WEBVTT

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And so it ends. The saga
of police Chief Paco Balderama ends as he

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announces his resignation today. And I
want to dig into this and try to

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you know, I recognize this is
the end of the day. All of

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the Fresno commentariat has been able to
comment on and Trevor just had three hours

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to comment on it. I want
to try to look at this a little

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bit differently. I don't want to
do I think the obvious thing is to

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do a little bit of Oh,
that's really bad, and it's really bad

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that he had this affair and he's
fired, and there's sort of the obvious

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stuff. But I want to just
a little bit look at Jerry Dyer.

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Jerry Dyer and the city manager of
Fresno and White. Now, Dyer and

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Georgia and White are the two people
in city government who have oversight over the

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chief of police. The chief of
police answers to them, uniquely, does

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not answer to the city council.
Okay, the city council can take a

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vote and all of them can vote
to fire the chief of police, and

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it does not matter. That is
not their job, that's not their role.

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The mayor is the executive official charged
with executing law within the city of

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Fresno, and the police chief is
under him answers to him, and I

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guess I just sort of wonder they
learned about this investigation over a month ago.

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They learned about this weeks and weeks
and weeks and weeks ago, before

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the public learned about it, before
it became a story that hit the airwaves

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and the newspapers. They also knew
more of the details of the nature of

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the accusation than we did. They
knew that Balderama was accused of having an

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affair with another officer's wife. And
this other officer, by the way,

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just you know, sin makes you
stupid. You know that's a long standing

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thing. If you're thinking with some
part of your body that gets a lot

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of blood flow that isn't your brain, you are going to make some dumb

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decisions. And among the many,
many dumb decisions that Paco Baldorama made that

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has cost him now his job and
you know, rocks his marriage and is

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just entirely disastrous and disruptive to the
community and all the good things he was

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doing as police chief. The woman
he was having an affair with is the

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wife of a former has no police
officer who is currently a supervisor for Madera

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County, Jordan Wamhoff And this guy
and mister Wamhoff is was also when he

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was on the police force, he
was a vice president with the Police Officers

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union. That seems like, you
know, if you're trying to pick somebody

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to have an affair with, that
would seem to be some pretty poor decision

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making. Maybe don't have an affair
with the guy who's with the wife of

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the guy who is a VP for
the union, you know, has an

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interest in very tightly closely monitoring you
and your performance and your conduct visa v

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members of the union. So of
course the Police Officers Union was furious about

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this. Rightly they should be,
now dire and Georgia and white. They

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knew about this, they knew about
it way before we did, and their

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response, and they knew that Balderama
admitted to the relationship. So why didn't

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they fire him right then? I
guess that's the thing I don't get.

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What did they think was going to
happen? Did they think that they could

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just leave this man on, leave
him in the job, not even put

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him on paid administrative leave. Let's
remember he only got put on paid administrative

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leave, like a week or two
ago. That disastrous press conference or not

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even a press conference. It's kind
of a little press scrum that happened outside

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of the city council chamber while the
city Council was debating the budget and he

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happened to be there for some of
the budgetary questions and he walks by and

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he gets into it with a reporter
from the GV wire and he says,

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at first, I'm not going to
talk about this, and then proceeds to

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talk about it for a long long
time and makes a complete ass of himself,

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looks totally like sort of like rationalizing
his own conduct. And so,

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if I was an insurance salesman,
do you think any of this would have

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made news? And it's like,
no, cause you're the chief of police.

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You're not an insurance salesman. It's
a bigger deal. And the accusation

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is not that you're the chief of
police and you had any old affair.

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You had an affair with the subordinates
wife. So Dyern knows about this,

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doesn't fire him. Well, we
need to keep we have an ongoing investigation.

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That's what he marches. Andrew Jans
the city attorney out to say,

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we have an ongoing investigation. We'll
let you know more and when we know

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more, which makes me think,
what more is there precisely to investigate?

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He was having an affair with a
subordinates wife. Isn't that a gots to

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go situation? I mean, I
don't know, maybe my workplace is weird

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like this, but if I had
a sexual relationship with the spouse of one

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of my employees and my board of
directors knew that I did it, they

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learned that I did it, I
admitted to them that I did it,

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I would be fired in five minutes. It's not even like what else is

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there to investigate? And I guess
it makes me wonder did Dyer kind of

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think that as long as the story
didn't become public, as long as the

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threat of lawsuit of a lawsuit stayed
stayed quiet, under wrapped behind closed doors

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with the city, did he think
they could just kind of ride it out

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with pocked, with Baldurama still in
the police chief's chair. Did did did

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we? Did he really think that
that was a likely to happen or be

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that it's normatively what should have happened. I guess I don't understand why the

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city at president didn't sort of move
more swiftly and either make this guy resign

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or fire him, like as soon
as they learned he did this. I

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guess it just sort of seems to
me like it's such obvious misconduct, it's

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such obviously inescapably unacceptable conduct that how
did they how did they not act sooner

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on this? And instead they issue
this medium mouthed statement that it was an

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off duty relationship he was involved in
with a non city employee, a non

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city employee. Yeah, but she
was the spouse of a city employee.

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Like like they say non city employee, as if that makes it not as

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bad, when actually it is equal. I don't know. Maybe equally is

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bad. And I admit, Yeah, if you're the police chief and you're

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having an affair with somebody and it's
someone who's completely not connected, family,

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whatever, anything to the police department, Okay, that's bad, that's immoral.

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It's probably very much gonna hurt your
marriage. But is it such that

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you should get fired from your job? Well maybe not quite possibly not,

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but how I mean? But instead
he has this relationship with some with the

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spouse of someone who is subordinate to
him. So I just I guess this

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is the thing I don't understand.
I understand Balderama resigning. He should have

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that, it's entirely the correct thing
for him to do. I'm sort of

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thinking that he has some delusions of
grandeur about his ability to get another job.

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The story came out last week he
was applying to be the chief of

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police for the city of Austin,
Texas, which is a much bigger city

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than Fresno. It's like nine hundred
thousand people present only has five hundred something

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thousand people. I'm not sure that
the city of Austin will be like,

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oh, yes, let's hire this
guy who had to resign in disgrace after

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he was bedoinking another officer's wife and
the other officer in question was the VP

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of the union. Oh I'm sure
our union will really be excited for this

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hire. But I don't understand.
I feel like Jerry Dyers living in Lalla

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Land again, Like, why wouldn't
you think as soon as you learn he

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does that it's a gotstig situation,
is it? I mean, any other

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line of work, if you sleep
with the support and its wife, you've

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got to go. But here's the
mayor. Here's the story from GV Wire

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about it. Mayor Jerry Dyer praised
Balderama for his accomplishments in Fresno, while

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also saying that the chief's resignation was
in the best interest of the city and

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the police department. The mayor also
said that there's no reason why Baldurama couldn't

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serve as a police chief of another
city. Quote, and I expect him

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to do so, Jerry, are
you nuts? There's no reason. I've

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got a reason he had to resign
in disgrace from here because he slept with

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another officer's wife. Again, this
guy's applying to be the chief of police

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in Austin, Texas. You think
the officers in Austin will be like,

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oh boy, this guy was chief
of police of a smaller department than this,

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presumably less pressure, and in the
pressures of that job, he couldn't

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constrain himself such that you know,
maybe he didn't whatever go voteo doo off

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with the wife of one of the
union reps, of one of the union

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vice presidents. Jerry, there is
a massive reason why he probably can't be

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chief of police, certainly not of
a city bigger than Fresno. I don't

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know, maybe he can be chief
of police and Sanger or Parleier or Mendota

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or some town a lot smaller than
Fresno. And by the way, he

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did a really good job in Fresno
as police chief. As chief of police,

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seems like we got nothing to complain
about. So a fairly big California

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legal matter happened last week with a
proposed state ballot initiative called the Taxpayer Protection

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Act. Basically, this was a
proposed ballot initiative, okay, So it

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was something that its proponents were hoping
to get on the ballot this November,

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and it was being challenged in the
courts whether this was the kind of thing

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that could be approved as an amendment
to the California Constitution by the voters of

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the state. Now, a couple
things to understand. California was a real

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leader in the whole arena of state
ballot initiatives to change law, all right,

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And these were the so called Progressive
era policies that California really led the

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way with. In I guess it
was late eighteen hundreds, early early nineteen

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hundreds, and the progressive movement was
basically in that time. I'm not talking

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about modern day progressivism. I'm talking
about the progressivism of the late eighteen hundreds

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early nineteen hundreds. The progressivism of
that time was looking at various kinds of

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entrenched cultural and political norms and saying
that they were bad and that they needed

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to be radically changed in different ways. That basically there was this sense of

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entrenched, fat cat political interests dominating
either Congress or state legislators state legislatures who

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were not authentically representing the views of
the people. And so a lot of

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truly democratic proposals came about for how
state governments could regulate whereby the people could

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directly pass laws and bypass their statela
their own state legislatures, because again they

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thought that their state legislatures were full
of these sort of entrenched interests who you

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know, couldn't be sort of their
state legislatures and their governors or these entrenched

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interests sort of disconnected from the people, not really responsive to the people's needs.

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Let's come up with a truly democratic
solution. And by democratic I mean

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the individual people directly voting on laws. That is the essence of what quote

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democracy is. I think sometimes we
use the word democracy in a very loosey

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goosey way. We use the word
democracy basically to mean any time any kind

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of political system where anyone is voting
on anything, and properly speaking, democracy

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means something a little bit more narrow
than that. What we have in America

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is not really a pure It is
not at all a pure democracy. Our

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president is not elected by just a
popular vote of the people. Our laws

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are not passed by popular votes of
the people. Generally speaking, we have

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a kind of republican system with different
interests that counter veil against just the pure

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raw will of the majority. Okay, the president is not directly elected by

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a majority of the people. He's
elected by a majority of the electoral college,

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which represents all the individual congressional districts
and Senate seats. So hence,

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as Donald Trump did, as George
W. Bush did in two thousand,

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you can lose the popular vote but
still win the electoral college vote. All

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right, So in America we don't
really have a democratic system. But in

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the early twentieth century a lot of
the progressive reform movements thought we should have

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a system to allow the people to
directly make law, to bypass the state

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legislatures, okay, And we have
that system in California through the ballot initiative

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process. The ballot initiative process allows
people the people to gather enough signatures and

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thereby introduce a proposed new law,
just a normal statute, or even a

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proposed new state constitutional amendment, and
have the citizens of California just vote on

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it up or up or down,
yes or no. If you gather this

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many signatures, you can qualify something
as just a state statute, a statute

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that could be passed, or that
can be passed and then can be overturned

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by a normal statute by another normal
statute, or you can get a larger

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number of signatures to propose something as
an amendment to the state constitution. Now,

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the Constitution of the United States of
America were sort of more familiar to

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that. I think in our everyday
civics understanding of civics and kids in school

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learn a little bit more about the
US Constitution than they do about their individual

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state constitutions. But every single state
in the Union has a state constitution.

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Yes, we have the US Constitution
that governs the mechanisms for our federal government,

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but every individual state has its own
state constitution. Ohio has a state

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constitution, Hawaii has a state constitution, Florida has a state constitution, and

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California has a state constitution. Now
we all know, well maybe hopefully some

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of you know, it's really,
really, really hard to amend the US

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Constitution. It requires the two thirds
votes in both the House and the Senate,

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and then you need three quarters of
all the state legislatures to agree to

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something before you can actually amend the
Constitution. Now, the Constitution, both

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at the federal level and at individual
state levels, the Constitution is basically the

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foundational law for that jurisdiction. For
the US constitutions, the foundational law for

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the federal government, and the California
State Constitution is our fundamental law here in

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California. It has all the main
structures for how our government works and functions

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and acts. Now, a group
of fiscal conservative types from southern California,

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Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association and other folks
like that, and maybe it's a rant

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for another day, but there's a
part of me that just despises Orange County

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fiscal conservatism, which I think has
led to these phony conservative who completely abandoned

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the field on education policy on social
policy. All these years we had Republican

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governors and somehow we couldn't make you
know, California public schools like not be

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just little factories churning out generation after
generation of Liberals. So there's a part

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of me that despises southern California fiscal
Orange County conservatism. And by the way,

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there's still for people who don't know
this, the Republican Party in California

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is mostly dead, but Orange County
is still a real hub of national Republican

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fundraising. There is a ton of
Republican money down there. And you'll notice

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that presidential candidates, you know,
Republican presidential candidates, Republican congressional candidates.

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I mean, I saw a tweet
from Mara Flores, who's running for Congress.

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Had she briefly won election to Congress
in this super heavy Latino district near

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like Brownsville, Texas a couple of
years ago, and she's running to try

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to win that seat back saw her
tweeting about, Oh, it just happened

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to be visiting Orange County. Yeah, there's a distinct reason why all of

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these Republicans from other parts of the
country just just happened to make a quick

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little jaunt over to Orange County.
It's because there's tons of Republican money there,

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tons. So Donald Trump flies in
there, this person flies in there.

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That person. Yeah, there's tons
of Republican money in Orange County.

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And they were proposing a statewide ballot
initiative to amend the California Constitution basically to

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require a two thirds legislative vote and
voter approval a ballot initiative in front of

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all the people of California for any
fee and charge increases, as the title

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of it goes, Really, for
any increase in taxes or if you want

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to call them fees, if you
want to call them charge it, whatever

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you want to call them, any
increase in taxes, you need a two

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thirds votes vote of the legislature and
a vote by the people, So a

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yes vote. This is from ballot
Pedia, which I think is a mostly

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neutral source for reading about this stuff. Ballot Pedia says a yes vote would

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have supported amending the state constitution to
define all state and local levies, charges,

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and fees as taxes and to require
new state taxes proposed by the state

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legislature to be enacted via a two
thirds legislative vote and voter approval, and

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new local taxes to be enacted via
a two thirds vote of the electorate.

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Okay, so basically, if you
want to do a local tax increase,

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it's going to require a two thirds
vote by the voters. And if you

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want a state wide tax increase,
has to have a two thirds vote in

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both houses of legislature and a majority
of all Californians have to vote for it.

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Well, the State Supreme Court ruled
basically, it was challenged whether this

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was even something that could be done, whether this ballot initiative is even something

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that could happen. And I at
first saw this and thought, but it's

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proposing to amend the constitution. You
can amend the constitution however you want,

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can't you. There's no limits on
the nature of how you can amend a

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state constitution. There's no provision for, you know, limitations on what on

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how you can amend, say the
US Constitution. But the California State Supreme

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Court ruled in a way that I
found to be a bit of a stretch,

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that yes, there are limits on
how you can amend the California State

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Constitution, that this actually constitutes a
revision of the California State Constitution. And

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you might think to yourself that amend
and revise are pretty close synonyms, right,

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I mean, they're pretty close.
I'm pretty sure if you have a

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posaurus and you look up amend,
you'll probably see revised as one of the

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options there. If you look up
revised, you might see amend as one

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of the options in there. But
no, apparently a revision is something broader.

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Now, when we return, I
want to talk about was this just

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the California State Supreme Court being packed
with Democrats and playing pure pow politics or

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is there something there and what does
this mean for the future of California politics.

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That is next on the John Girardi
Show. The California State Supreme Court

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last week blocked a proposed state ballot
initiative which would have amended, slash possibly

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revised the California State Constitution to make
it more difficult to increase taxes in California.

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Basically, what it would do is
it would require any statewide increase in

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taxes to be done by a two
thirds majority in both houses of the legislature

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plus a statewide vote by the people, And it would require any local taxes

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let's say like a Fresno County tax
or something to be passed by a two

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thirds majority of the voters. This
was blocked from even appearing on the state

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ballot by the California State Supreme Court, and it was a huge political victory

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for the Democrats. Democrats and especially
labor unions were going to throw everything they

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had into stopping this ballot initiative.
Okay, labor unions were CiU all that

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crowd. They were ready to spend
tens of millions of dollars to defeat this

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as a ballot initiative. And basically
the California State Supreme Court gave them the

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victory before they even had to start
fighting. So this is a massive win

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for Democrats. Now, for myself, policy wise, I don't know what

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I think about having two thirds votes
by the people just to pass a tax

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increase. It seems a bit much
to me. But I want to get

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into the question here of the California
State Supreme Court. Now, California State

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Supreme Court has seven members. Of
those seven members, six were appointed by

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Jerry Brown or Gavin Newsom, including
the Chief Justice, Patricia Guerrero. One

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justice was appointed by Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Okay, so this is a very liberal

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leaning Supreme Court, and some of
the justices, like Leandra Krueger are super

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duper left wing. From my understanding, and looking at Krueger's background, she

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was part of the Obama DOJ for
a long time. Like she's yeah,

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she's she's something else, all right. Now, the State Supreme Court basically

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decided this is not something that the
people of California can vote on. Even

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this is not They cannot amend the
constitution this way to require this kind of

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a hurdle before increasing taxes. And
when I heard this at first, I

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was like what And frankly, I
guess I'm a bit more familiar with some

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of these basics of federal law rather
than California law, and I thought,

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well, it's a constitutional amendment.
They can amend it, however they want.

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What's the deal. What business does
the State Supreme Court have saying that

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this kind of a constitutional amendment is
impermissible. Well, apparently the State Supreme

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Court thinks there is a difference between
a revision of the Constitution and an amendment

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to the Constitution. A revision of
the Constitution, and the State Constitution has

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a section in it that talks about
revising or amending the Constitution, but in

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the parts where it talks about the
ability of the people to amend the Constitution

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through the ballot initiative, it only
talks about amendment, not revision. Now,

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at first I just thought, well, you're making a big distinction between

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two things that are basically the same
things. But apparently there's a more long

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standing legal tradition in California, going
back at least as far as I could

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see, from to the fifties,
of a distinction under California law between a

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revision to the Constitution, to the
state Constitution, and an amendment. And

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basically the idea is a amendment to
the Constitution retains the same basic structure of

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government that we have in California,
but it's just tweaking it. It's just

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changing one or two things without fundamentally
altering the essentials of what California government and

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governance is. A revision of the
State Constitution is something broader. It's changing

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some of the more foundational structures of
how the whole thing is supposed to work

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according to the provisions of the California
Constitution that have to deal with the ballid

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initiative process and the ability of the
people to simply amend the constitution. Apparently

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the people don't have the power to
introduce quote, they don't have the power

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to introduce revisions of the constitution.
Okay, and let's remember what this is.

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California adopted these progressive air policies to
directly let the people vote on changes

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to their laws, vote on changes
to the state constitution, even in order

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to bypass entrenched political interests in the
governor's chair, in the state legislature,

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etc. But apparently the provision that
allows for amending the state constitution by a

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vote of the people, people have
to gather enough signatures to qualify something as

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a state constitutional amendment, and then
if a majority of the people vote on

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it, the constitution is amended.
But that's only for amending the constitution,

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not revising it. To revise the
constitution requires some kind of involvement, some

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kind of vote by the state legislature
to call for a California constitutional convention.

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Now is it legit to call this
proposal which again, this was the Taxpayer

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Protection Act, a proposed California state
constitutional amendment that the Supreme Court struck down.

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Struck down from allowing the people of
California to even vote on and consider

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on the grounds that, Nope,
this isn't a constitutional amendment. This would

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be a revision of our whole system
of government. Is it actually a revision

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of the whole system of government?
Simply to increase the bar, to lift

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up, heighten the bar the threshold
that needs to be passed in order to

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increase taxes, to now require for
any statewide increase of taxes to require a

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vote by the people, and for
any local increase of taxes to require a

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two thirds vote by the people.
Is that really a revision of the constitution.

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I mean, the State Supreme Court
was saying, well, no,

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no, no Prop thirteen, which
also mandated certain higher threshold for how you

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increase property taxes. No. Prop
thirteen was okay, but this is not

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Does that really revise the whole basic
structure of California policy. I mean,

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it's not like we're not talking about
eliminating the State Assembly here. Yeah,

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that would probably be a revision.
If you got rid of one of the

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two houses of the state legislature,
that's probably a revision rather than an amendment.

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I guess what I'm concerned is happening
here, and by the way,

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this is even beyond the policy consideration. I don't know that I even agree

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with the policy consideration of requiring a
two thirds vote for any local tax increase.

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That seems a little steep to me. I'm not even talking about the

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policy. I guess my concern is
that the State Supreme Court, by this

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action, in a highly politicized environment, is stepping in to block something that

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Democrats hate and Republicans like on the
grounds that no, it's not a constitutional

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amendment, it's a constitutional revision,
which seemingly I don't know that there's a

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clear cut, clean distinction between the
two, and I begin to fear that

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it's just going to be the California
State Constitution blocking any kind of conservative proposed

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constitutional amendment that comes down the pipeline. If a bunch of pro lifers,

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let's say we're able to qualify something
for the ballot that says we're out longing

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through trimester abortions in California, I
bet if you put that in front of

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the people, a majority of them
would vote for it. What if the

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State Supreme Court said, well,
no, that's a fundamental revision to our

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state constitution, changes the whole structure
of things. You can't have the people

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vote on it, Well, why
the heck not? It seems blooney.

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You see what I'm saying here.
Given the political makeup of the States Supreme

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Court, given the highly politicized nature
of this particular debate, I'm afraid that

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the California State Supreme Court has sort
of hollowed out the democratic progressive reforms in

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California such that the people can't directly
really make their laws in California anymore.

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To close the show for today,
as we close the Paco Balderama saga and

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we put that behind us, I'm
reminded of a little wisdom from my dad.

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My late dad, doctor Joseph Girardi, passed away a couple months ago.

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I still miss him every single day. And one of the things my

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00:34:46.000 --> 00:34:52.960
dad was a surgeon at Valley Children's
Hospital, and he was at various times

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00:34:52.000 --> 00:34:57.000
head of the orthopedic department, head
of surgery, had a lot of different

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00:34:57.039 --> 00:35:01.039
leadership and oversight positions over there at
Children's and had a lot of wisdom,

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00:35:01.679 --> 00:35:07.480
and apparently within Valley Children's he was
famous for giving these sort of continuing education

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00:35:07.639 --> 00:35:14.400
kind of lectures, Lectures about physician
wellness and basically as a physician, how

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00:35:14.400 --> 00:35:15.760
to be happy, how to be
fulfilled, how to be content, how

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00:35:15.800 --> 00:35:22.719
to you know, thrive in your
job. And he had a couple of

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00:35:22.880 --> 00:35:28.239
real pearls of wisdom that I thought
were there were a lot of because he

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00:35:28.280 --> 00:35:31.280
had seen a lot of doctors who
had fallen prey to different things that made

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00:35:31.320 --> 00:35:35.280
them unhappy. Like one of his
big things was, you know, understand

359
00:35:35.320 --> 00:35:38.760
that you're really good at being a
surgeon. You're not really good at being

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00:35:38.800 --> 00:35:45.480
a day trader or a real estate
flipper or this or that. Stick with

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00:35:45.559 --> 00:35:50.239
the thing that you're good at.
Don't try to, like be chasing other

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00:35:50.360 --> 00:35:53.719
kinds of money making schemes like that, because I think he'd seen surgeons who

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00:35:53.719 --> 00:35:59.039
had done stupid stuff and wasted and
lost a whole bunch of money pursuing like

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00:35:59.079 --> 00:36:02.079
some other thing. Do what you're
good at, Excel at what you're good

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00:36:02.119 --> 00:36:07.559
at, Thrive at what you're good
at. And one of the big things

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in this lecture, and I'm trying
to find from folks at the hospital if

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they have a video of it,
because I'd love to get the actual video

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00:36:15.440 --> 00:36:17.519
of it. All I have is
his old laptop and I've got his PowerPoint

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00:36:17.519 --> 00:36:20.920
slides of it, so I'm only
getting kind of the bare bones of it.

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And one of the things he really
heavily talks about for physician wellness makes

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00:36:28.360 --> 00:36:34.199
me think of this Paco Balderama story. Don't cheat on your spouse, don't

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get divorced, you know, and
just to you know, not to be

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00:36:39.000 --> 00:36:43.719
John Girardi moralizer here, And it's
not exactly some novel moral lesson. Hey,

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00:36:43.760 --> 00:36:52.119
don't cheat on your spouse. It
astonishes it astonishes me and makes me

375
00:36:52.199 --> 00:36:55.000
wonder how good of a job Balderama
was doing. Frankly, that he was

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police chief for about three years and
he's three and a half years. He's

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00:37:00.000 --> 00:37:05.159
spent two of those years having an
affair. That's a lot of sneaking around

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00:37:05.440 --> 00:37:09.039
and a lot of lying, and
a lot of making me question, how

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00:37:09.079 --> 00:37:12.440
hard actually were you working? I
mean, I don't work as hard as

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00:37:12.440 --> 00:37:15.079
the chief of police does in my
job. I'm not acting like I work

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00:37:15.119 --> 00:37:19.519
harder than every single person. No, I don't. I don't know that

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00:37:19.599 --> 00:37:22.559
I would have even the I don't
understand how I would have the time to

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00:37:22.599 --> 00:37:31.239
fit into my schedule also having an
affair, and again, just the kinds

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00:37:31.239 --> 00:37:36.960
of things that bring you happiness and
fulfillment, are doing well the things that

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00:37:37.000 --> 00:37:42.039
are set before you, including raising
your family, being with your wife,

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00:37:42.079 --> 00:37:45.199
being with your kids, and doing
your job well. So maybe let that

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00:37:45.239 --> 00:37:47.760
be a lesson to any of you. If you're thinking of going down this

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Paco Balderrama road, let the spirit
of doctor Joe Girardi advise you, no,

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do not do that. That'll do
it for John Girardi Show, seey'all

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next time on Power Talk