Some interesting California bills

One state. Bunches of bills. Some of these bills are good, and some are maddening - and it's maddening that some were vetoed the last time.

California is the state with the active legislative agenda. One good bill pending in the Golden State would eliminate obsolete laws that let teachers and other public employees be fired for being Communist Party members and would get rid of the requirement that representatives of organizations who want to use school facilities sign a form declaring they have no communist leanings.

The real story here is that these Cold War requirements were still on the books 50 years after their shelf life expired. Does California still enforce these old laws? I hope not. Apparently they were found unconstitutional, which means they must have been enforced at some point, or else nobody would have ever tested them.

Some conservative Movementarians think the old Cold War laws should be kept (apparently thinking these unconstitutional laws are still enforced). Capitol Resource Family Impact's Karen England said repealing the laws would be "promoting communism in our schools."

Talk about a bunch of relics. Conservatives are worried about 50-year-old unconstitutional laws getting repealed! They'll be the ones trying to save the Patriot Act 50 years from now.

Another good bill would require meat that is made from cloned animals to be labeled as such. This bill already passed last year, but guessed what happened? That's right, Schwarzenegger vetoed it, claiming federal law prohibits states from requiring clonal foods to be labeled.

Except who cares if it does? Aren't the Republicans supposed to be the ones who are for states' rights? The federal government has no authority to bar states from labeling food, so feel free to file the feds' actions in the "ignore" bin.

Not all the pending bills are good. A right-wing bill by Ass. John Benoit (R-Riverside) would force welfare recipients to take drug tests. Don't even get us started on how unconstitutional this is! It's already been ruled unconstitutional in other states. That conservatives are trying to pass it again is another example of how they rely on archaic, illogical ideas that have already been discredited. (There's been a movement afoot in the wingnutosphere to pass a bill like this is gobs of states.)

So that's the latest Legislative Crap-Up for California!

(Source: http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_8749719)