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Comment by mc32 | Hacker News Reader

Why does California since Arnold left office feel the need to regulate above the average other states regulate? [in fairness gov Brown would veto some of the crazier ideas that arrived at his desk]

Why do the pols feel like they have to pick fights in so many places? I doubt there’s a majority of voters who want this.

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This feels exactly like a feels good general public appeal law though. The average person doesn’t know or care much about 3D printers and is horrified by the level of gun violence in America and wants to see something done.

Which is sad, considering that we have the lowest violent crime rate since the 1950's. https://ourworldindata.org/us-crime-rates

That's a decline from peak lead brain fueled murdering spree though. The situation is still far worse than basically every other developed country.

The last time California Republicans had some power around 2009-12 they used it to manufacture crises and shut down the government. Since then voters have shut them out of power, including by passing 2010's Prop 25 which stripped the minority of the 2/3 veto they used to have.

The California Republicans (Pete Wilson) could not shut up demonizing American Hispanic people, recently arrived migrants and immigrants turned two generations into Democrats and statewide Republicans have been losing pretty much ever since, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona will be blue for the same reason going into the future and Texas will eventually swing.

The Republicans just can’t stop demonizing Hispanics. And don’t forget Oregon and Washington large fast growing Hispanic communities you can only demonize people so much.

And I’m not talking about Cubans.

You think too highly of California voters.

All they have to do if frame it as an unnecessary freedom that only conservatives and wackos want to keep and they will 100% support it.

They see their state as a sort of oasis in the country and will do whatever it takes to keep the guns out. They really believe they’re just a few laws away from solving any issue a “reasonable” American could face.

Prop 13 oasis…

Well, from the point of view of Californian politicians, was it their anti-balance-billing AB72 that was over-regulation before No Surprises Act? Or the CCPA? Or the Auto-Renewal Law? And looking back even farther: was it CalOPPA that was overreach requiring privacy policies? Paid family leave and sick leave?

Some made life hard for Californians like the CARB gasoline blend requirement but I think if you proposed removing any of those laws you'd find yourself downvoted here and called a corporate bootlicker on Reddit - which is not a poll of all people but should give you an idea of the fact that they're not unpopular.

They have passed decent laws like the privacy law although my preference would be a nation-wide law for this to benefit all Americans.

That said these politicians have pushed:

The ban on disinfectant soaps

Stop Shirley bill (charge you for public records in order to suppress access to public information)

Effort to sideline charter schools by teachers unions

Reduced sentences for murderers (this isn't unarmed robbery, etc., rather murderers)

Per mile traveled tax (for a state with the highest gas prices in the lower 48)

Sanction unsafe needle litter (as if there weren’t enough in playgrounds already)

Strangers can assume custody of children without parental consent

Allow politicians to dip into taxpayer money to fund campaigns.

Leniency towards solicitation of minors(!) this was unbelievably passed.

It seems overall that they're pretty much just on the frontier of laws that would be considered progressive - increase taxes, consumer protection, control corporations, prison reduction. I think those positions are overall popular. It just seems like you disagree with them. I also prefer many of these rules not be in place but where you like CCPA and hate the road tax, I like the road tax. Overall, the positions seem pretty coherently in-line with the politics viewpoints.

So, I suppose the answer to your original question is: they're slowly grinding forward on a progressive-politics agenda in a public and straightforward manner that's generally popular among the electorate.

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