or the Czech Republic. It’s roughly equivalent to the likes of tourist-filled Greece and oil-rich Kuwait — combined. And the environmental portion alone is on par with the national economies of Latvia or Paraguay.
California’s budget for the 2022–23 fiscal year could cover a $7,500 vacation for every Californian. It could also pay for more than 6 million Tesla Model 3s — enough for everyone ages 25 to 34 in the state. California’s boondoggle of a high-speed rail project will cost a third of today’s total state budget (and a problem in itself).
Of course, government spending is derived from taxpayer funding. And California taxes the living daylights out of its residents, nearly twothirds of whom complain that their taxes are too high.
When is enough enough? The Golden State already has America’s highest state personal income-tax rate at 13.3%. Hiking the top rate by another 1.75 percentage points would do nothing to reverse the population exodus that has plagued California during the COVID-19 pandemic. From Elon Musk and Joe Rogan to Ben Shapiro and countless other entrepreneurs, the California brain drain is real, with about 6 million people leaving the state over a decade. It’s also worth noting the hundreds of companies that have moved their headquarters and countless jobs out of California.
As of January 2022, the Golden State has proven to be not-so-golden since the onset of COVID-19, losing more than 352,000 residents. Gains for Florida and Texas were losses for California.
A state in desperate need of private-sector rejuvenation has instead become a poster child for poverty, homelessness and sky-high housing costs. Proposition 30 would do nothing to stem the tide; to the contrary, it would incentivize those with means to take their money, creativity and effort elsewhere.
Again, when is enough enough? It’s past time to stop the bleeding and put California taxpayers first. It’s time to stop taxpayer-funded corporate welfare.
Listen to Gov. Newsom and the Republicans. Vote no on Proposition 30.
On Thursday, Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed legislation to impose strict limits on the use of solitary confinement in California’s prisons.
Assembly Bill 2632, introduced by Assemblyman Chris Holden, D-Pasadena, was the most serious legislative attempt in the nation to curtail the use of a practice that can accurately be described as an act of torture when used for long periods of time.
“California has a dark history on the issue of solitary confinement, and this bill was our chance to get it right on this issue,” said Holden in a statement. “The scientific consensus and the international standards are clear, solitary confinement is torture and there must be limitations and oversight on the practice.”
Holden is right about that.
The bill called for limiting the use of what it calls “segregated confinement,” banning it for people under the age of 25 or older than 60, as well as for people with serious mental disorders.
A decade ago, in my early days as a journalist, I covered California’s extensive use of the practice. At the time, there were over 500 people in Pelican Bay State Prison who had been in solitary for at least 10 years. Nearly 80 prisoners had been in solitary for 20 years or more.
I wrote about California prisoners Armando Cruz and Alex Machado, who were thrown into solitary confinement, psychologically deteriorated and committed suicide.
This is consistent with wellestablished research from around the world. “The severe and often irreparable psychological and physical consequences of solitary confinement and social exclusion are well documented and can range from progressively severe forms of anxiety, stress, and depression to cognitive impairment and suicidal tendencies,” noted Nils Melzer, UN Special Rapporteur on torture, in 2020.
Starting in 2011, prisoner hunger strikes against the state’s use of solitary confinement broke out across the California prison system. This culminated in a legal settlement in 2015 between prisoners represented by the Center for Constitutional Rights and the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to curtail the use of solitary.
But earlier this year, the Center for Constitutional Rights noted that a federal judge found CDCR is continuing to violate the rights of prisoners, “relying on inaccurate and even fabricated confidential information to place individuals in solitary confinement, using dubious gang affiliations to deny them a fair opportunity for parole, and holding them in a restricted unit in the general population without adequate procedural safeguards.”
This is the system Gov. Newsom has chosen to uphold.
Newsom’s veto message indicates he viewed the law as overly broad and instead said he would take action himself. “I am directing the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) to develop regulations that would restrict the use of segregated confinement except in limited situations, such as where the individual has been found to have engaged in violence in the prison,” he wrote.
It remains to be seen what that actually looks like, if CDCR will draw up meaningful regulations, how long putting those regulations will take, how many loopholes will be written into those regulations, whether
CDCR will abide by those regulations and whether CDCR will be held accountable for not following those regulations.
Needless to say, I am doubtful that CDCR, a bloated bureaucracy with a history of presiding over the rampant use of solitary confinement, will actually reduce the use of solitary confinement absent a court order or legislation.