Lieu Introduces School Safety Bill: How About School Choice?

The Newtown Connecticut mass murder at Sandy Hook Elementary School was just devastating. Gun enthusiasts in Congress, the NRA, and liberal gun control advocates like Michael Bloomberg have all stepped forward to condemn the violence and offer a plethora of solutions.

Never letting a crisis go to waste, South Bay state senator Ted Lieu (D-Torrance) has reintroduced legislation which he had sponsored in 2011with State senate Darrell Steinberg. Their legislation would require schools to have a comprehensive emergency response plan in place, specifically in response to an armed intruder or assailant on campus. Schools which failed to comply would risk losing state finances. He is reintroducing this bill in the wake of the Newtown, Connecticut school shooting, in which deranged mass murderer Adam Lanza killed twenty first graders and six staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

State Senate President Darrell Steinberg commented:

"The legislature has a responsibility to do what it can to ensure basic safety requirements are enforced in our schools," Steinberg said. "The safety of our children demands 100 percent compliance."

This assertion is laughable in light of the quashing of SB 1530, which would have freed up school districts to dismiss perverted personnel from the classroom. Lieu’s bill died in the state fiscal committee, perhaps in part because the teachers unions played a subtle role in killing this bill, just as they pressured assemblymembers to quash SB 1530.

The notion that our legislature wants to improve public education remains incredible, and voters should remain incredulous, since Sacramento politicians have been holding school funding hostage every year, with the latest “hold-up” revolving around Prop 30. Our schools face growing pressures to boost test scores, protect our children, and furnish tax dollars for the growing number of retirees from our schools, yet who cannot be replaced with a consistent workforce.

At another glance, it is nothing short of a miracle that one of state senator Lieu’s bills did not advance to a final vote or disgrace the governor’s desk for signature. Unlike his other bilious boutique bills, this legislation possessed some merit. Still, to impose a financial penalty on schools which are already overburdened with pension and benefits obligations to administration and attending curricular staff (not just the teachers), along with diminished revenues for the classroom

State Senator Ted Lieu does not seem worried about the efficacy of our schools, nor the well-being of our students in the classroom.

He wants to fine schools that do not have a comprehensive emergency plan in case of disasters, earthquakes, or shooters on campus. If any group of people should be fined for non-compliance, it should be our state legislature, which wants to raise taxes, increase spending, yet refuses to curtail spending with comprehensive budget and pensions reforms. They should be held accountable for sitting by and doing nothing while another “massively armed assailant”, the public sector unions, continue to rob this statement of responsive leadership and fiscal discipline, as they intimidate legislators whose campaigns they pay for (like outgoing Betsy Butler and Ted Lieu)

As far as natural disasters go, our schools have their “duck and cover’ drills in place.

As far as earthquakes go, duck and cover remains the staple of every school.

Instead of fining schools for “failing to plan”, Lieu should rescind the “gun free zone” legislation which prohibits any personnel from bringing a firearm onto the campus. One armed guard would have neutralized Adam Lanza in Connecticut.

Still, Senator Lieu’s upset about school problems and conflicts would suggest that more government intervention and imposition will solve all the problems, as they have for the past decade in California, which now boasts the highest level of unemployment and the worst climate for job creation.

Aside from the physical, natural, or homicidal dangers to our schools, when will Senator Lieu deal with the more latent yet still more dangerous problems afflicting publication education?

Even though the state legislature boasts of a mere “one billion dollar deficit” for this year, the revenue shortfalls are still cascading all over the state. How many teachers are still looking for work, while school districts remain top heavy with administrators, deputy superintendents, and assorted consultants? Manhattan Beach Unified has hired former superintendents as ad hoc consultants to do the jobs which district administration were hired to do in the first place. Los Angeles Unified School District has outlaid math and reading coaches to supervise teachers, when most of the time they micromanage the creativity and authority of the teacher while receiving bloated salaries. How many inspectors-general does a school have to hire before they finally concede: “We have met the enemy, and he is us?”

One simple solution would force schools to provide comprehensive school safety plans, as well as proper disbursement of school funding, including much-needed pension and medical benefits reforms: public school choice with a voucher. If Senator Lieu cares so much about the children, why not let their parents choose where they send their kids to school? Why should students suffer in substandard schools which have no incentive to do anything, since the families have to enroll their students in the school in the nearest zipcode?

Instead of charging schools for not providing emergency plans with more withholding of state funds, state Senator Lieu (along with recently elected Richard Bloom of Santa Monica) should press for school choice for all Californians.

Transparency for Pilfering Bureaucrats

State Senator Ted Lieu wants more transparency for the SuperPACs which broadcast in California.

How about permitting the Bureau of State Audits to publish the names of state officials who waste or steal taxpayer dollars?

Governor Pete Wilson has fallen into some disfavor in California, but he advanced a moral innovation in reconstituting the State Audit board to publish the lost monies which the voters endure with hardly any announcement from the press or redress from Sacramento leadership.

Employment Development officials bilked the state out of one hundred thousand dollars.

Another employee made nearly 5,000 comments on the Internet, obviously during work time, and nothing was done about it. One would think that all of those postings would have constituted "Public Records".

The same Assembly which authorized the State Audit to hide the names is the same chamber that helped kill SB 1530. When will voters start keeping the Assemblymembers in line? The lower chamber is supposed to be reading the pulse of the entire state, and no doubt most  Californians would be sickened and dismayed by the casual waste of time and money.

Union lobbyists pushed the 1993 exception, and they helped kill  SB 1336 State Senator Leland Yee's recent attempt to remove this protecting provision.

Senator Lieu, if you expect SuperPACs to be super honest about where they get their funding, then so shouldthe Bureau of State Audits furnish the same open reporting for us, not that the disclosure will close the waste that is eating away at our state coffers, but one should not scoff at every attempt by our legislators to pay more attention to our tax dollars.

Another Post on Lieu, Super PACs, and Transparency

Senator Ted Lieu (D-South Bay) wants more transparency from in-state political donations for Super PACs. In Senate Bills 2 and 3, Lieu proposes that the state would levy penalties for failure to disclose campaign contributions. The bills would require greater disclosure on mass mailings, too, including those from nonprofits. A chief motivator for this cause, Lieu highlights the “Yes on Prop 32” campaign, in which an out-of-state interest funded the campaign to end the pilfering of employee paychecks for union dues to fund the candidates, causes, and campaigns of their choosing, whether the employees supported them or not.

“It’s absurd to allow unlimited campaign donations to super PACs without requiring the donors to reveal themselves,” one Venice activist claims, supporting Lieu. The statement begs the question: With all due respect, why is it so bad? Does it really matter who sends us all of those mass mailings? Aside from the forestries depleted with such inane, gag-inducing promotions, the only one who should be grumbling is the garbage man because he has to haul so much to the landfill. Then again, if he gets overtime for taking out so much trash, all power to him.

For the record, Citizens United was the right decision, one which opened the flood-gates of political donations to feckless saturation, exposing once and for all the declining power of money in politics, at least when it comes to elections. Shame on President Obama for chiding the Supreme Court during his state of the Union speech, and right before the Justices before their very eyes. This country just witnessed a Presidential election which burned through $2 billion dollars from both sides, and this country and the is more sharply divided than ever. Money is buying less and less in terms of votes.

Instead of transparency at election time, the voters deserve to see more transparency when it comes to who funds our elected officials’ campaigns and how our government spends the taxpayer’s dollars. I would like to see into the minds of our leaders and understand why legislators like Senator Lieu claim progress over a “mere” $1.5 billion budget deficit, covering up Sacramento's ongoing budget short falls with rosy projections despite the declining number of wealthy people leaving California. The state is losing an average of five businesses a week, and the legislature has done nothing to ease the taxation, regulation, or government frustration which drives away commerce.

I would like to see into the heart of the Assemblymembers who killed SB 1530, a bill which would have permitted greater transparency for schools and the districts which supervise them to remove predatory teachers from the classroom. I would like to know what the legislators in Sacramento, and for that matter the mind of our Governor Jerry Brown, for pushing a bullet train which is shooting through funding that this state does not have; and on top of that, the busted Cap and Trade program, which is busting a "cap" on trade, too.

Forget about full disclosure of political donations to SuperPacsor the misappropriation of taxpayer dollars. Why doesn’t Senator Lieu disabuse himself of his own political contributions? According to Maplight.org, Senator Lieu receives 89% of his dollars from interests outside of his district, with more than half from Sacramento. The last time I checked, he was representing the South Bay. The vast majority of his funds come from union interests, with the Service International Employee Union (SEIU) topping off with $34,800, followed by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) in a close second.

Those two unions served their own interests at the expense of Southland residents, including Mr. Lieu’s constituents in the South Bay. The SEIU bolstered weak union protests at LAX and in front of Wal-Mart. Of course, there was the “crippling strike” at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. Lieu gets campaign money, the unions get a raise (or at least they get to raise hell in the streets), and the rest of us are left picking up the tab or making up for lost time. Has Senator Lieu been receiving donations from Occupy Everywhere, as well?

Money cannot buy the vote of the residents in the South Bay, but is money buying his vote in Sacramento? Lieu's colleague in the Assembly, Betsy Butler of Marina Del Rey, lost her seat by a narrow margin in part because she helped kill SB 1530. The California Teachers Association was pulling her strings, apparently. Lo and behold, the CTA has dropped some money in his warchest, too. Judging by Lieu's record, campaign contributions should give us reason to suspect his allegiance to voters in the South Bay. The senator should prove his own transparency by giving back all that union money.

Show us how transparent you are, Senator Lieu. Do what Independent Congressional candidate Bill Bloomfield did, and refuse any corporate or union donations first, then rely on private donations, and afterwards demand transparency for every other interest. I don't see anything wrong with that. Do you?

Lieu Wants Transparency -- Let's See Through Him

Senator Ted Lieu (D-Marina Del Rey) wants more transparency when it comes to political donations. In Senate Bills 2 and 3, Lieu proposes that the state would levy penalties for failure to disclose campaign contributions. The bills would require greater disclosure on mass mailings, including from nonprofits. A chief motivator for this cause, Lieu spotlights the “Yes on Prop 32”campaign, in which an out-of-state interest funded the campaign to end the pilfering of employee paychecks for union dues.

“It’s absurd to allow unlimited campaign donations to super PACs without required the donors to reveal themselves,” one Venice activist claims, supporting Lieu. The statement begs the question: Why is it so bad? With all due respect, does it really matter who sends us all of those mass mailings? Aside from the forestries depleted with such inane, gag-inducing promotions, the only one who should be grumbling is the garbage man because he has to haul so much more to the landfill. For the record, Citizens United was the right decision, one which opened the flood-gates to saturation,  exposing once and for all the declining power of money in politics, at least when it comes to elections. Shame on President Obama for chiding the Supreme Court during his state of the Union speech, and right before their very eyes. Not less money but more money is needed. This country just witnessed a Presidential election which burned through $2 billion dollars from both sides, and this country and Congress is more sharply divided than ever. Money is buying less and less in terms of votes.

Instead of transparency at election time, the voters deserve to see more transparency when it comes to who funds our elected officials’ campaigns and how our government spends the taxpayer’s dollars.
I would like to see into the minds of our legislators and understand why legislators like Senator Lieu claim progressive that a “mere” $1.5 billion budget deficit remains, covering up the ongoing budget short falls with rosy projections on the dwindling number of wealthy people in the state of California.

I would like to see into the heart of the Assemblymembers who killed SB 1530, a bill which would have permitted greater transparency for schools and the districts which supervise them to remove predatory teachers from the classroom

Forget about full disclosure of political donations to SuperPacs. Why doesn’t Senator Lieu disabuse himself of his own political contributions? According to Maplight.org, Senator Lieu receives 89% of his dollars from interests outside of his district, with more than half from Sacramento. The last time I checked, he was representing the South Bay. The vast majority of his funds come from union interests, with the Service International Employee Union topping off with $34,800, followed by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union in a close second.

Those two union interests served their own interests at  he expense of Southland residents, including Mr. Lieu’s constituents in the South Bay, where SEIU bolstered the weak union protests at LAX and in front of Wal-Mart. Of course, there was the “crippling strike” at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. Lieu gets campaign money, the unions get a raise (or at least they get to raise hell in the streets), and the rest of us our left picking up the tab or making up for lost time.

Senator Lieu, money cannot buy the vote of the residents in the South Bay, but they seem to be buying yours. Your colleague in the Assembly, Betsy Butler of Marina Del Rey, lost her seat by a narrow margin in part because she helped kill SB 1530. The California Teachers Association was pulling her strings, apparently. Judging by your contribution record, they have given you more reasons to suspect your allegiance to voters in the South Bay.

"The Twelve Days of Christmas" a la State Senator Ted Lieu

State Senator Ted Lieu (D-Torrance) has left the voters in his senate district and the state a number of legislative presents over the course of his tenure in office.
Instead of breaking his own bank, Senator Lieu used our state's time and money and decided to go the "boutique" route, and thus he bestowed on this state a unique coterie of crafted laws.
Here's a song to celebrate his generosity, based on "The Twelve Days of Christmas", since "'tis the Season":
On the Twelfth Day of Christmas, Senator Lieu gave to me:
12. Twelve Landlords Leaping -- (Since they must be willing to receive rent by check instead of the Internet
11. Eleven car salesmen hopping mad -- (since the interest rate cap will drive them out of business)
10. Ten Frustrated therapists  -- (they can no longer offer gay-aversion therapy to teenagers, who really need academic counseling because of school cuts)
9. Nine Sallow and Pale Ladies dancing -- (since minors can no longer use tanning salons)
8. Eight (and more) Special Interests a-Milking -- (the state dry, since the legislature pushes tax increases instead of spending cuts and budget reform)
7. Seven Microchips for Fido, Sparky and Mittens -- (for our pets, since they may pose a national security threat)
6. Six Pooches from the Pound -- (since we cannot purchase them in parking lots or in any other private venues, either)
5. Five Happy Sharks-- (because no one can have shark-fin soup)
4. Four Labeled Birds -- (since every restaurant must tell us if the food we eat is real or not)
3. Three times the Car Tax (Oh, wait, Lieu changed his mind on that one, for now)
2. Two Happy Bears  -- (since a hunter's micro-chipped bloodhounds can no longer hunt them)
1. And a State on the Brink of Chronic Collapse -- (complete with public sector unions serving their private interests at the expense of the public interest, higher taxes which cripple job growth and scare job creators, no movement toward a voucher program for our inner city youth, coupled with no comprehensive pension reform, and a still very prolix  tax code which provides an unsteady revenue stream for our anemic economy)
This year, when I look under the Sacramento Christmas Tree (or perhaps I should say "festive creature of an arboreal nature" so as not to offend activists in Santa Monica), I will pretend to have a happy face. I do not want a table lamp that looks like a leg, nor I do not want a BB rifle (not because I’m afraid to shoot my eye out, but rather because I fear that Senator Lieu will draft a ban on "assault weapons for kids”). Still, I wish that someone would shed some light on the waste and fraud in Sacramento and take a gun to the fiscal problems facing our state.
In the face of the upcoming 2012 Christmas Blues, I can smile and wait for two more years, when the voters of the 28th Senate District can give ourselves a better present: throwing out Senator Lieu and replacing him with a legislator who will tackle serious issues for our state.