They say trends start in California and move eastward. If so, here’s what your state might look like someday. Gov. Jerry Brown is clearing away nearly a thousand new laws passed by the legislature. Among those he signed are a ban on gay conversion therapy, a bill allowing juvenile murderers with life sentences to become eligible for early release after 25 years, and an extension of tax breaks for movie and TV producers who shoot in California. That should keep so many of them from running off to cheaper, non-union locations to shoot their movies about evil, outsourcing Republican businessmen.
But the biggest news out of California is that Brown signed a controversial and long-stalled bill allowing hundreds of thousands of young illegal immigrants to obtain California driver’s licenses if they qualify for Obama’s new federal work program. Proponents see it as another step in comprehensive immigration reform that will create a pathway to citizenship. Even a few Republicans finally supported it on grounds of public safety: they figure illegal immigrants are going to drive anyway. Maybe now, they’ll finally take driving tests and buy car insurance.
But Gov. Brown did veto a bill known as the Trust Act. It was passed to spite Arizona’s tough new immigration laws. It would’ve prohibited local sheriffs from cooperating with federal authorities to detain suspected illegal immigrants for potential deportation, unless they are charged with a serious or violent felony. So not only would sheriffs not have been allowed to do the job Washington refuses to do and detain someone for being in the country illegally, they wouldn’t even be allowed to detain them even if Washington asked them to. That was going too far even for California. At least, for now.
