Jerry Brown: Champion of Regular Folk (Who Knew?)

California's law to protect the public from harmful chemicals (Proposition 65 of 1986) is on Gov. Brown's hit list; he says the law has been subverted. Prior to that, JB had also expressed concern that the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) had been hijacked by enviros, BANANAs and the unions to stop job generating, economic growth developing efforts (including potential ‘green’ projects.) First CEQA, now Proposition 65: The governor is quickly getting on the environmentalists' hit list… but is growing in greater stature and approval with normal everyday residents. No more “Governor Moonbeam.” It’s now Jerry Brown: Champion of Regular Folk. "Proposition 65 is a good law that's helped many people, but it's being abused by unscrupulous lawyers," Brown said, according to the L.A. Times. "This is an effort to improve the law so it can do what it was intended to do — protect Californians from harmful chemicals." Contrary to the stereotypes about Californians being a bunch of self-centered granola-crunchers out here on the ‘Left Coast,’ the vast majority of Californians have to work for a living; meaning they don’t have that extra time on their hands that the enviros and their ilk do to subvert ‘the process’ by trying to dictate other people’s business. CEQA is California’s principal environmental review law, requiring developers all the way down to people just trying to add an extra bedroom to their homes to go through a lengthy public process to analyze the potential environmental impacts of proposed projects and assess how those impacts might be mitigated... at a fairly substantial cost relative to the project being proposed. And while everyone publicly agrees that any reforms should preserve CEQA’s role in protecting the environment, critics take aim at how the law is used by labor groups, for example, to extract concessions from employers; by businesses as a sword to undermine their competition’s efforts; and, by a multitude of other entities seeking to stop or delay developments for reasons other than environmental protection. So, does the average Golden Stater have trepidations about the environment? You betcha… but they’re more concerned with raising children, taking care of aging parents, paying the bills and carving out quality family time. Under normal circumstances, if their neighbor decides to trim his/her own tree on his/her own property; - so be it. That's the nature of private property rights. Or if a housing project is being proposed or built nearby (can you say ‘Saltworks’?), many will have an opinion about the endeavor (let us not forget the no growthers Holy Trinity of more traffic, increased crime and overcrowding of schools - even if it's a single family home.) To the Prop. 65 issue, supporters credit the law, and the threat of litigation, with forcing businesses to pull tainted goods or reformulate them with safer ingredients. Critics contend that it also has created a cottage industry of lawyers looking to collect lucrative financial settlements from businesses doing little or nothing wrong. The Guv will face a difficult task in rewriting the initiative, the only one of its kind in the country. Changing it will require approval from at least two-thirds of both houses of the Legislature not to mention overcoming the slings and arrows that will ensue from the environmentalists, NIMBYs, and the self-appointed health police. And if you’ve noticed these are virtually all of the same players who have already commenced the gnashing of teeth and Biblical-proportion wailing about changing CEQA - congratulations; you’ve been paying attention. They all seem to run around together from one function or meeting like a group of pre-teen females (with just a shade less gossip). OMG CYBI BFFs 4 CEQA! And it's for that very reason that JB's popularity continues to grow among the normal, everyday people of this state... which has created a most interesting scenario: he is more popular in his second term than he was in his first term as Governor. No mean feat.