I've been a little worried. My anxiety has been growing since the Legislature reconvened in January. Oh sure, one could certainly toss and turn at night about a state budget deficit of $17.5 billion that hangs, like Damocles Sword, over heads of every man, woman, and child in California. But when one steps back and recognizes that the Legislature is, for the time being, in "deficit denial," there is really no use spending your paycheck on ulcer medications or therapists. The time to worry about this problem is in June when the Legislature quickly cobbles together a 500-page bill in the middle of the night and calls it a "balanced budget."
Instead, I've been worried that the huge budget deficit would torpedo an august but secret tradition known in the State Capitol as the "Dumb Bill of the Year Award." I know that we can keep this secret between us. I'll whisper. This is how it works. Every year, small ad hoc groups of Capitol staffers secretly gather around the respective water coolers in their offices and nominate and select the "Dumb Bill of the Year." It's an unofficial process and nobody talks about it in polite company. Of course, the "winner," the Legislator who introduced the soon-to-be famous bill, is never notified.
The competition for the "Dumb Bill of the Year Award" can become quite fierce. The overflowing capital gains from the Dot-Com millionaires over the last few years has acted like Miracle Grow for the Legislature to think up a wide variety of new and dumb ways to spend our money. I remember fondly a previous award winner. It was a bill that would have made rubbernecking in a traffic jam a crime. Talk about guilt by association. That would have been a fun enforcement challenge for the California Highway Patrol. But alas, the money has disappeared. And now, all that we have is our memories.
But just when things began to look pretty bleak in the lookout for a truly innovative dumb bill for the contest, like a bolt out of the blue, came AB 2483 (Diaz). AB 2483 (Diaz) would create a pilot program under which immigrants who have committed traffic violations are given an option of taking a class called "How to Live in America" in lieu of paying fines or serving time in jail. The author writes in the language of the bill that it is intended to help these immigrants "better understand California laws and public services." The pilot program would be paid for by taxpayers and be implemented in the Counties of San Mateo, Santa Clara, Fresno, and San Diego.
Let me get this straight. If you or I, as U.S. citizens, "rolls" through a stop sign or commits a serious traffic violation, we have to pay a whopping fine. I support this requirement. Most of the fine amount will help pay for our court system.
But if an immigrant (the bill does not differentiate between legal and illegal immigrants) "rolls" through the stop sign, or drives 70 miles per hour in a 25 mile per hour speed zone, or has five beers and gets pulled over for drunk driving, he or she gets to take a class about "How to Live in America." I guess the author believes that an immigrant should not be expected to know about our laws prior to driving a multi-ton automobile or truck on our streets. And the immigrant traffic violator would pay a private company an enrollment fee for taking the class instead of paying the fine and helping to support our court system.
On the Statue of Liberty are inscribed the beautiful words from a poem written by Emma Lazarus, "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free." If AB 2483 is enacted, maybe we can chisel a new inscription: "Give me your red light runners, your drunk drivers, your huddled tailgaters yearning to speed." Nominations for the "Dumb Bill of the Year Award" are open until August 31st, the last day of the legislative session. Let the Games begin.
Copyright 2002 The Auburn Sentinel