California Democrats Virtue Signal on Police Reform

Democrats' police reform legislation ignores elephant in room: House Democrats advanced their federal police reform bill, sponsored Rep. Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles), though committee this week, setting it up for a vote as soon as next week. The bill limits qualified immunity for police officers, no-knock warrants, and choke-holds, among other provisions. Yet it ignores what Jacob Frey, the Democratic Mayor of Minneapolis, calls “the elephant in the room”: police unions, whose legion problems CPC has long chronicled. 
 
California police unions try to take the blame off them: California police unions took out full-page ads in major state newspapers this week to try to shift the blame. Yet this PR stunt shouldn't distract from the fact that police unions are responsible for systemic police violence because they protect bad cops from getting fired. The Police Union Contract Project has identified six provisions regularly included in collective bargaining agreements that shield officers from justice. No wonder a wide body of academic research concludes that unions thwart police accountability and foster violence.
 
California Democrats not only ignore police unions but want to expand them: As CPC President Will Swaim points out in a forthcoming op-ed in the OC Register, 207 Congressional Democrats, including 40 from California, support the Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act, which would extend California-style collective bargaining for police and emergency services to the roughly 20 states that don't already have it. ”In contrast to Democrats' stated aims,” Swaim writes, “this bill would exacerbate systemic police violence…. Democrats must make it easier, not harder, to fire these bad cops before they kill or maim. They can't be for police reform and expanding police unions at the same time.”
 
Sen. Kamala Harris reinvents herself as a champion of police reform: In her efforts to get Joe Biden to select her as his running mate, California Sen. Kamala Harris is trying to reinvent herself as a police reformer, offering a vision for change during a Senate hearing this week. Yet her actions speak louder than her words. As a California attorney, Harris was a “tough on crime” relic, fighting to keep people in prison even after they were proven innocent, laughing off marijuana legalization, resisting calls to investigate police shootings, and protecting police from wearing body cameras.
 
California liberals discover states’ rights: On the latest episode of National Review’s Radio Free California, Will Swaim and CPC Board Member David Bahnsen discuss how California Attorney General Xavier Becerra invoked conservative principles to defend the Golden State’s sanctuary state declaration — and won.

For those who think California should go the way of Scandanavia: Numerous California Democrats argue that the state should become more like the democratic-socialist countries Sweden, Denmark, and Norway. Yet a Heritage Foundation brief explains the problems with that argument. 
 
LA County wasting taxpayer money on overpriced PR firms: While Californians are tightening their belts, LA County has been caught splashing out nearly $2 million on high-priced PR firms to help with Covid messaging. As I told The Center Square: “The county government should take a page from its constituents' playbook during the current economic turmoil and look to cut costs. It should empower its own comms team to effectively relay this information, and, if needed, spend a couple thousand, not a couple million, on outside help.”
 
Don’t discriminate against private schools in potential education bailout: In his latest contribution, CPC contributor Larry Sand argues, “Good people can disagree whether or not the federal government should be doling out any additional money to schools. But if it does, it should not discriminate against privately educated students and their struggling families.”
 
A pay and pension fire in Placentia: In his latest contribution, CPC contributor Edward Ring examines the fiscal implications of the City of Placentia’s decision to leave the Orange County Fire Authority to build its own fire department.
 
Children need to learn about “real heroes”: This week, California officials announced the removal of the Christopher Columbus statue from the State Capitol, where it has stood since 1883. In response, Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez tweeted: “It's important that children today learn the difference between real heroes and fake ones.” Sage advice (though not in the way Rep. Gonzalez has in mind) for these times when virtue signaling runs rampant.