Speaker 1: There's an interesting piece in cal Matters talking about housing
Speaker 1: and California housing and specifically how the Trump administration could
Speaker 1: make housing more or less difficult to build in the
Speaker 1: state of California. Now, it would seem hard to imagine
Speaker 1: a scenario how the Trump administration could make it more difficult,
Speaker 1: given that it's already happening at an unbelievable snail's pace.
Speaker 1: I actually read a stat that the Dallas area of
Speaker 1: Texas alone, which I assume is Dallas, Fort Worth, Arlington,
Speaker 1: which is a big population but not as big as
Speaker 1: all of California, the Dallas area of Texas alone is
Speaker 1: building more houses per year than California is than the
Speaker 1: whole state of California is.
Speaker 2: It's just insane.
Speaker 1: And we've had this continuous problem in California that we're
Speaker 1: not building enough to meet demand. And that simple math
Speaker 1: in economics that when you have high demand and low supply,
Speaker 1: that leads to high high, high, high high prices and
Speaker 1: it's unsustainable. It's what drove the idea for the stupid
Speaker 1: high speed rail train, the idea of basically that basically
Speaker 1: the chief benefit of the high speed rail train would
Speaker 1: have been for Bay Area workers. That they could live
Speaker 1: further and further and further away from San Francisco or
Speaker 1: Silicon Valley, live further and further and further south, and
Speaker 1: then just zip up, you know, twice a week or
Speaker 1: something on the train, get your mansion in Madera, and
Speaker 1: commute up to San Jose for your work maybe once
Speaker 1: a week or something. Now here's the main problem in
Speaker 1: California is that we impose all kinds of building regulations
Speaker 1: that make it really difficult and environmental regulations that make
Speaker 1: it really difficult for builders to invest the money needed
Speaker 1: to build homes. That's the first, last, and middle problem.
Speaker 1: As much as we have these debates in California about
Speaker 1: not in my backyard ism, nimbiism, you know, wealthy liberal
Speaker 1: enclaves of.
Speaker 2: California that refuse to have you know, a.
Speaker 1: Multi unit dwelling built in their city and block it
Speaker 1: through municipal action, you know, at the level of the
Speaker 1: city council or the city Planning Commission, whatever.
Speaker 2: And I feel like, though that stuff is.
Speaker 1: That is talked about a lot as if that's some
Speaker 1: big problem, but that attitude exists all over the United
Speaker 1: States of America. Those attitudes can exist, those mechanisms for
Speaker 1: trying to blockhousing can exist in city councils all up
Speaker 1: and down this country, and other parts of the country
Speaker 1: don't have the problem with housing that we have. Why Well,
Speaker 1: because other states don't have the environmental regulation that we have.
Speaker 1: Other states don't have the kinds of environmental laws that
Speaker 1: make it so easy to block new construction. Probably the
Speaker 1: most sort of consequential of these is SEQUA, the California
Speaker 1: Environmental Quality Act. So with SEQUA, there's all kinds of
Speaker 1: insane things that does. Every new project requires a kind
Speaker 1: of a massive sort of environmental impact report that's very
Speaker 1: onerous to put together, very expensive to put together. You'll
Speaker 1: have a situation like what's happening right now, where the
Speaker 1: City of Fresno put together a massive citywide environmental impact
Speaker 1: report to sort of help facilitate people investing in Fresno
Speaker 1: to build stuff in Fresno, businesses building. So the city
Speaker 1: of Fresno basically tried to do much of the work
Speaker 1: for these developers, and then the developers their environmental impact
Speaker 1: report would just have to be this smaller thing. Well
Speaker 1: guess what happened though, And this is another lovely part
Speaker 1: of SEQUA is that anyone can sue you for allegedly
Speaker 1: not fully complying with sequa's terms. Anyone can sue you.
Speaker 1: It doesn't have to be someone who's directly harmed by
Speaker 1: the environmental impact of your construction project or something. That's
Speaker 1: the way that most American litigation happens. Most lawsuits in America,
Speaker 1: you have to somehow be harmed before you can sue somebody.
Speaker 1: You have to be the one who is harmed before
Speaker 1: you have what's called standing to sue.
Speaker 2: Standing is a.
Speaker 1: Sort of essential bedrock of American law, bedrock principle, bed
Speaker 1: rock limiting principle. Then not anybody can sue anybody for anything.
Speaker 1: If someone crashes their car into my friend Jonathan Keller's house,
Speaker 1: well Jonathan can sue the guy for negligence, for property
Speaker 1: damage whatever. I can't sue the guy though. I can't
Speaker 1: come into the court and say I'm suing this man
Speaker 1: for crashing his car into Jonathan Keller's house, and the
Speaker 1: judge will look at me and say, well, why are
Speaker 1: you here, Why are you suing so well, I'm really
Speaker 1: upset your honor. Yeah, well that's not enough to provide
Speaker 1: you with standing. You have to suffer some harm. You
Speaker 1: have to have some showable damages, something that has happened
Speaker 1: to you, some infringement of your rights, some economic harm,
Speaker 1: whatever it is, before you can sue. SEQUA kind of
Speaker 1: is a massive exception to that basic normal principle of
Speaker 1: American law with SEQUA, I guess because they sort of figure, well,
Speaker 1: environmental harms are so diffuse that basically, who is the
Speaker 1: one person harmed by a bad environment? Does anyone who
Speaker 1: has asthma.
Speaker 2: Able to sue?
Speaker 1: Well, not necessarily, So basically what they do is go
Speaker 1: to the opposite extreme and just say everyone can sue.
Speaker 1: Anyone can sue anybody, any real estate developer, any builder,
Speaker 1: And in the case of the City of Fresno, a
Speaker 1: city putting together an environmental impact report, a city wide
Speaker 1: environmental impact report can be sued by literally anyone for
Speaker 1: violating the terms of SEQUA. And that's precisely what happened
Speaker 1: with the City of Fresno. The City of Fresno got
Speaker 1: sued for its citywide environmental Impact Report, which was the
Speaker 1: basis off of which all these other developers all over
Speaker 1: the city were building projects. Some left wing nonprofit groups
Speaker 1: sues the City of Fresno over its environmental impact report,
Speaker 1: a judge agrees with them, and guess what. Now, We've
Speaker 1: got like twelve different construction, housing, etc. Projects all stalled
Speaker 1: because of some RinkyDink nonprofit organization that wins a lawsuit.
Speaker 1: And it's that threat that I think hinders housing construction businesses,
Speaker 1: businesses that want to build things from building. Why would
Speaker 1: you start a massive housing project if you have no
Speaker 1: idea that in the middle of it, litigation might fly
Speaker 1: in on some spurious grounds to say that no, no, no,
Speaker 1: the environmental impact report is insufficient. That this environmental heart
Speaker 1: and the lawsuit could come from anybody. It could come
Speaker 1: from a competing developer. It could come from Joe Bleep,
Speaker 1: the Ragman, as my dad used to say. It could
Speaker 1: come from some environmental Waco group. It could come from
Speaker 1: maybe it could come.
Speaker 2: From a NIMBI impulse.
Speaker 1: You want to build a multi dwelling unit, some apartments
Speaker 1: and homeowners in the neighborhood think that that's going to
Speaker 1: reduce their property values, so they sue you for the
Speaker 1: alleged environmental impact of what you're doing, when really they
Speaker 1: don't give a darn about the environmental impact. What they
Speaker 1: care about is the fact that they think it's going
Speaker 1: to reduce their property values.
Speaker 2: So the result of this.
Speaker 1: Furthermore is that what kind of housing can California builders build. Well,
Speaker 1: the only things they can really build is very hot.
Speaker 1: Now this isn't true universally, but broad strokes and we
Speaker 1: do see this in Fresno. A lot of the construction
Speaker 1: that's happening in Fresno is one of two things. It's
Speaker 1: either very high end or very low end. It's either
Speaker 1: very high end apartments in Clovis and that are very
Speaker 1: far north where they can charge very high rents, or
Speaker 1: it's registered trademark California lower income housing registered trademark. Now,
Speaker 1: the problem is that registered trademark California lower income housing
Speaker 1: has to meet all these kinds of environmental requirements, etc.
Speaker 1: Such that it's more expensive to build than the normal
Speaker 1: housing that people in most of the states of the
Speaker 1: United States live in. It's very expensive to build quote
Speaker 1: lower income community housing. You've had stories of these apartment
Speaker 1: complexes being built as quote lower income housing in California
Speaker 1: where each unit costs like five hundred thousand dollars. I
Speaker 1: think about a story where each unit costs like a
Speaker 1: million dollars to build and the only reason builders can
Speaker 1: build it is because the state is dumping out subsidies
Speaker 1: to allow it to be profitable for the builders. So
Speaker 1: the only ways you can make money is if you
Speaker 1: build quote, lower income housing and you get a state subsidy,
Speaker 1: or you build really high end stuff for high wealthy
Speaker 1: people where you know that you can charge very high rents,
Speaker 1: or self for very high Guess where that leaves the
Speaker 1: middle class.
Speaker 2: With jack You know what? So how would a Trump
Speaker 2: administration impact this? Well?
Speaker 1: The article from cal Matters focuses a lot on immigration,
Speaker 1: and it keeps saying, well, if President Trump deports all
Speaker 1: the illegal aliens, then who will be around to build
Speaker 1: o offend, which strikes me as naive. We already went
Speaker 1: through a Trump administration once there wasn't a lack of
Speaker 1: workers able to build housing. The idea that the unsustainably
Speaker 1: high levels of illegal immigration that the Biden administration allowed
Speaker 1: to flow into this country that we couldn't have both
Speaker 1: one massive deportations and two enough workers to do construction, I.
Speaker 2: Think is incredibly naive and a silly talking point.
Speaker 1: One of the main people quoted in this piece is
Speaker 1: I think one of the worst people in all of
Speaker 1: American politics, and certainly in California politics. Scott Wiener, it
Speaker 1: was a California state senator who represents sort of Nancy
Speaker 1: Pelosi's stomping grounds right in the heart of San Francisco.
Speaker 1: This is the kind of guy who actually marked he's
Speaker 1: a state senator. He marches in gay pride parades wearing
Speaker 1: leather stuff.
Speaker 2: Just leave it at that.
Speaker 1: This is the guy who's introduced all kinds of horrible
Speaker 1: sort of you know, horrible stuff with transgenderism, about if
Speaker 1: a kid comes from out of state to California wanting
Speaker 1: to transition, the parents don't can we transition the kid
Speaker 1: without the parents approval? Like he's that level, Like he's maybe,
Speaker 1: as I say, one of the worst people in all
Speaker 1: of American politics. Like there were some rumblings that he
Speaker 1: was going to run for Nancy Pelosi that there still are,
Speaker 1: I think rumblings that he's going to run for Nancy
Speaker 1: Pelosi's House of Representatives district once she retires. The rumblings
Speaker 1: are between Christine Pelosi, Nancy's daughter, and him, and I
Speaker 1: hate him so much I would campaign for Christine Pelosi
Speaker 1: to make sure that he doesn't get that seat. Like
Speaker 1: I'm almost serious. I don't know that i'd actually campaign
Speaker 1: for a Pelosi, but oh my gosh, he is the worst.
Speaker 1: So Wiener raises the concerns that President Electrump could deport
Speaker 1: enough people that it would increase the cause of housing,
Speaker 1: and that tariffs could increased costs with regard to housing.
Speaker 1: Maybe tariffs, what I mean that might be fair? I
Speaker 1: mean that there are trade offs with tariffs, but they're
Speaker 1: you know, it could have the impact of making certain
Speaker 1: kinds of products that are used in construction more expensive.
Speaker 1: It's rich, though, hearing any Democrat in California complain about
Speaker 1: Republican policies and how Republican policies might make housing more
Speaker 1: expensive when they all know the score. Everything I said
Speaker 1: in the first ten minutes of this show about why
Speaker 1: housing is expensive in California, how environmental regulation makes housing
Speaker 1: more expensive, everyone in our state legislature knows it. Everyone
Speaker 1: in our state legislature understands the negative impacts of SEQUA,
Speaker 1: Everyone in our state legislature understands the negative impacts of
Speaker 1: lots of other kinds of specifically California regulation that makes
Speaker 1: housing more expensive. They know what the problem is. Honestly,
Speaker 1: it's very similar to the right. I mean, like, you know,
Speaker 1: there are people on the right who complain about, you know,
Speaker 1: the federal budget being out of balance and spending is
Speaker 1: too much. Well, the reason why spending is too much
Speaker 1: is because of Medicare, Medicaid, and the military.
Speaker 2: Those are the main things.
Speaker 1: If you aren't going to cut those things, you're really
Speaker 1: never going to balance the budget. And nobody wants to
Speaker 1: cut those things. Certainly nobody on the right does anymore.
Speaker 1: They don't want to cut the military, they don't want
Speaker 1: to cut Medicare, they don't want to cut Medicaid, they
Speaker 1: don't want to cut Social Security. This is a Republican
Speaker 1: This sort of willful blindness to the problem is not
Speaker 1: exclusively a left going phenomenon.
Speaker 2: It exists on the right too.
Speaker 1: But in California, everyone understands why housing is expensive, and
Speaker 1: they just don't want to do anything to stop it.
Speaker 1: They don't want to do anything to change it. And
Speaker 1: I guess that's what I don't understand about some of these,
Speaker 1: like Harvard Howard Jarvis texts fighters Association types. If they've
Speaker 1: got the money for ballad initiative fights, which seemingly they do,
Speaker 1: why don't they just introduce ballid initiatives to try to
Speaker 1: abolish or reform sequa why not it strikes me, or
Speaker 1: to reform the California Resources Board, to do all kinds
Speaker 1: of things. It just strikes me as bizarre that we've
Speaker 1: got this direct democracy system in California and people on
Speaker 1: the right have been so inept at utilizing it to
Speaker 1: fix problems. When we return, how I wonder if this
Speaker 1: is an untapped resource, the ballot initiative system, if this
Speaker 1: is a totally untapped resources for the right in California.
Speaker 1: Next on the John Growardy Show, going through this piece
Speaker 1: from Calmatters dot org about whether or not it's written
Speaker 1: by Felicia Mellow discussing the idea of whether or not
Speaker 1: a Trump administration could ease the problems with housing in California.
Speaker 1: We come against this problem. I don't know how much
Speaker 1: the Trump administration could really do. Certainly there's federal regulation
Speaker 1: that Trump could cut. There are other things Trump could
Speaker 1: do that could influence the cost of housing in some cases,
Speaker 1: perhaps negatively, like tariffs. Tariffs could I mean, I'm open
Speaker 1: to the argument that tariffs over the long run could
Speaker 1: be a good thing for the economy and could be
Speaker 1: beneficial for American industry in lots of ways. It would
Speaker 1: probably though, make certain kinds of products used in home
Speaker 1: construction more expensive. Maybe you say that's worth it given
Speaker 1: the trade offs in other ways. But that is a
Speaker 1: real possibility. But the real problem I see is how
Speaker 1: do you get you know, how do you bring this
Speaker 1: horse to water? You can bring the horse to water,
Speaker 1: you can't make them drink. How does Trump make the
Speaker 1: horse of California drink? I mean, Trump can do anything
Speaker 1: you want at the federal level. It doesn't make state
Speaker 1: laws go away in California, doesn't make state regulators in
Speaker 1: California go away. It doesn't make state regulation go away.
Speaker 1: It doesn't make the California Air Resources Board go away,
Speaker 1: which is passed sort of on its own, various kinds
Speaker 1: of environmental regulations that are harmful.
Speaker 2: It doesn't make things like what other things. It doesn't
Speaker 2: make sequa go away.
Speaker 1: Trump can do all that stuff he wants, but that's
Speaker 1: never going away.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: I think there are possibilities at the federal level that
Speaker 1: Trump could and especially since housing as a major problem
Speaker 1: seems to be much more of a focus of the
Speaker 1: Trump forty seven administration than it was the trump forty
Speaker 1: five administration. Vice President elect Vance talked about it a
Speaker 1: lot on the campaign trail. I think there's a lot
Speaker 1: to it. I think there's a lot more focus on
Speaker 1: this issue than there was before. I'd be interested to
Speaker 1: see who the new head of Housing and Urban Development
Speaker 1: is going to be.
Speaker 2: I hope it's not.
Speaker 1: What often tends to happen is that basically administrations dump
Speaker 1: somebody to be the Secretary for Housing in Urban Development too.
Speaker 2: You know, it's sort of a political ally.
Speaker 1: They sort of want a reward, but you know, they're
Speaker 1: not sure what to do with him, so they make
Speaker 1: him the head of HUT. That's what they did with
Speaker 1: Ben Carson, which didn't make much sense to me. So
Speaker 1: I guess we'll have to see. But I guess the
Speaker 1: problem is that there is a bunch of California law
Speaker 1: that Trump still has in his way that that's not
Speaker 1: going to change now when we return, I want to
Speaker 1: focus on the California ballid initiative system.
Speaker 2: I wanted to save this for the.
Speaker 1: Third segment so I have more time the California ballid
Speaker 1: initiative system, how I think it's underutilized, and how there's
Speaker 1: one person who started to be come involved in American politics,
Speaker 1: who could maybe do something really impressive with it. That's
Speaker 1: next on the John Girardi Show.
Speaker 2: I think the.
Speaker 1: California ballot initiative system is massively underutilized by the right,
Speaker 1: and I think this most recent election cycle has showed
Speaker 1: us that there is an avenue there for pursuing conservative events.
Speaker 1: So let me let me go through a little bit
Speaker 1: some of the election results from the ballot initiatives this
Speaker 1: past election cycle in twenty twenty four. It may be
Speaker 1: that we're seeing a right word shift nationally and maybe
Speaker 1: even a little bit in California. Every state in the
Speaker 1: Union seemingly went a little bit right, even states that
Speaker 1: Harris won went right of where they were in twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: I mean that there was one point during the evening
Speaker 1: on election night.
Speaker 2: I remember the CNN where they had oh, what is
Speaker 2: that guy's name?
Speaker 1: He was talking with Jake Tapper, one of their election
Speaker 1: analyst dudes, and he was showing, these are all of
Speaker 1: the counties throughout the entire United States of America that
Speaker 1: we've tracked that Kamala Harris has outperformed Joe Biden from
Speaker 1: twenty twenty And then they showed it, and there was
Speaker 1: not one county in the entire United States highlighted on
Speaker 1: the map at the time. Jake Tapper's standing there incredules
Speaker 1: what not even one. Now, eventually, I think over time,
Speaker 1: as we've counted all the votes, there were a few counties,
Speaker 1: maybe like three or four, that that Harris did in
Speaker 1: fact outperform Joe Biden. But the matter stands, Republicans did
Speaker 1: much better, Democrats did much worse. There's a right word
Speaker 1: shift in the country, and you could even see that
Speaker 1: in California. California, Republicans actually did decently well in some
Speaker 1: of the House raises, and I think actually picked up
Speaker 1: one or two competitive seats in the state legislature. And
Speaker 1: most of all, I think the ballot initiative outcomes were surprising,
Speaker 1: surprisingly good for Republicans. A lot of things that Republicans
Speaker 1: wanted to see blocked were blocked. Rent control was blocked,
Speaker 1: a minimum wage increase was blocked. Now, some liberal priorities
Speaker 1: did get passed. The stupid ten billion dollars statewide education
Speaker 1: bond passed. It's all right, we'll spend ten billion dollars
Speaker 1: in education stuff that we'll have to pay for down
Speaker 1: the road with twenty billion dollars, because a bond is
Speaker 1: a loan to a governmental entity that you have to
Speaker 1: pay back with interest, and the interest will basically be
Speaker 1: more or less double the principle. So you know, ten
Speaker 1: billion dollar bond for education. Why because the teachers' unions
Speaker 1: were mad that there wasn't enough in the state budget.
Speaker 1: Guess what, There's never going to be enough in the
Speaker 1: state budget for the teachers.
Speaker 2: This is the norm.
Speaker 1: Our spending habits outstripped the revenue we were going to
Speaker 1: take in. A bunch of revenue left this state during COVID.
Speaker 1: Bunch of wealthy people left and took their capital gains taxes,
Speaker 1: took their income taxes with them, and they're not coming back.
Speaker 1: So are we just every year the state budget won't
Speaker 1: be enough for education and we'll just do another bond measure.
Speaker 1: We'll just put ourselves more and more and more in
Speaker 1: debt for the rest of time. All right, sounds like
Speaker 1: that's what's going to happen. So Proposition two passed. Proposition fours,
Speaker 1: maybe even more egregiously stupid, ten billion dollars for various
Speaker 1: environmental projects of that past. So I'm not saying all
Speaker 1: the ballot initiative results were great for Republicans, but the
Speaker 1: signal achievement of the right in the ballot initiative space
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty four was Proposition thirty six. This was
Speaker 1: the ballot initiative to classify certain kinds of crimes as
Speaker 1: felonies rather than misdemeanors. These were things that historically were
Speaker 1: felonies and then ten years ago Prop. Forty seven, Prop
Speaker 1: fifty seven made them into misdemeanors. And guess what if
Speaker 1: it's a misdemeanor rather than a felony, that's a big
Speaker 1: disincentive to charge it at the level of your district attorney.
Speaker 1: And so you had people getting away with all kinds
Speaker 1: of drug crimes, all kinds of robbery crimes. So Prop
Speaker 1: thirty six was this targeted thing to classify certain kinds
Speaker 1: of crimes as felonies rather than misdemeanors and restore some
Speaker 1: semblance of wanting to actually prosecute people for crime into
Speaker 1: the California criminal justice system.
Speaker 2: On a local level, we also saw.
Speaker 1: That this mood was impacting the state as Los Angeles
Speaker 1: County kicked out George Gascon, their ultra left wing prosecutor.
Speaker 1: Now I thought that was an impressive outcome. To actually
Speaker 1: affirmatively pass a conservative ballot initiative was amazing, and Prop
Speaker 1: thirty six passed easily seventy two percent. It won every
Speaker 1: single county of California. There was not one county where
Speaker 1: the nos outweighed the yeses easy, And it got me
Speaker 1: to thinking that ballot initiative being successful, is that what
Speaker 1: spurs some of the California old guard Orange County Republican
Speaker 1: money to maybe think about maybe we invest in a
Speaker 1: couple of more things. Because this is as far as
Speaker 1: I can tell. I'm not a one hundred percent expert
Speaker 1: in these things, but I've seen glimpses of this stuff.
Speaker 1: This is the lay of the land with Republican money
Speaker 1: in California. So Orange County is still a big deal
Speaker 1: in Republican politics because a lot of very, very wealthy
Speaker 1: Republican donors live there. You'll often see national Republican figures
Speaker 1: on social media some.
Speaker 2: Oh just taking a visit out to Orange County.
Speaker 1: Hmm, I wonder why they're doing that. It's quite obvious
Speaker 1: why they're doing that. They're doing that to go fundraise.
Speaker 1: Orange County still has a ton of Republican money. San
Speaker 1: Joaquin Valley has some big Republican money, but Orange County
Speaker 1: is a real and there are a couple of donors
Speaker 1: in the San Juaquin Valley who are significant players on
Speaker 1: the national scene. But it's in Orange County where a
Speaker 1: ton of Republican money resides, and the attitudes of Orange
Speaker 1: County Republicans tend to dominate the state party now basically
Speaker 1: Orange County Republicans, I think for the last decade or so,
Speaker 1: they've largely given up on the state. They've given up,
Speaker 1: they've certainly given up on social conservative causes. After the
Speaker 1: flame out of Prop eight, which here's Prop eight. We
Speaker 1: pass Prop eight. We define in the California state Constitution
Speaker 1: that a marriors between a man and a woman and
Speaker 1: what happens. One federal judge in San Francisco says that
Speaker 1: it violates the US Constitution. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jerry Brown
Speaker 1: refuse to defend Prop eight in court. It goes all
Speaker 1: the way to the US Supreme Court. The Supreme Court says, well,
Speaker 1: if the governor or attorney general of a state won't
Speaker 1: defend the law in court, then there's nobody herewithstanding to
Speaker 1: actually be defending the law. So the ruling from the
Speaker 1: federal judge in San Francisco holds, and that's how Prop
Speaker 1: eight got overturned, with the Supreme Court saying, well, on
Speaker 1: a standing issue, if the governor refuses to defend it,
Speaker 1: and the Attorney General refused to defend it, then nothing
Speaker 1: we can do. That's how Prop eight flamed out. So
Speaker 1: all that work, all that stirm and drawing over Prop
Speaker 1: eight and it died with a whimper. Then in twenty thirteen,
Speaker 1: of course, it completely died after the Obergefeld decision. So
Speaker 1: I think Orange County Republican donors are just tired. They're
Speaker 1: tired of funding campaigns that they.
Speaker 2: Know will lose.
Speaker 1: They're tired of everything, and the only thing they kind
Speaker 1: of stir their stumps over is anything that might impact
Speaker 1: historic Prop thirteen. Don't want to pay property taxes. Howard
Speaker 1: Jarvis Taxpayers Association is still a force because of those donors,
Speaker 1: and Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association was able to block a
Speaker 1: couple of bad ballot initiatives this year. But there's just
Speaker 1: but basically, Orange County Republican donors have been playing a
Speaker 1: defense game. They're not spending offensively, they are playing defense
Speaker 1: to block the worst ballot initiative proposals, sometimes successfully. But
Speaker 1: they've completely given up on social conservatism in California, and
Speaker 1: they've mostly given up on electoral politics in California. They're
Speaker 1: not spending big on governors or senators or anything like that.
Speaker 1: Governor candidates, Senate candidates, et cetera. But Prop thirty six
Speaker 1: passing and this subtle right word shift in the country
Speaker 1: makes me wonder do some of these people rethink this stuff?
Speaker 2: Because that's the thing with a.
Speaker 1: Ballot initiative system. It's not that hard to qualify something,
Speaker 1: and if you position it right and you capture the
Speaker 1: mood of the people the right way, you can pass something.
Speaker 1: I mean Prop thirty six pass with seventy two percent
Speaker 1: of the state voting for it, in spite of opposition
Speaker 1: from the governor and all of the powers that be.
Speaker 2: What if.
Speaker 1: Any massive Orange County slash Sewakeean Valley billionaire donors who
Speaker 1: might be listening to this, What if we introduced and
Speaker 1: qualified a ballot initiative to address one or more of
Speaker 1: the state's major problems in ways that would be widely popular.
Speaker 1: For example, abolish or highly reform sequa. We need more
Speaker 1: housing sequa is the great obstacle to housing. We all
Speaker 1: know this.
Speaker 2: Why not pass a ballid initiative for it?
Speaker 1: We know that California gas prices are high because of
Speaker 1: certain specific things. We know that they are high because
Speaker 1: of California having this special blend of California specific gas
Speaker 1: that has to be produced, So gas companies have to
Speaker 1: set up a separate refinery chain just to produce California
Speaker 1: compliant gasoline. That's why our gas is more expensive that
Speaker 1: plus taxes. Why don't we pass a ballot initiative to
Speaker 1: end that? Now, you'll have to fight through the fact
Speaker 1: that the Attorney General will very unfairly category characterize that
Speaker 1: ballot initiative on the actual ballot. You know, you pass
Speaker 1: some you qualify a ballot initiative to you know, just
Speaker 1: let California sell normal gas, and the Attorney General, Rob
Speaker 1: Bonta gets to write the description in the ballot and
Speaker 1: he'll say, a proposal to increase pollution in California. That's
Speaker 1: probably what I'll say. And maybe you can't fight through that.
Speaker 2: But I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think there are more opportunities, more avenues for fighting
Speaker 1: things in a targeted way in California where we could
Speaker 1: actually pass some kind of conservative outcome when we return.
Speaker 1: The one person who lingers over this discussion, the potential
Speaker 1: wail who could alter all of this our George Soros,
Speaker 1: Elon Musk. That's next on the John Girardi Show. Donald
Speaker 1: Trump has been just flying all over the place with
Speaker 1: Elon Musk for the last, you know, two weeks since
Speaker 1: the election. Basically the two are inseparable, and they were
Speaker 1: at some gala events over the past weekend. It's the
Speaker 1: think tank that's sort of most closely identified with Trump,
Speaker 1: the American First Principles Institute.
Speaker 2: Something like that.
Speaker 1: It has a lot of former Trump administration people working
Speaker 1: for it, and it seems like it's going to be
Speaker 1: its ideas, its locus or so. It was sort of
Speaker 1: the Trump administration in waiting in this sort of interlude
Speaker 1: between Trump forty five and Trump forty seven. Now, at
Speaker 1: this gala event, there were some species given and someone said,
Speaker 1: just a matter where is it?
Speaker 2: You know what great things we can do, but we
Speaker 2: need to sustain this movement.
Speaker 1: Where is our George Soro and Elon Musk is sitting
Speaker 1: there and he raises his hand. I think it's not
Speaker 1: talked about as much as it has been talked about,
Speaker 1: I still don't think it's talked about enough. What a
Speaker 1: significant bit of news it is that the Republican Party
Speaker 1: recruited the wealthiest man on God's Green Earth to become
Speaker 1: a donor, a major donor who seemingly wants to commit
Speaker 1: himself to ongoing donor support of Republican efforts, and just
Speaker 1: you know, referred to himself agreed with the characterization of
Speaker 1: himself as the George Soros of the right. For those
Speaker 1: who don't know, I mean, what has George Soros done
Speaker 1: well through his Open Society foundage whatever. George Soros basically
Speaker 1: helped create a man massive network of interlinking five on
Speaker 1: C threes, five O and C fours and packs to
Speaker 1: influence policy, elections, legislation at the federal, state, and local level.
Speaker 1: All these hyper left wing DA's, where do they come from? Well,
Speaker 1: they come from George Soros giving money through again his
Speaker 1: vast network of interconnected packs, five on and C fours
Speaker 1: and five to one C threes. But it's his money
Speaker 1: funding it, and he was able to affect massive changes
Speaker 1: in American criminal law enforcement. Massively terrible changes, I think,
Speaker 1: but massive changes. Elon Musk no longer is a California resident,
Speaker 1: that's true, but he still got homes in California. He
Speaker 1: used to live here. It's where he started Tesla. He's
Speaker 1: got to have some residual affection for this place, and
Speaker 1: he's got to realize that California is a major, important
Speaker 1: part of the American economy. If he still wants Tesla
Speaker 1: or SpaceX or his various entities to do various kinds
Speaker 1: of business in California, he should take an interest to
Speaker 1: what's going on in California politics.
Speaker 2: Elon was dropping forty.
Speaker 1: Million dollars a month in ad buys for the Trump
Speaker 1: campaign during the twenty twenty four election cycle. You could
Speaker 1: pass a ballot initiative in California with just forty million dollars.
Speaker 2: Just forty million dollars.
Speaker 1: That's more than enough to successfully pass a ballot initiative
Speaker 1: in this state. I really think California Republican officials need
Speaker 1: to find a way to get in touch with him.
Speaker 1: And I think what we should think about is, like,
Speaker 1: what are the two or three things If Prop thirty
Speaker 1: six could pass with seventy two percent of the vote,
Speaker 1: it shows certain kinds of conservative ideas can pass via
Speaker 1: the ballot initiative system in this state. People want more housing.
Speaker 1: Is there a way to limit SEQUA Is there a
Speaker 1: way to limit California environmental regulation in such a way
Speaker 1: as to allow for more housing. Is there a way
Speaker 1: to change our laws regulating gasoline to make guests less expensive?
Speaker 2: Is there a way to change the housing market?
Speaker 1: Is there a way to change these various aspects of
Speaker 1: California that are just ruining the state via the ballot
Speaker 1: initiative system. We can't reform the state legislature overnight. It's
Speaker 1: still three quarters Democrats. Even if you have a Republican
Speaker 1: governor win in twenty twenty six, there's not much he
Speaker 1: could do. Do we abolish the California Air Resources Board.
Speaker 1: Californians need to realize that the game has changed. If
Speaker 1: Elon is willing to spend on ballot initiatives in California,
Speaker 1: the game has changed.
Speaker 2: That'll do it.
Speaker 1: John Jlady show, see you next time on Power Talk.