A wider view

Republican candidate for governor Adam Laxalt, in running against the state of California, has given very few reasons for his objections to the Golden State—cherry-picking certain laws to make that state sound silly, though some of those he cites have not actually been enacted there, only proposed. His choices include sanctuary cities, bathroom policies for transgender students, gun control, cancer warnings, and bans on plastic straws in restaurants.

Since he has been so selective, we thought we would add a few of California’s other laws that have been passed this year to put his criticism in some perspective.

• After new Trump appointments to the Federal Communications Commission enabled the FCC to repeal net neutrality (a policy that protected consumers from preferential pricing), California re-imposed it within its own jurisdiction. The Nevada Legislature next year will consider a similar measure sponsored by Sen. Nicole Cannizzaro.

• The California Legislature this week made it illegal for local governments to use minor municipal infractions to impose large fees for things like legal costs on citizens. News reports brought to light the way some Southern California governments ran up massive legal bills while prosecuting minor code violations and then tried to stick the offender with them.

• Last week, California legislators enacted a plan providing for 100 percent of the state’s energy to come from carbon-free sources by 2045. That comes after the state beat a previous benchmark, a 2006 law that imposed targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. The state achieved it four years early while creating jobs faster than the rest of the nation.

• After a lawsuit settlement tried to earmark California’s share of a 2012 national settlement with deceptive mortgage lenders to be used on projects of the litigants’ choosing, the legislature allocated the state portion of the settlement to pay for housing bonds approved by voters. A judge overruled the state, whereupon this week the legislature passed a law overruling the judge. State attorneys general chronically try to go around legislatures, who represent the public, by inserting language in lawsuit settlements that earmarks public funds without accountability to lawmakers.

• Golden State lawmakers last month adopted a law to crack down on hospitals dumping patients, “ensur[ing] that certain conditions are met as part of the discharge process of a homeless patient.” In 2013, the Sacramento Bee reported that Nevada hospitals gave 1,500 patients one-way bus tickets out of state—usually to California, the state Laxalt now finds objectionable.

Laxalt, incidentally, put his name to a court brief last year in a California lawsuit filed to keep names of contributors to the Americans for Prosperity Foundation secret. The foundation was set up by corporate polluters Charles and David Koch, who were major contributors to Laxalt’s campaign for attorney general.