Going far beyond their state's out-of-touch-with-the-rest-of-the-country track record, self-righteous legislators in California now presume to penalize contractors who work on the border wall with Mexico simply because those legislators—and some of the starry-eyed kooks who elected them—don’t like the concept.
Not one but two anti-contractor, anti-wall bills are snaking their way through Sacramento.
SB30, sponsored by Sen. Ricardo Lara (D-Bell Gardens), bars any business involved with building the barrier wall between the U.S. and Mexico from doing business with California. The second bill, Assembly Bill 946 sponsored by Assemblyman Phil Ting (D-San Francisco), would force the state to drop its pension investments in any companies involved in the project.
So we have a federal project and a state that wants to put businesses that work on the federal project on a blacklist.
These are law-abiding, economy-contributing contracting businesses that likely pay through the nose in taxes. Some of that tax money probably goes to California. No doubt some of those contractors employ minorities, women, and even Hispanics. This will also affect equipment dealers, rental houses, and material suppliers.
No matter. A bankrupt state with failing dams is going to tell contractors what they can and cannot work on. Not only is the tail striving to wag the dog, by God it’s going to teach it a lesson!
"I just believe at this point in our history we have to take a stand for something," said Sen. Bill Dodd, (D-Napa).
There you have it. California must step up to lecture the nation in morality and the American way.
Do us a favor and just put it in another bad Hollywood film. Perhaps it could star Meryl Streep, America’s Conscience™. (By the way, didn’t Hollywood learn anything from Joe McCarthy and blacklisting?)
These lawmakers are pandering, grandstanding, and free enterprise killing all at once. It also buys them more of the hip and trendy anti-Trump street cred they crave like heroin. Not to mention that it’s a very transparent attempt to short-circuit the wall being built at all.
But the endgame is much more calculated and self-serving: The future liberal voting base must be assured. You can almost hear these state legislators whispering in worry about future constituents being stuck on the wrong side of the fence. The lefties can no longer count on unions automatically carrying the day, for they saw what happened to Hillferatu in Michigan and Pennsylvania. And they know the Heartland wants nothing to do with their socialism, safe spaces, and virtue signaling.
These are all reasons for the Dems’ mad dash to keep the border porous.
Whether you are pro wall or anti–wall, don’t be fooled. The motives in play here are far from the moral superiority California politicians love to project.
In the meantime, the construction industry loses.
