Speaker 1: One of the big issues that makes things expensive in California,
Speaker 1: makes especially homes expensive in California, are environmental regulations that
Speaker 1: make building really difficult, and perhaps the foremost example of
Speaker 1: that is called SEQUA, the California Environmental Quality Act. What
Speaker 1: does SEQUA do. SEQUA requires a lot of preliminary environmental
Speaker 1: impact reports to be provided before major kinds of construction
Speaker 1: can take place and major kinds of real estate developments.
Speaker 1: Sometimes a city can perform those environmental impact reports for
Speaker 1: sort of a whole region, for a whole portion of
Speaker 1: the city, and that can be sufficient for developers who
Speaker 1: want to build within that city. But here's the other
Speaker 1: problem with SEQUA is that even if a governmental entity
Speaker 1: does that, even if the State of California does that,
Speaker 1: outside people can sue to stop it. Outside people can
Speaker 1: sue to argue, no, no, no, no, no, that environmental
Speaker 1: impact report is insufficient. This construction project is going to
Speaker 1: have all kinds of longer term, broader environmental harms that
Speaker 1: they're not going to harm. Me myself and I I
Speaker 1: the person filowing this lawsuit. I who could be anybody.
Speaker 1: I could be some random nonprofit funded by someone in
Speaker 1: Los Angeles, doesn't give a fig about anything in Fresno. Really,
Speaker 1: but I can come into Fresno. I can swoop in
Speaker 1: and stop massive construction and home building project at this
Speaker 1: time where we desperately need more housing. We need more
Speaker 1: housing for lower income people, we need more housing for
Speaker 1: the middle class. We need more housing in general, and
Speaker 1: we don't have it. If there's lots of demand and
Speaker 1: low supply, what does that do to price? You all
Speaker 1: know what it does. Price goes up. And this is
Speaker 1: the insanity of sequa, the fact that almost anybody, including
Speaker 1: people who might not give a rat's rear end about
Speaker 1: the environment. You could have a competing real estate developer
Speaker 1: swoop in to stop arrival from starting a project with
Speaker 1: some spurious, you know, environmental lawsuit. You could have, you know,
Speaker 1: someone who doesn't want lower income housing to be built
Speaker 1: in their community because they want to preserve the value
Speaker 1: of their homes. A sort of nimby attack. Not in
Speaker 1: my backyard. So the reasons why people can stop construction
Speaker 1: projects in California using the environmental the California Environmental Quality Act,
Speaker 1: they could have nothing really to do with the environment.
Speaker 1: They could they could just use environmental impact as a
Speaker 1: smoke screen for their true intentions, their their actual desire
Speaker 1: to either limit competition, to stop lower income people from
Speaker 1: living in their communities, et cetera, et cetera. This is
Speaker 1: happening in Fresno. There's been a big problem with the
Speaker 1: City of Fresno, their sort of environmental plan that has
Speaker 1: been sued and blocked, and a huge number of construction
Speaker 1: projects in the City of Fresno that are going to
Speaker 1: grind to a halt as a result. Here's the story
Speaker 1: on it by Edward Smith in GVY. This is a
Speaker 1: big deal. Fresno business and political leaders are getting a
Speaker 1: better sense of the impacts of an August sixth court
Speaker 1: ruling against the city's environmental assessment. So the city does
Speaker 1: this environmental assessment, and this provides sort of the cover
Speaker 1: for people doing development projects within the City of Fresno,
Speaker 1: allowing them to build. This satisfies the requirements of California
Speaker 1: environmental law that the city has done this environmental assessment. Okay,
Speaker 1: if we develop in this way, doing these kinds of
Speaker 1: developments along this kind of a zoning pattern, So this spot,
Speaker 1: you know, designated for residential, this spot designated for industrial,
Speaker 1: then you can build residential and industrial without doing your
Speaker 1: own separate environmental impact report. A list of projects sent
Speaker 1: to city leaders shows construction was halted on hundreds of
Speaker 1: homes and several businesses, even though the City of Fresno
Speaker 1: list acquired by gv wire shows two dozen projects held
Speaker 1: up by the ruling. Experts and politicians say this is
Speaker 1: only an initial list. The full scope of businesses impacted
Speaker 1: is only beginning to be understood. So what happened on
Speaker 1: August sixth? This court ruling came down due to a
Speaker 1: seque lawsuit filed by left wing nonprofit groups to stop
Speaker 1: all kinds of development in Fresno because Fresno's environmental assessment
Speaker 1: wasn't sufficient. They think that it's going to harm The
Speaker 1: environmental impact of Fresno's development plans is going to harm minorities,
Speaker 1: It's going to harm people with environmental harms. Let's keep
Speaker 1: reading about it. The list contains three transportation projects that
Speaker 1: are the list of construction projects that are being halted.
Speaker 1: It contains three transportation projects, two storage facilities, an energy
Speaker 1: project and apartment complex, two industrial businesses and Amazon truck
Speaker 1: parking lot, nine residential tracts and an entire subdivision. But
Speaker 1: the California Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals decision affects a
Speaker 1: wide variety of projects looking to be built. That could
Speaker 1: mean car washes, to gas stations, and especially affordable housing,
Speaker 1: says Dick Poschal, principle at Land Development Services. It's essentially
Speaker 1: a moratorium. Poschel says the public has no idea of
Speaker 1: the real consequences. Presno City Council member Miguel Arias said
Speaker 1: the tracts and subdivisions on the list equal hundreds of houses.
Speaker 1: My understanding is that they are still trying to assess
Speaker 1: what is the scope of the project's impacted. Arias said
Speaker 1: the city may also have to spend an additional three
Speaker 1: hundred thirty thousand dollars to do an environmental study for
Speaker 1: the Tower District Specific Plan. Presnan City Council Vice President
Speaker 1: Karbasi said the impact of the judicial ruling is widespread.
Speaker 1: The public has no idea of the real consequences. Carbasi said,
Speaker 1: half of the projects initially impacted are residential. In twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one, two community groups and so here's here's the
Speaker 1: groups who sued. South Fresno Community Alliance and the Leadership
Speaker 1: Council for Justice and Accountability sued Fresno, saying its twenty
Speaker 1: nineteen Program Environmental Impact Report did not adequately address traffic,
Speaker 1: pollution and water problems. The Court of Appeals agreed, saying
Speaker 1: the PEIR the Program Environmental Impact Report was deficient. The
Speaker 1: city concluded economic and social considerations outweighed the remaining environmental
Speaker 1: impacts of approval and implementation of the project. The appellate
Speaker 1: opinion stated they gave the city six specific items it
Speaker 1: needs to fix. Those fixes could take months or years,
Speaker 1: depending on who is being asked. The court iss rulings
Speaker 1: said the city should get conditional approval for the pei
Speaker 1: R by showing the court it has a plan to
Speaker 1: fix the shortcomings. We are evaluating the courts ruling with
Speaker 1: our council to determine the next steps, said so Suntai Arose,
Speaker 1: the director of communications with the city. All Right, so
Speaker 1: basically this is a all right. So basically again, for
Speaker 1: any new construction, you've got to show what is the
Speaker 1: environmental impact. You have to provide some kind of environmental
Speaker 1: impact report. But for small business owners, doing an environmental
Speaker 1: study like that take is really expensive and it takes
Speaker 1: a really long time. So to save time and money businesses,
Speaker 1: and this is from the gv wire article. To save
Speaker 1: time and money, businesses use or they tier off of
Speaker 1: a per from the city to understand what they have
Speaker 1: to do to ply with the state's landmark California Environmental
Speaker 1: Quality Act. Of the two dozen projects on the list,
Speaker 1: nine had industrial uses. More than half of the projects
Speaker 1: impacted were residential. One was an apartment complex. So they're
Speaker 1: all and they provide this huge, long list of all
Speaker 1: these different tracts that are impacted, all kinds of different
Speaker 1: businesses and potential businesses that are being impacted. And this
Speaker 1: is what stinks. This is what stinks about California. Here
Speaker 1: we have this expensive, onerous, difficult regulation. You have our
Speaker 1: city government trying to make it possible to build these things.
Speaker 1: And these aren't just like you know, We're not just
Speaker 1: building for the sake of building. We need more housing.
Speaker 1: Here is Fresno struggling with the homelessness issue. We need
Speaker 1: more housing for middle class people. We need more housing
Speaker 1: across the board to help us house people in desperate situations.
Speaker 1: We need more lower income housing. We need all of
Speaker 1: these projects. We need to bring more businesses into Fresno.
Speaker 1: We need this construction. We do an environmental impact report.
Speaker 1: There are always trade offs when you build anything. Yes,
Speaker 1: there will be some environmental impact from them, but this
Speaker 1: economic and the court said that, Oh, Fresno concluded that
Speaker 1: the economic benefit just outweigh the environmental damage. Yeah, yes,
Speaker 1: but that's insufficient, it's unacceptable. Now you've got the city
Speaker 1: council members wondering, well, if the city is going to
Speaker 1: go through all this effort to put together an environmental
Speaker 1: impact plan for the city that other businesses can take all,
Speaker 1: then can then use that as their launching pad for
Speaker 1: making their own environmental impact reports. Well why should the
Speaker 1: city bother? We're spending all this money. We now have
Speaker 1: to defend it in court, which is making us spend
Speaker 1: more and more money. So you got Arius is questioning
Speaker 1: the merits of why do we even have one of
Speaker 1: these environmental impact reports? Like if it's just if we're
Speaker 1: just gonna have to defend it and defend it and
Speaker 1: defend it in court, why not just insist that all
Speaker 1: these businesses do it themselves. Well again, yeah, you could
Speaker 1: do that, but then all these businesses would have to
Speaker 1: shoulder that cost completely on their own. Like even just
Speaker 1: for the tower district, the city has a one million
Speaker 1: dollar tower district specific plan with its environmental impact report
Speaker 1: to update that it would cost an additional three hundred
Speaker 1: and thirty thousand dollars for an environmental review, and Analisa Perea,
Speaker 1: the city council member who represents tower districts, as saying,
Speaker 1: you know, that's a huge setback to have to spend
Speaker 1: an extra three hundred and thirty thousand dollars. This is
Speaker 1: a total train wreck, it feels like to me. And
Speaker 1: here's the kind of the quote at the end of
Speaker 1: the piece by Mike Carbasi. I think it's unfortunate for
Speaker 1: Fresno's working families that some special interests have effectively created
Speaker 1: a moratorium on new housing and parks projects in the
Speaker 1: entire city of Fresno, all in the name of social justice.
Speaker 1: Carbasi said, there is nothing just about killing jobs and
Speaker 1: driving up housing prices and rents. We will be feeling
Speaker 1: the repercussions for years to come. So one stupid lawsuit
Speaker 1: by some nonprofit organizations, by some bleeding heart left wing
Speaker 1: nonprofit organization is going to grind to a halt a
Speaker 1: whole city's efforts at new construction, at business construction, real
Speaker 1: estate construction, et cetera. It's going to drive up, as
Speaker 1: Carbasi says, it's going to drive up home prices. It's
Speaker 1: going to drive up the cost of rents. It's going
Speaker 1: to drive up the cost of housing. It's going to
Speaker 1: limit new businesses coming into president. It's going to limit
Speaker 1: businesses being able to develop and to expand. But at
Speaker 1: least at least some nebulous environmental harm wasn't avoided or
Speaker 1: some environmental good was achieved. Right. This is the fundamental
Speaker 1: thing that I sort of hate about environmentalists is the
Speaker 1: refusal to acknowledge that human beings are actually a thing
Speaker 1: in the environment, a part of the environment, and that
Speaker 1: their good is actually an environmental factor. To consider that
Speaker 1: human beings have to be kind of part of your ecology.
Speaker 1: We are not an unnatural blight upon the pristine landscape
Speaker 1: of California. We are actual, you know, living organisms who
Speaker 1: need to survive and need homes to survive. In that
Speaker 1: human life is actually something valuable. Human livelihoods are something valuable.
Speaker 1: But I think they profoundly do not care about that.
Speaker 1: They profoundly do not care about human life. They profoundly
Speaker 1: do not care about human e college. Here they would
Speaker 1: rather see this whole city burn than let businesses thrive,
Speaker 1: let housing actually be built like that. And that's the thing.
Speaker 1: We have all these problems in the state with you know,
Speaker 1: whether it's lack of housing, homelessness, et cetera, and the
Speaker 1: Liberals who control our state just refuse to eliminate the
Speaker 1: chief obstacles in the way of fixing them. We could, Hey,
Speaker 1: there's a super majority in the state legislature. They're all
Speaker 1: the same party as the governor. They could pass a
Speaker 1: law tomorrow to get rid of SIKUA, to allow new
Speaker 1: construction to go on without these ridiculous environmental impact reports
Speaker 1: that cost gazillions of dollars for businesses. They could stop
Speaker 1: this whole thing, but they don't. They don't want to
Speaker 1: because big money Democrat donors won't let them. When we return.
Speaker 1: Who are the kind of people who insist on these
Speaker 1: environmental regulations, Well, it's all the Democrats' money powerbrokers. Next
Speaker 1: on the on Grouardi Show, this massive story in Fresno
Speaker 1: about this huge number of real estate development projects, business
Speaker 1: construction projects that are all grinding to a halt. Why
Speaker 1: the city of Fresno had its own sort of city
Speaker 1: wide environmental impact Plan for the impact of development in
Speaker 1: various quarters of the City of Fresno. A lot of
Speaker 1: businesses were being built based off of that environmental impact
Speaker 1: plan that the City of Fresno had in place. These
Speaker 1: places that were zoned for housing, new housing was being developed,
Speaker 1: these places zoned for industrial industrial construction was taking place.
Speaker 1: All this construction was taking place pursuant to this environmental
Speaker 1: impact plan. The City of Fresno had an environmental Impact
Speaker 1: Plan that is on that they developed pursuant to the
Speaker 1: California Environmental Quality Act SEQUA, the bane of the pane
Speaker 1: of California's economic existence. So by SEQUA, if you're doing
Speaker 1: new construction, you need to provide a very what can
Speaker 1: be a very elaborate, expensive, difficult to produce environmental impact report.
Speaker 1: If the city has a generalized one for a region
Speaker 1: of the city or for the city as a whole,
Speaker 1: then individual businesses doing new construction can sort of base
Speaker 1: their environmental impact reports off of the cities. They can
Speaker 1: sort of tear off of it, t i eer off
Speaker 1: of it, and that helps businesses get started, helps businesses
Speaker 1: grow and develop and build, helps real estate to build. Well,
Speaker 1: it all gets shut down because another provision of SEQUA
Speaker 1: is that any random yahoo can sue anybody doing any
Speaker 1: construction and shut down the construction on the grounds that
Speaker 1: their environmental impact report is insufficient the mental impacts are
Speaker 1: too harmful. So some left wing nonprofits sue the city
Speaker 1: of Fresno for its environmental assessment, and that grinds tons
Speaker 1: of projects, hundreds of new homes being constructed, grinds it
Speaker 1: all to a halt. Why is such a law on
Speaker 1: the books? California's environmental laws are just business and development
Speaker 1: and housing killers. Why do they stay on the books.
Speaker 1: We're like the only state that has such an absurd
Speaker 1: kind of law like SEQUA, allowing again random nonprofit yahoos
Speaker 1: to swoop in and halt an entire city's real estate
Speaker 1: development with one lawsuit. How can you be a real
Speaker 1: state developer and actually try to develop, take the risk
Speaker 1: of building a massive project when you don't know when
Speaker 1: some jerk's going to swoop in and sue either the
Speaker 1: city to stop the whole city's construction or you to
Speaker 1: stop your construction. Maybe a rival real estate developer will
Speaker 1: swoop in to sue you. Well, here's why it's not
Speaker 1: that Democrats fear environmental Waco activist groups themselves. It's not
Speaker 1: that the Democrats in Sacramento, the Democrats that control three
Speaker 1: quarters of the state legislates, three quarters of the seats
Speaker 1: in both houses of the state legislature, the Assembly with
Speaker 1: its eighty members and the state Senate with its forty
Speaker 1: members along with the governor. It's not like the Democrats
Speaker 1: in Sacramento actually fear the Sierra Club or Just Stop
Speaker 1: Oil or climate defiance. The problem is that they fear
Speaker 1: the kinds of donors who back those entities. That's the
Speaker 1: problem here. So here's an a crazy environmental Waco group,
Speaker 1: Just stop Oil. You know those people who keep going
Speaker 1: to famous museums and throwing like orange paint or cans
Speaker 1: of tomato soup or whatever they're throwing on, you know,
Speaker 1: priceless works of art. And then they take off their
Speaker 1: jackets and they're wearing a T shirt that says just
Speaker 1: stop Oil, or they like, you know, glue their hand
Speaker 1: onto a famous painting or something. Just stop Oil and
Speaker 1: climate defiance are arms I read this. There are arms
Speaker 1: of the Climate Emergency Fund, a nonprofit founded by Rory Kennedy,
Speaker 1: one of RFK Junior's sisters and II Le Getty. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like the Getty Museum, Getty's. Yeah, like the Getty family
Speaker 1: one of the most powerful money brokers in all of
Speaker 1: San Francisco area politics, the Getty family that funded Gavin
Speaker 1: Newsom's entire career. These are like very like we think
Speaker 1: of groups like that as these extreme, crazy fringe Democrats.
Speaker 1: Like again, these are the people throwing kansa tomato soup
Speaker 1: on works of art. These are super mainstream Democrat donors,
Speaker 1: the Kennedy's, the Getty's. These are people who get box
Speaker 1: seats at the Democrat convention. You know, if it's in
Speaker 1: a basketball arena usually then yeah, they get, they get,
Speaker 1: you know, the the luxury suites. These are very mainstream
Speaker 1: DNC Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, Gavin Newsom donors. And this
Speaker 1: is the problem. If someone proposed a bill to say, hey,
Speaker 1: we're gonna massively cut back the California Environmental Quality Act
Speaker 1: so that random nonprofits can't sue anymore to stop a
Speaker 1: whole you know, project changing the nature of these environmental assessments.
Speaker 1: These are the people that Democrats would tick off, These
Speaker 1: ultra rich elites who've already got their house They've already
Speaker 1: got their yacht that somehow it's environmental impact that you know,
Speaker 1: doesn't have to get measured. They've already got their private
Speaker 1: jet that somehow doesn't count towards harming the environment. So
Speaker 1: SEQUA will never go away, even though everyone in the
Speaker 1: state knows what a train wreck it is, how terrible
Speaker 1: for all of the liberal lip service. So we need
Speaker 1: new housing. Everyone knows that SEQUE was one of the
Speaker 1: biggest obstacles to new housing, including liberals, and liberals will
Speaker 1: not change SEQUA because they don't want to tick off
Speaker 1: liberal donors. That's it. When we return, I want to
Speaker 1: talk about California and optimism. That's next on the John
Speaker 1: Girardi Show. I want to talk about conservatism and optimism.
Speaker 1: It's Friday. I like to do little discursive essay audio
Speaker 1: essays on Friday where I'm sort of thinking about big
Speaker 1: picture things. So here it goes. So I went to
Speaker 1: an event recently, and I don't want to say the speakers,
Speaker 1: but he does a lot of speaking on the conservative
Speaker 1: kind of talker circuit up and down California. I think
Speaker 1: it's someone who might wind up running for governor soon.
Speaker 1: And this person was talking about California and talking about
Speaker 1: all a lot of the problems in California, of which
Speaker 1: there are many. We just detailed a lot of those
Speaker 1: problems with SEQUA. He talked about Proposition thirty six and
Speaker 1: Proposition thirty six for those who don't know looking at
Speaker 1: your ballots, for I think a lot of you started
Speaker 1: to get your sample ballots in the mail. Prop thirty
Speaker 1: six is the ballot initiative to amend the old Prop
Speaker 1: forty seven. Prop forty seven was the proposition that lessened
Speaker 1: a lot of criminal penalties for various kinds of offenses
Speaker 1: or reclassified a lot of different kinds offenses from felonies
Speaker 1: to misdemeanors, et cetera. A lot of people credit Prop
Speaker 1: forty seven with increased problems with crime in California. Is
Speaker 1: very backed by a lot of liberals. Prop thirty six
Speaker 1: is designed to amend Prop forty seven and toughen a
Speaker 1: lot of its criminal penalty requirements. And there was polling
Speaker 1: that came out showed about seventy percent of California's were
Speaker 1: in favor of it, and Gavin Newsom was upset about that.
Speaker 1: I saw that number and I couldn't believe it. I
Speaker 1: was wondering if I was still in California anymore. And
Speaker 1: this person was like, isn't that terrible that Gavin Newsom
Speaker 1: is rejecting the will of the people and the people
Speaker 1: of California realize the problems that they're facing. And throughout
Speaker 1: this gentleman's talk, he kept talking about, well, that's what
Speaker 1: the people of California want. The people of California are
Speaker 1: tired of this. And I kept sitting there thinking, are
Speaker 1: they tired of liberal governance? Are they tired of the
Speaker 1: economic stagnation that's caused by all these different left wing policies?
Speaker 1: Are they tired of liberalism? I don't think there's any
Speaker 1: indication whatsoever that Californians are tired of these things. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: they seem to be getting a little tired of the
Speaker 1: most extreme version of liberal criminal justice. But let's not
Speaker 1: forget where did Prop forty seven come from. Prop forty
Speaker 1: seven became a law because a majority of Californians voted
Speaker 1: for it. That's how any prop passes a majority vote.
Speaker 1: And this guy was even talking about, well, if our state,
Speaker 1: if our lawmakers won't listen to us and do what
Speaker 1: we want, then we got to take matters into our
Speaker 1: own hands, and that's why we're trying to pass Prop
Speaker 1: thirty six. We did take matters into our own hands.
Speaker 1: The legislature didn't pass Prop forty seven. We did, the
Speaker 1: voters of California did. Are undoing our own prior mistake.
Speaker 1: If you think Prop forty seven is mistaken, there will
Speaker 1: clearly be some people who voted both for Prop. Forty
Speaker 1: seven and for Prop thirty six. And maybe you can
Speaker 1: say people change their minds, Okay, fine, But there is
Speaker 1: in the conservative movement, and maybe it's an admirable thing,
Speaker 1: and it's a very Reaganite thing, this deep confidence in
Speaker 1: the American spirit, this deep confidence in individual Americans, that
Speaker 1: deep down to their core, individual Americans, that most of
Speaker 1: us are good, honest, hardworking, solid, right thinking people and
Speaker 1: if you're just straight with them, that they'll they'll do
Speaker 1: the right thing. And I just don't know that that's true.
Speaker 1: I think the character of our people, the American people,
Speaker 1: the Californian people, is just a lot different than it
Speaker 1: was in nineteen eighty or nineteen eighty four. In nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty essentially all of the older adults were all of
Speaker 1: the older adult males who were able bodied were World
Speaker 1: War two or Korea or Vietnam War veterans. Pretty much
Speaker 1: most of those people, most adult men, had had some
Speaker 1: brush with one of those wars, had had military service,
Speaker 1: had and especially within politics, had undergone some kind of
Speaker 1: military service, had put on the uniform of their country,
Speaker 1: taken an oath to server. Not the case anymore, Okay,
Speaker 1: that the kind of bonds of kinship fostered by the military,
Speaker 1: the bonds of love of country, the kinds of values
Speaker 1: and virtues of a much more prominent public Christianity, weren't
Speaker 1: there anymore. Aren't there anymore? Today? We are a very
Speaker 1: different kind of people today than we were in nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty or nineteen eighty four. And you know, again, I
Speaker 1: was listening to the speaker, and he kept talking about, well,
Speaker 1: you know, if the people of California will do what's right,
Speaker 1: and our state legislature is not going to listen to us,
Speaker 1: then well take it to the ballot initiative process. The
Speaker 1: ballot initiative process has been every bit as harmful to
Speaker 1: conservatism in many ways as the normal lawmaking process has been.
Speaker 1: I mean, just off the top of my head, here
Speaker 1: are some things that the ballot initiative process, the wonderful
Speaker 1: results of going straight to the noble spirit of the
Speaker 1: people of California bypassing our horrible state legislature. Here's some
Speaker 1: of the idiotic things that the noble voting deep American
Speaker 1: fire burning deep in the hearts of every California. Here's
Speaker 1: some of the idiotic, dumb things that the people of
Speaker 1: California have given us. The jungle primary, where we have
Speaker 1: a bunch of races all up and down the state,
Speaker 1: including some statewide races where because it's a jungle primary
Speaker 1: and open primary where you vote for Republicans or Democrats
Speaker 1: or anybody, rather than just a Republican primary just a
Speaker 1: Democrat primary, you have a bunch of races where there's
Speaker 1: no Republican in the race because the top two vote
Speaker 1: getters were Democrats, which has yielded us wonderful results, like
Speaker 1: Senator Marie Alvarado Gill. Why because in a heavily Republican district,
Speaker 1: Republicans were so stupid that they ran four candidates who
Speaker 1: each got fifteen percent of the vote, and Democrats ran
Speaker 1: two candidates who each got twenty percent of the vote. So,
Speaker 1: in spite of the fact that Democrats are a forty
Speaker 1: to sixty minority within that state Senate district. Uh. Sorry,
Speaker 1: we elected a Democrat who has now belatedly tried to
Speaker 1: pretend that she is a Republican while she's facing re election.
Speaker 1: Senator Marie Alvarado gill And has now promptly been hit
Speaker 1: with a sexual harassment lawsuit by her former chief of staff,
Speaker 1: saying that she pressured him into performing sexual acts with
Speaker 1: her in the backseat of a car that made him
Speaker 1: slip a couple discs in his back. All right, So
Speaker 1: the jungle primary system voted for by the people of California,
Speaker 1: our allegedly non partisan by which we mean very heavily
Speaker 1: partisan and very heavily partisan for Democrats. Redistricting Commission, Our
Speaker 1: redistricting commission that even though Republicans are about sixty forty
Speaker 1: as far as the vote, Republicans are about eighty twenty
Speaker 1: as far as representation in the state Assembly, State Senate.
Speaker 1: Prop forty seven. Oh yes, the thing that we're so
Speaker 1: upset about with criminal justice was something voted upon by
Speaker 1: the people, the California High Speed Rail. Oh yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: the thing that we always make fun of on talk radio.
Speaker 1: Most of you voted for it, and I mean you,
Speaker 1: Fresno County, most of you voted for it. The stupidest
Speaker 1: thing this, this statewide embarrassment of the worst managed infrastructure
Speaker 1: project in human history. Practically, this tens of billions of
Speaker 1: dollars sinkhole that we've spent decades working on with not
Speaker 1: one inch of workable track, that's going to cost twelve
Speaker 1: and a half a billion dollars just to go from
Speaker 1: Merced to Bakersfield. Voted on by the people, enshrining a
Speaker 1: right to abortion into the state constitution with no limits on,
Speaker 1: no gestational age restrictions imposed on that right to abortion whatsoever.
Speaker 1: So have we just legalized ninth month, third trimester abortions? Possibly,
Speaker 1: quite possibly. In two thousand and four, we had a
Speaker 1: ballot initiative giving billions of dollars for embryo destructive stem
Speaker 1: cell research. It yielded absolutely zero good results. And then
Speaker 1: in twenty eighteen we reupped for another five billion bond measures.
Speaker 1: We passed bond measures all the time. The most idiotic
Speaker 1: government funding scheme imaginable, where for every one billion dollar
Speaker 1: in a bond, which is a loan to a state
Speaker 1: or a municipal entity, for every one billion dollar of
Speaker 1: bond funding you approved for the state. You the taxpayer,
Speaker 1: have to pay back almost two billion. How many idiotic
Speaker 1: things do we vote for? You want to complain about
Speaker 1: Gavin Newsom, he won all three of his elections sixty
Speaker 1: to forty. You want to complain about Kamala Harris, she
Speaker 1: won all of her elections. I don't think the people
Speaker 1: of California are tired of any of this. I think
Speaker 1: they are so dumb, they are so brainwashed that they
Speaker 1: will just they'll never vote for or at very least
Speaker 1: there's this. I just don't have optimism right now for California.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry if that makes me a killjoy, but I
Speaker 1: feel like cal Republicans, you know what. I'm gonna take
Speaker 1: this to the next segment, the desire for a quick
Speaker 1: fix and why it's unrealistic. There's no quick fix for
Speaker 1: our political problems right now. That's next on the John
Speaker 1: Girardi Show. I'm talking about my lack of California optimism.
Speaker 1: I think there are a lot of conservatives who are
Speaker 1: sort of trying. There's certain kinds of California conservatives. Anyway,
Speaker 1: we're trying to sell you on the notion of.
Speaker 2: No if we can just get this what the people
Speaker 2: of California are just and tired of this. People of
Speaker 2: California don't want that, and I just don't buy this
Speaker 2: ra ra idea.
Speaker 1: I think the people of California are just fundamentally different
Speaker 1: from the people of California even forty years ago. I
Speaker 1: think they're not tired of this. I think all electoral
Speaker 1: indications are that the people of California are completely fine
Speaker 1: with the terrible state that the state is in, other
Speaker 1: than the vocal minority of us who are trying to leave,
Speaker 1: but the vast majority are not. They're going to keep
Speaker 1: voting for the same terrible politicians and policies. And I
Speaker 1: think there's this conservative instinct to want a quick fix.
Speaker 1: You'll see this a lot with kind of the Trump
Speaker 1: folks who will be like, oh, well, look, there was
Speaker 1: a Trump rally in Orange County because Donald Trump went
Speaker 1: to Orange County to hit up big time Republican donors
Speaker 1: for money, because Orange County is kind of the seat
Speaker 1: of Republican money and fundraising nationwide. Look at all these
Speaker 1: Republicans coming out for Trump. We're gonna turn California red.
Speaker 1: And then you know, the Democrat running for the Senate,
Speaker 1: or the Democrat running for whatever wins by sixty to
Speaker 1: forty and Trump loses sixty to forty. Whatever you might think,
Speaker 1: whatever optimism you might have for or whatever plan you
Speaker 1: might want to put together for California, changing, understand that
Speaker 1: you're going up against a public education system that it's
Speaker 1: spitting out generation after generation after generation after generation of
Speaker 1: kids who are taught liberal values, liberal morals, liberal ethics.
Speaker 1: Understand that you are going up against powerful money invested
Speaker 1: interests that are so well entrenched that's almost impossible to
Speaker 1: unentrench them. A redistricting plan that is entrenched in favor
Speaker 1: of the liberals, primary systems entrenched in favor of the liberals.
Speaker 1: It's not something that's going to happen overnight. If there's
Speaker 1: going to be some conservative revolution in California, it's going
Speaker 1: to take at least twenty years, and it's not going
Speaker 1: to happen this election cycle. That'll do it. John Girardi Show,
Speaker 1: We'll see you next time on Power Talk