There are many unintended consequences of California’s policy decisions – Orange County Register

I have written another book on politics in California – which is very unlikely – it will be titled “Unintended Consequences”, detailing how political policy decrees are changed to have adverse effects. unpredictable movements.

Examples of syndromes are legions, but here are just two:

—During the 1960s, newly elected Governor Ronald Reagan signed two bills aimed at reforming the care and treatment of mental illness. They began the phase of phasing out the statewide mental hospital system in place of community mental health clinics. Reagan wanted to save money and advocates for the mentally ill decried the abusive, prison-like atmosphere of hospitals.

Reagan, successive governors, and the Legislature have never fulfilled their promise to provide mental health care to the public, leaving many people with mental illness later to fend for themselves and contribute to the crisis. The homelessness crisis is currently plaguing the state.

—Two seemingly distinct actions in the late 1970s, California’s 1975 expansion of collective bargaining rights to public employees and the passage of Proposition 13, the landmark property tax cap, in 1978, which together led to the dominance of employee unions in the Legislature.

Proposition 13 indirectly shifts financial responsibility for schools and much of local government to the state. As the state and local workforces have become almost fully unified, the concentration of financial power in Sacramento has given unions the impetus to reshape the Legislature as a force of law. union support island.

The California Environmental Quality Act, also signed by Reagan, is a third major example. Its stated purpose is to force project sponsors to assess their impact on the environment and minimize adverse effects as much as possible.

However, in the more than half a century since its passage, CEQA has morphed into a legal consortium that can stall even the most benign projects indefinitely as opponents raise objections that often don’t. related to environmental protection.

For instance, it’s not uncommon for construction unions to threaten or file lawsuits against CEQA in unseen efforts to force project managers to allow their members exclusive access to work. CEQA has become so complicated that the Legislature often gives popular projects – such as sports arenas – specific exemptions from some of its provisions, including Super Bowl stadiums. this year in Inglewood.

CEQA is a major, though not the only, factor in California’s inability to build enough housing, especially for low- and moderate-income families, to meet demand. Those who do not want such housing in their neighborhood use CEQA as a tool to stop construction, or delay it so long that it is financially impracticable.

The latest example of CEQA being bent for purposes that was never envisioned occurred in Berkeley, where the city government and a group called Save Berkeley’s Neighborhoods sued to block plans to expand its enrollment University of California.