Jerry Brown: Pack Your Bags!

By Joe Guzzardi
October 12, 2011

Last weekend, California Governor Jerry Brown perpetrated his Saturday Night Massacre. On October 8, Brown signed three bills that makes illegal aliens’ lives cozier but also imposed more taxpayer burdens and made the state’s roads more dangerous. Had Brown’s bills been on a general ballot, all would have been overwhelmingly defeated. Brown’s disgracing behavior represents another blow to Californians desperately looking for sanity in Sacramento. The bills are:

1) California’s DREAM Act, A.B. 131 which gives illegal aliens access to Cal Grants, formerly available only to citizens. Despite supporters’ claim that the DREAM Act is an investment in California’s future, the bill doesn’t have a citizenship provision. Non-citizen graduates cannot be legally employed.

2) The second bill, A.B. 1236, bans all public and private employers from using E-Verify, the national online data base that allows employers to check their new hires’ immigration status. California has a 12.1 percent unemployment rate. E-Verify would assure that only legally authorized individuals have jobs.

3) A.B. 353, the third bill, prohibits police officers from impounding unlicensed drivers’ vehicles at checkpoints. A large percentage of such drivers are aliens. According to research conducted by the AAA Foundation and published in its report titled “Unlicensed to Kill,” unlicensed drivers are involved in one of every five fatal crashes.

If you wonder how a law as destructive as A.B. 353 could even be considered, here’s the tortured logic. Assemblyman Gil Cedillo asserts that aliens (who have no legal right to be in the United States) need their cars to get to work (it’s against the law for them to drive or to be employed). Cedillo says the aliens can’t afford the fees to get their cars out of impound.

Brown’s bills, the California Latino Legislative Caucus’ favorites, are insane. Being a Democrat or having liberal political leanings is one thing. But approving irrational, irresponsible legislation that works against the best interests of the majority is not only hurtful but idiotic.

Backing up, even though Brown won by a large majority he’s the accidental governor. In 1990, California passed a term-limit law restricting governors and other legislators to two-four year terms. Brown, protesting that he first served before the law passed, ignored it. Then, unchallenged on his misinterpretation of the term-limit restriction, Brown became the default Democratic candidate when no one else wanted the thankless job. Finally, Brown coasted into office when Republican Meg Whitman mounted the most ineffective campaign in recent California political history.

Brown’s irresponsibility will spur two citizen actions that could end his governorship.

Assemblyman Tim Donnelly promises a ballot initiative to overturn the laws as soon as they are officially included in the state’s statutes. Donnelly noted that California is billions of dollars in debt, 2.5 million people are unemployed, schools and teachers’ budgets have been ravaged, job centers shut, state parks closed and veterans’ reentry services slashed. Yet Brown managed to find a $42 million DREAM Act slush fund for illegal aliens.

The nascent effort to unseat Brown is even better than voiding his laws. Disgusted Californians have organized a recall campaign that, if successful, as it was in 2003 when voters ousted Gray Davis, would force a special election. Recall advocates would need to collect approximately 1.2 million signatures, not really a daunting task given the rampant statewide discontent. Making the recall more probable is that it isn’t tied specifically to any of Brown’s treasonous legislation. Registered voters angry about any issue can sign.

California, the state that can least afford it, is the nation’s friendliest toward aliens. Davis got the boot for less egregious offenses during better economic times. Perhaps Brown should pack his bags.

Joe Guzzardi has written syndicated columns, mostly about immigration and related social issues, since 1986. He is a Senior Writing Fellow for Californians for Population Stabilization. Contact him at [email protected].