Are you a Californian who feels like your views on politics in California are not popular? Do you feel like no one will agree with you? Feels like when you meet someone who does agree you are part of a secret underground club of people who think like you? Then join us on the California Underground Podcast to hear others who share your views and solutions to save our beautiful state. On this episode, we are joined by Jonathan Zachreson, School Board Member of Roseville City, Founder of Reopen CA Schools, and Protect Kids CA Committee supporter, to discuss all the happenings in California with local school boards being pressured by Sacramento and Governor Newsom to push their agenda. Learn more about Protect Kids CA by going to www.protectkidsca.com *The California Underground Podcast is dedicated to discussing California politics for people who want to cut through the insanity and get real answers.* Follow California Underground on Social Media Instagram: www.instagram.com/californiaunderground YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCj8SabIcF4AKqEVFsLmo1jA Substack: https://substack.com/profile/72986149-ca_underground Shop California Underground Merchandise: https://california-underground.creator-spring.com Phil is a San Diego based attorney who specializes in estate planning and constitutional law both under the US and California Constitution. California Underground is a podcast for Californians who are conservative, libertarian, moderate Democrat, or just a sane person wondering what is going on in our beautiful state and looking for honest discussions on how to fix it. We regularly interview state and local politicians, as well as host roundtable discussions with other California activists.
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What's going on? Everybody thanks for tuning into
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another episode of the California Underground Podcast.
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I am your host, Phil. As always with me as my trusty
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cohost, the best and fastest researcher in the West Camille.
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And tonight we have a friend of the show who's been on a couple
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times before, Jonathan Zuckerson, who is, who's come on
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in the past to talk a lot about legislation.
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But tonight he's coming on and more of a role that I think is
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within your more of your wheelhouse, which is talking
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about school boards and what's going on in Sacramento in terms
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of education. Jonathan, how are you doing?
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Welcome back to the show. Thank you for having me again.
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It's great to be here. Excellent.
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So for people who don't know or didn't watch the previous
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episodes, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and
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what you do so we can go from there?
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Sure. Yeah.
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You know, I'm now elected school official from the last time we
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spoke, but congratulations. Thank you.
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I didn't get into politics at the traditional route, really.
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You know, I was focused on my family, focused on my kids,
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focused on my job. And then COVID hit.
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And that really kind of got you know woke me up and and prodded
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me into the scene and I was really just started becoming
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more of an activist to reopen schools locally found founded
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reopen California schools When that wasn't working that blew up
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right there was obviously I wasn't the only upset parents in
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California that schools were closed the longest.
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We were upset about the mask mandates.
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We're upset about the COVID vaccine mandates and continue to
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fight those and. And when we met last year that's
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that's kind of what we were talking about where a lot of
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those bad bills going through the legislature that were
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impacting schools and we still have plenty of them this year
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too. You know that that the same the
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same people are pretty much pushing forward the same bad
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bills. But you know so then I I ran for
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office started a nonprofit Students First California to
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focus on education policy. We also have a connected
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political action committee where we raised significant amounts of
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of of funds, but we were able to partner with other groups.
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And we were able to get 26 out of 29 school board candidates
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elected in our area and so and so here in South Plaster County
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up to mid plaster, mid central Plaster County we pretty much
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parent likeminded, parent focused, family focused school
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board members are the majority of our boards.
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And so that really makes a difference when you're trying to
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push, you know, fight for parents or any any kind of issue
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comes from the state that we have to battle.
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Like masked mandates, like some of the stuff that's coming down
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from the state today that may happen.
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We can work together to come up with solutions locally to combat
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that. So, yeah, so, so now we are you
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Fast forward to today and and I've been on the board for a
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little over six months and we just keep fighting.
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Yeah, and that's sort of the topic of tonight's episode.
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And why I asked you to come on is because there's been a lot
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more news recently. I've been calling it
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Sacramento's War on local school boards, and it it's you're
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you're completely right that it's great that people are
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getting more involved where people are starting to get
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involved in voting on their school board members.
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A lot of people didn't even know you could actually vote for
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school board members, which is kind of scary when people told
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me that. But what we have going on is
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locally elected school boards like the one in Temecula, the
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one in Chino Valley, which we're going to talk about.
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Went forward with what they were elected to do and then you have
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Governor Newsom stepping in and basically Sacramento in the
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state stepping in. Tell us a little bit about, from
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your point of view, what's been going on.
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You can start with either one Temecula or Chino Valley.
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Sure. And 1st, I'll just make a
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comment that that you mentioned where a lot of people didn't
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know that they can vote for for their school board members.
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I I analyzed some data around my election.
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And it's probably good 2015 to 20% of people that do not vote
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in the scoreboard election but do cast the ballot.
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So it's quite a bit there. But yes, we let's talk about,
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you know, Temecula first. You know, there's this whole
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scene where we realize that we could not make a difference in a
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dent of the state legislature. People recognize that, but they
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realize they had local control. And that's what we did here,
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that's what they did down in Temecula, that there's a
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political action committee forum to help get those four board
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members elected. There's been committees and.
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You know, E San Diego County, there's committees in El Dorado
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County. They kind of took the same
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approach. They said, hey, we're going to
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affect policy by getting, you know, favorable school members
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on these school boards. And they did that in Temecula.
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And one of the issues that they ran on in Temecula was the fact
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that parents were shut out of this curriculum building
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process. And there was things in the
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curriculum that were alarming. They didn't have necessarily the
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all the information, but it seemed, you know, pretty scary
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some of the stuff that they were pushing.
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On 4th graders. And so they wanted to kind of
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put the brakes on that process. They also unfortunately in
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Temecula they had an administration, they had other
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school board members that were not as cordial and cooperative.
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And so it took that took made that process more difficult,
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right. And so these are issues that
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should be and are meant to be handled at a local level.
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Well, one of the school board members in one of the meetings,
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you know, Harvey Milk came up right as as part of it teaching
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4th graders about Harvey Milk. And I believe he made a comment,
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something that isn't he a pedophile, right.
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So that obviously got a lot of attention of those down in
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Temecula that were connected to Sacramento.
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And they really use that as fodder to go after that school
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board to do whatever they can to circumvent local control.
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They were writing legislation on the fly, doing whatever they
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they could think of to punish that district.
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And and Newsom came out and said you know what, we're going to go
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ahead and buy the textbooks for you and we're going to by the
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way, we're going to find you by taking the money out of your
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school district apportionment for next year.
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Well, he legally couldn't do that.
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So what he did is they they, Corey Jackson the the
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representative down there amended AB1078 and decided to
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change the law to do exactly what they wanted to do.
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So they said, well we'll just, we'll just legislate, I think is
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what XX? Most legislation, right?
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I'm probably butchering that, but basically we're going to
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legislate after the fact of what we're doing today.
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And so that's what they're trying to do in the end, right?
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There's a board meeting last week where they ended up
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adopting the curriculum that was in front of them before, but
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they took out Section 12 or Unit 12 for 4th graders.
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So everything else was the same but that 4th grade section that
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had some of the more controversial issues and it was
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taken out. Tabled and then they're going to
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look for a replacement for that section and that was that passed
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unanimously on Friday. Something interesting those one
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of the board members that wasn't favorable to the pro parent
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position got a text right after the the board vote and you can
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hear her, she's caught on type saying I just got the text
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referring to the fact that Newsom was not going to be
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sending the the textbooks down there.
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So there's somebody in the know there, and then it has direct
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lines of communications to Newsom's office.
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And I think that ultimately is what led to some of the
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controversy to begin with, is that that those people were
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going directly to his office. There was a lot of the public
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comments about that where because I guess there was some
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poll that came out where, oh, these 400 parents agree with the
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curriculum and people are like, where did this poll come from?
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Who's hiding this data? How come the school board didn't
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have it but it like chaos pandemonium happened.
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All these upset parents obviously saying who's in the
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know and who's hiding it. We like they want names.
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Yeah. And and Newsome tweeted that
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graphic out before the school board members even knew about
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that graphic. Exactly.
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I mean that just tells you the dysfunction, you know with with
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not communicating to these school board members and and and
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that's the problem there is that they, you know other school
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boards even when there's they don't agree with each other, at
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least they can function. And it didn't seem like the
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administration there was being very helpful, from least what I
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can tell from outside the Observer.
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So it's interesting to me how the.
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It it seems like a story went from like it had a complete 180
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where you had this sort of small school board Temecula.
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They were kind of rebelling against the system.
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They were rebelling against this agenda.
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It it drew the ire of Gavin Newsom and Sacramento and it
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seemed like it was kind of like this great David and Goliath
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story. And then the end they sort of
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like turned around and and just adopted most of it anyway.
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But do you think there's like a bigger lesson in this whole
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thing happening, that local school boards are going to be
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pushing back, or that there is hope for school boards to push
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back on these agendas in this legislation?
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Well, I I think that's what it appears.
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What I would say is if Newsome wasn't involved, we may have had
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the exact same situation, right? It wasn't just Newsome in the
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threat of the fine. I think they were willing to go
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up against that. What they're really up against
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was time. Right.
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The school year was about to start.
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They wanted to make sure that they had something new.
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They they had another proposal on the table that same night
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that didn't pass. I think they thought if we're
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going to spend the money might as well make sure it's going to
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be the most cost effective and and they want to be financially
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prudent for the district. And so really I think that was
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the the, the kind of the lesson learned and and Newsom maybe
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exploited this aspect of it, right.
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He kind of, you know, intervened or interjected himself into a
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conversation that maybe he knew the direction it was going.
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And then it looks like he can score a win.
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So he acts like he's his big tough governor.
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He's going after these local school boards, making up lies
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about them. And then in the end, he kind of
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predicted what their action was going to be.
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And then he could take that as a win because he didn't.
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In his press release afterwards, he didn't acknowledge the fact
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that they excluded Unit 12. He acted like they just, oh,
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Yep, they adopted the curriculum this whole time.
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What we did worked right. And so you know, I think.
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That you know, maybe, you know, maybe because connection Newsom
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saw a political opportunity there and he leveraged that.
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I don't think you're going to see that kind of lesson up in
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Chino Valley or other school districts that maybe have more
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time to deal with these issues and work through them marks in a
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more appropriate amount of time. And we'll get to Chino Valley in
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a couple minutes. But.
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If you talked about a B1078, can you explain a little bit more
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about what a B1078IS? We had posted about it, but I'm
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I'm sure you're much more well versed in it than we are so.
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Yeah. So AB1078IS essentially a bill
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trying to target school board members and and for setting
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local policy in particular around curriculum.
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And so it it goes back and forth from being dangerous to benign.
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Right now it's dangerous and and.
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When it's been introduced, it's basically says two in order to
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change curriculum, you need to have a 2/3 vote of the board,
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which I I believe is unconstitutional.
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I think it's just the way the law is written.
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It just needs to be a simple majority and based on other
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statute, it would just need to be a simple majority.
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So there's problem #1, especially since most boards are
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five. So 2/3 is going to get, you have
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you have to get to 4 out of five, right?
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You can't do it with three out of five and so.
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You know, basically only one board member can vote no in
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order to change any kind of curriculum.
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So this is one of the bills you know, somewhat surprisingly, but
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not too surprising because it does hamstring school boards.
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The California School Board Association has even come out
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against this bill. The most recent addition that
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they added to this was their ability to go after to go after
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local school boards and find them for.
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The if if basically the state has to intervene, they can go
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ahead and find them for that. It used to be a lot longer
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process for that to happen. This is trying to streamline
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that. So if someone writes A complaint
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and it lists, you know what the reasons might be about the
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complaint about you know if they're removing curriculum or
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doing this with curriculum and it's some sort of marginalized
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group and they and they listed those groups, then that
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complaint doesn't go through the school board.
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It doesn't go through the county, it doesn't go.
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It goes directly to the state Superintendent of public
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instruction. And they get to decide whether
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or not that there is a violation.
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And if they determine there's a violation to ban, they can go
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after you. They can find you.
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They can send the book, send the books, and.
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Cut out for a second. Yeah.
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So basically circumventing all of local control in an entire
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local process and that's that's kind of where it's at now.
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And you know it's like I said, it's pretty pretty dangerous.
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And when one last thing that they took out is when they
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looked at those groups of where you need to have inclusivity in
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the in the curriculum, they struck out the religious
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component. So that used to be where they
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wanted actually like contributions from from
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religious groups throughout the history of the United States.
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Well, now that's actually struck and it's been replaced with
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LGBTQ plus. Of course.
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Yeah. Why does this sound eerily
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familiar to a B5 and SANDAG where they're just trying to
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push up the little man? Push in the big man.
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You know any local government? Nope.
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Send it. Basically, let the bigger people
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have control. And they're fine with that so
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long as they're in charge, right.
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You know maybe one day it won't be that that way.
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And that's really why we want local government is is they get
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they're they're closer to the people.
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They can make better decisions about what those what the
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community needs and the and represent the community the
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best. Yeah, it's just ridiculous.
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In a state like California, as big isn't diverse as it is to
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think that all decisions should come from 11 leader or one
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person in Sacramento. For what, how many 58 counties
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we have and how many school boards and districts and all
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that stuff to basically have it as centralized.
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And and California is a perfect example why you can't centralize
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all that power. You're not going to get the
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results that you want. And obviously, as we've seen
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with sort of the results of public education in California,
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a centralized approach from top down is not really.
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Working in terms of how much money they're throwing at it
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anyway. One representative or one
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assembly? Member I think this scares me
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more on a, I mean. The representation.
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Level in terms of centralization and and how much Sacramento
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loves to just kind of keep centralizing that power.
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And they don't like the fact that we saw this during COVID,
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how Mayors City Council's county supervisors would push back on
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COVID policies. And the state was like, no, you
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can't have that. We can't have local leaders
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pushing back on our policies. So it's it's scary to me, but I
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think it's good that people recognize that local officials
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can have that power to push back.
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So what what happened in Chino Valley?
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Because I know this story came out as well, sort of, sort of a
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same similar story what happened in Chino Valley.
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Yeah. So Chino Valley, you know it got
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a lot of attention because of that that interaction with Tony
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Thurmond. So let's take a a step back and
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and let's look at some of the lawsuits and things that are
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going across California. There it came out through
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through you know basically parents being affected by this
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and families being affected by this policy.
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Back in 2013 Bill A/B 1266 was passed and this bill says that.
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Students must use the use of the facilities and play on sports
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teams that align with their gender identity.
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That was it. That was what the the bill was.
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Well, the California Department of Education came out with their
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guidance document. They didn't go through any kind
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of administrative regulations. They just put out a kind of a
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fact FAQ for this policy. And they just came up with this
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idea that, oh, by the way, you know, if a student says they're
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transgender, you just have to accept that.
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Two if if they don't want to tell the parents, oh, you have
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to keep it a secret, right? You have to do what you can.
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You have to lie to the parents. You have to you have to have
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ways to hide that information from the parents.
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And so in Chico there was an 11 year old that who whose
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grandfather passed away and the mom said, okay, let's, I'll I
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want you to use the guidance counselor at the school.
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To get for grief counseling so that we can, you know, because
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your grandfather just passed. Well, apparently in that
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conversation, her daughter said I think I might be a boy.
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That counselor then went to that student's teachers said this is
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her new name her, her pronouns are he, him and oh by the way,
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we're not going to tell the parents because if the parents
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find out she's in danger. So that's what they say.
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This went on for about two months.
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The grandmother. Found out about it and told the
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mom that's when the moms like what what is going on, right
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with her daughter and and it's very interesting so so that
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there's a lawsuit. There's a lot of issues with
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that one. She's 11/2.
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They're keeping a secret. They were also promoting it
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actively. So it wasn't kind of passive.
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It was at the school district and that council in particular,
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where was taking action to basically find kids and recruit
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kids. This has happened in other areas
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to try to recruit them in the clubs finding vulnerable kids.
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But this is something we've seen replicated.
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And so there's this concern that that basically some and
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obviously not the vast majority, but that there are some folks
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out there in the school that that are wanting to keep secrets
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from parents wanting to recruit kids into something that most
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people phase out of. At this stage, we recognize it's
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a social contagion. And it's not going to stick with
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most of these kids. And then if by keeping it a
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secret, they can move them further along in that process.
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So that's ultimately the concern there, is that we're not
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involving the parents to get them the best help because maybe
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the parents, most parents know their kids the best, right?
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Maybe they understand there's a reason why this is happening.
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Maybe they understand, you know what, there's legit, there's
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legitimacy to this. Let's get them the proper help
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that they need and not, you know, using an unqualified
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school counselor. And so that lawsuit went
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forward. Bill is Salie from Riverside.
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I believe he wrote a bill A/B 1314 that it.
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That is very basic. It just said if your kid
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expresses interest in, you know wants to be treated as
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transgender at school, you have to notify the parents.
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That was pretty much what the bill said and it was shot down.
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They're telling him it was a dangerous bill.
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You can't do this. Parents are dangerous, which I
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think is absurd that it keeps saying parents are dangerous.
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I think you know if if you want to keep secrets from from
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parents, I think you're the one who's dangerous in my opinion.
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So he wrote this bill didn't get a hearing and so part of the
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strategy was like, you know let's let's take just to the
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school district. We saw that during COVID with
00:19:27
the mask resolutions where once one school district did it, more
00:19:30
and more school districts followed.
00:19:32
We now have a lot of we have a lot more parent focused school
00:19:38
school boards, family focused school board members.
00:19:40
Elected this year let's try to take it to the school boards and
00:19:43
so that policy was modified and tweaked and got input from from
00:19:47
Sonia and and and she introduced that policy for it.
00:19:52
I know a lot of lawyers looked at it including the the
00:19:55
district's council who came back and said Yep this is completely
00:19:58
legal. It was crafted very carefully to
00:20:01
make sure that it it it achieved the needs of of to be able to
00:20:05
tell parents, but at the same time making sure that it it it
00:20:08
didn't. Have any issues with any
00:20:10
existing statute and it then it did his job to protect kids and
00:20:13
families. But so that's kind of the back
00:20:16
story to it. Well Tony Thurman decided to
00:20:18
show up at that meeting. You know Tony Thurman didn't
00:20:22
bother to show up at a single score meeting while he was the
00:20:25
Superintendent. Public instruction through
00:20:26
COVID. In fact he disappeared.
00:20:27
We didn't know where he was, but, you know, he decided he was
00:20:30
going to show up at the school board meeting to that was going
00:20:33
to pass this policy. That countered the Department of
00:20:36
Education's facts. And there's 83 speakers signed
00:20:40
up. Everyone had a minute to speak.
00:20:44
He got a minute. Mike got cut off after a minute.
00:20:47
He kept trying to talk. And so, so, you know, board
00:20:51
President Sonya Shah took that moment to kind of call out all
00:20:54
the stuff that he has been doing behind the scenes, sending, you
00:20:57
know, nasty letters, refusing to speak with her, all sorts of
00:21:01
things. Right.
00:21:02
You know, trying to use this as a ploy to prevent them from
00:21:05
passing the policy, probably using it as a way for, you know,
00:21:08
as a stepping stone to run for governor since he's announced
00:21:11
interest in that didn't work. Obviously they passed the policy
00:21:15
4:00 to 1:00, but you know, the, the California Attorney General
00:21:19
spoke out against this. Senator Scott Wiener spoke out
00:21:23
against this. But but surprisingly, we haven't
00:21:25
heard of Pete from Governor Newsom about this.
00:21:28
And I think he knows that where the polling is and where most
00:21:32
people stand in just common sense and if he's going to have
00:21:34
any kind of national play, he has to play this one really
00:21:37
carefully and so. So I think that's quite telling
00:21:40
that he's been silent. Yeah, if we said it before,
00:21:46
we've said we'll say it again. Newsom is definitely a cunning
00:21:50
politician and we know he's always making moves and every
00:21:53
move has a motive behind it. I was actually looking for the
00:21:57
tweet from Alex Lee, the one that kind of went viral, where
00:22:00
he said something because I I remember a reply to it,
00:22:04
something about let me make this.
00:22:06
Perfectly clear or something that if you want to put kids or
00:22:11
or something about trans kids that's not the point of what I'm
00:22:14
bringing this up you had the honor of your tweet was
00:22:18
retweeted by Equality California which was then retweeted by Alex
00:22:23
Lee. So bravo on that that your tweet
00:22:26
got that got it was up the the tweet chain to Alex Lee.
00:22:32
But yeah, it's it's. And again, it it's scary to me.
00:22:35
I don't have kids. Oh, here it is.
00:22:37
Let me make this obviously clear.
00:22:39
First off, you got the grammar wrong.
00:22:40
Let me make this obvious clear. If your own child is fearfully
00:22:44
hiding their identity from you, you're the problem.
00:22:49
And and I think that got enormous backlash, the idea that
00:22:54
children should be hiding stuff from their parents and that the
00:22:58
implication is that they're the problem.
00:23:01
But if you have school. Administrators and teachers who
00:23:06
are assisting these children in hiding it to push an agenda.
00:23:11
It sounds like maybe the teachers and administrators are
00:23:13
more the problem than the parents.
00:23:15
Is that correct? Yeah.
00:23:17
I mean, if you're he's the problem, right?
00:23:19
If you're pushing for adults to keep secrets about their kids,
00:23:23
about from parents, about their kids, you are the problem,
00:23:25
right? You do not keep secrets from
00:23:28
parents, right? Especially when there's about
00:23:29
these sensitive issues and if there's a legitimate concern
00:23:32
that by by someone finding out that a kid might be transgender
00:23:37
and then they're going to kill themselves, I mean that is when
00:23:39
they need the most help, right? I mean, I mean that it just
00:23:43
baffles me that you would not want to have the parents
00:23:45
involved in these discussions. And I just add, my daughter back
00:23:49
in March was sick and she almost died actually.
00:23:53
So we were in the hospital for three months or sorry, I see it
00:23:56
in three weeks, 3 weeks. And we we weren't sure if she
00:24:00
was, you know, going to make it after, you know, that after
00:24:02
better the first week or so. Thankfully, she's doing much
00:24:05
better now. So much more, much better
00:24:07
position. But it was scary for there.
00:24:09
And you know, I was there, you know, every day, every night.
00:24:13
I didn't leave the hospital other than I I think I'm gonna
00:24:16
have to go pick up some snacks and and things like that.
00:24:18
But I was at her, at the bed at the hospital with her.
00:24:21
We transferred to Stanford Everett for three weeks.
00:24:24
It wasn't her teacher. It wasn't the administrator.
00:24:27
It wasn't Scott Weiner, wasn't Alex Lee.
00:24:29
It was me, her father, right? And so it's the parents who know
00:24:34
their kids and love their kids the most, and they need to be
00:24:37
involved in these decisions. Now, this policy that was put
00:24:41
forth mentions that there's nothing in the policy that
00:24:45
preempts existing law on mandated reporting.
00:24:49
If a teacher or school official believes, sincerely believes
00:24:54
that there's going to be child abuse at home, they have to
00:24:57
report it. And if that's the case, then
00:24:59
they don't contact the parents and tell the parents about this,
00:25:02
they contact C PS:. So that's very clear in that
00:25:05
situation. But to assume that without
00:25:06
evidence that a loving parent is just going to abuse and and and
00:25:10
kick their child out or harm their kid by finding this out so
00:25:13
that the school can continue to be the ones parenting
00:25:17
essentially the child through these very typical times in
00:25:20
secret is dangerous. And I just can't believe that
00:25:24
that we're even even having this conversation.
00:25:28
It's like, at what point did schools start to believe that
00:25:33
they are, they're not just teachers anymore, that they are
00:25:36
guardians and caregivers and they have part ownership of your
00:25:41
kids. And it is this kind of scary
00:25:45
lurch from government that. Your kids don't belong to you.
00:25:51
And I know people have seen plenty of clips from, you know,
00:25:54
Melissa Harris, Perry. Hillary Clinton is that stuff.
00:25:57
And it just kind of Biden just came out that said the same
00:26:00
thing. Biden said the same thing.
00:26:03
They want to. Kind of to this fact that, you
00:26:07
know, your kids are part of our village and they don't belong to
00:26:10
you, they belong to all of us. And like I said, I'm not a
00:26:14
parent, but I could imagine if. I heard people saying that I
00:26:18
would my blood would boil at the idea that somebody else, some
00:26:23
government lackey, owns my kids or has part ownership and can
00:26:27
say something, what I can do with my kids or what my kids
00:26:30
should do. So, yeah, thoughts on on the
00:26:35
encroaching public school trying to take over, take more control
00:26:39
over your kids. Well, yeah, absolutely.
00:26:43
I mean, there are people out there that are pushing that
00:26:45
exact policy. Now I'm not going to say that's
00:26:47
where everyone is, but that's exactly, you know, what the most
00:26:50
dangerous folks education are trying to do.
00:26:54
They're pushing towards that Community School model where
00:26:57
basically you, you give birth to your kids and then as early as
00:27:01
possible you put them in, in some sort of education, maybe
00:27:05
two years old, three years old. You drop them off at 8:00 in the
00:27:07
morning. You pick them up at 8:00 at
00:27:09
night. Right.
00:27:11
And and then and basically trying to subsidize that so that
00:27:14
basically you know that you have that and then you can go to
00:27:15
work. Right.
00:27:16
It's kind of the idea but really it's it's really to shape the
00:27:20
mind and it's it's kind of interesting.
00:27:22
This is where I think you heard that mom's for Liberty kind of
00:27:24
got that backlash. And I don't remember the exact
00:27:28
quote, but they they issued, they included a quote from
00:27:32
Hitler about controlling the minds of kids or something to
00:27:34
that effect. And and it was a warning, right.
00:27:38
It was basically says, hey, don't be like Hitler.
00:27:41
Hitler wanted to control their kids, our kids minds.
00:27:44
That's basically what they're saying.
00:27:45
But because it was Hitler, you know, they somehow tried to tie
00:27:50
the moms for Liberty to Hitler or something like that.
00:27:52
It was pretty absurd. It's kind of funny because
00:27:55
there's plenty of like pro Israel and Jewish groups that
00:27:58
also quote Hitler demonstrating, you know, the horrible things
00:28:02
that he said. So it's just absurd.
00:28:05
But that's kind of where where it's wanting to go is trying to
00:28:07
control the minds of children and you can kind of control the
00:28:10
future. So that's in your opinion is
00:28:14
that where, what is the driving force behind this kind of
00:28:18
movement of putting that wall between public school and
00:28:23
parents to the point where you can't even hear.
00:28:26
I do think there are people out there that, that are pushing
00:28:27
these policies, that this is exactly why they're doing this,
00:28:29
is they want to drive that, they want to push the parents out of
00:28:33
the equation. Absolutely.
00:28:36
So is there any lesson we can learn from Chino Valley?
00:28:42
Well, yeah, I think collaborating with a lot of
00:28:44
different groups being prepared. So you know, you have a very
00:28:48
sound policy in place that you have support from your, your
00:28:53
local constituents to your assembly member to a broader
00:28:56
coalition. We're working with all these.
00:28:59
You know, we're now more connected than we've ever been
00:29:01
with these groups. And so I think yes, we we can
00:29:05
learn from that by adopting a policy working together and then
00:29:08
then Trent, you know, moving this policy into school
00:29:11
districts to help fix some of the issues as much as we can
00:29:14
that are coming from the state, can't fix it necessarily in
00:29:17
Sacramento, but we can fix it at a local level.
00:29:19
And so that's really what we're going to do is I know that, I, I
00:29:23
know right now dozens of school districts are having
00:29:24
conversations with their school boards and with their
00:29:27
superintendents on seeing how can they pass a policy like
00:29:30
Chino Valley just did or the exact same policy that Sheena
00:29:34
Valley just did. And I think we're going to see
00:29:36
dozens of them over the next month or two.
00:29:39
Take that up. The difference between this one
00:29:42
and the mask resolution is it wasn't the same urgency, right.
00:29:45
I think, you know, school districts were being bombarded
00:29:47
every day on the mask issues. So we, we saw special meetings
00:29:52
happen right afterwards to pass the policy this, this isn't
00:29:56
going to warrant any special meetings.
00:29:57
It's going to go through the normal process.
00:29:59
So it might be a month before school board has an opportunity
00:30:02
to even meet on it might be 6 weeks before they have an
00:30:05
opportunity to to meet on it. So it's going to be a little bit
00:30:07
slower going than the mask resolution of, you know, fire,
00:30:11
but I think it will spread to dozens of school districts.
00:30:16
Yes. So like you said before how like
00:30:18
with the mask issue it does kind of it can spread from school
00:30:23
district to school district. Do you think that this kind of?
00:30:28
Push back or stance by Chino Valley and Temecula will also
00:30:33
spread to embolden other school districts to kind of put their
00:30:37
foot down and say, Nope, like this is the line, this is the
00:30:40
line in the sand. We're not doing it and we're not
00:30:42
pushing it. And second part of that, that
00:30:46
depends on one hand, right. They tried to scare them,
00:30:49
they're trying to intimidate them.
00:30:51
So you see that happening, but but I think that by seeing other
00:30:56
school districts pass it and the not being intimidated that will
00:30:59
help embolden other school districts.
00:31:01
Now at the same time, they're very scared in Sacramento about
00:31:05
this. Right away we saw statements
00:31:08
coming from, like I said, Alex Lee came out, Scott Weiner came
00:31:11
out and they basically are saying indirectly that we are
00:31:16
going to fight this any way that we can.
00:31:18
Well, that means they're going to, they're going to pass a
00:31:20
bill, they're going to try to get better, get a bill passed to
00:31:22
stop this. I imagine when we get back from
00:31:25
summer recess, there'll be a bill, they'll gut them in some
00:31:28
bill and add an emergency clause and try to get this passed.
00:31:31
I don't think they're going to get 2/3 vote, but they could get
00:31:35
50% of vote. And then in that case, they
00:31:38
would make it law, they would that case, they won't do the
00:31:41
urgency clause and they'll make it law January 1st to kind of
00:31:44
undo and basically make it illegal.
00:31:47
But that's not the end of the story.
00:31:48
So we we got more upper sleeve on that regard.
00:31:53
I love that parents are getting involved because it is their
00:31:57
kids are are in the schools. Parents should be involved.
00:31:59
That's why I love that so many are stepping up and running for
00:32:02
school board and getting elected.
00:32:04
Can you speak to that for a moment?
00:32:06
Because I think there are a lot of parents that would love to
00:32:08
get more involved and don't know how and they are not necessarily
00:32:13
going to run for school board, but maybe some will.
00:32:16
Will. You just kind of like let people
00:32:18
know parents know what they can do, what they're legally like,
00:32:21
their rights. Of how they can really get
00:32:23
involved in these fights and what they, you know, can how
00:32:27
they can make a change without actually running for or being on
00:32:30
school board. Yeah, that's a great question
00:32:33
because you know, you actually need those parents in the
00:32:36
community to make a difference. As a school board member,
00:32:38
there's only so much you can do, right?
00:32:39
All of us have other jobs, right?
00:32:42
This is mostly volunteer for for almost every school board member
00:32:45
except for LAUSD. Excuse me.
00:32:50
Right. So you need help from those
00:32:52
parents and involve parents and and from from the policy
00:32:55
standpoint to the the political standpoint from knocking on
00:32:59
doors to helping raise awareness.
00:33:02
And so if you're you're interested I would say get to
00:33:04
know your school board 1st, right.
00:33:05
Figure out which ones, just figure out where they are and
00:33:07
stand and find out which ones you like and which ones you
00:33:09
support. They have their networks and you
00:33:11
can get involved with those networks to see how you can best
00:33:14
support those school board members and candidates that you
00:33:17
agree with. You can also look for parent
00:33:20
groups online. I mean that was basically what
00:33:23
reopen California schools did it.
00:33:25
We kind of started the statewide group but then encouraged all
00:33:27
these local school districts to form because that's where you
00:33:29
have the local action and the biggest impact to communicate.
00:33:33
So a lot of it was Facebook driven, but now there's all
00:33:35
sorts of different social media groups that you can use to stay
00:33:38
updated and you can search for those groups and and look for
00:33:41
just maybe even not traditional social media like Nextdoor.
00:33:44
Start connecting with other parents and having conversations
00:33:46
about it. Start your own Facebook group,
00:33:49
Start your own group. I mean for this issue, I mean
00:33:51
that's what a lot of parents did.
00:33:53
And then if you build it, they will come.
00:33:56
And so that's what I recommend doing is, is that obviously you
00:33:59
can follow Students First California on the social media.
00:34:03
You can follow follow our new initiative which is Protect Kids
00:34:06
California. It's a a sponsored organization
00:34:09
of students First California and that's Students First ca.com.
00:34:14
And that way you kind of stay updated on initiatives, but then
00:34:16
there's a way that you can be part of periodic zoom meetings
00:34:20
of things happening around the state and you can kind of get
00:34:22
involved locally with our Facebook groups.
00:34:24
Thank you. So perfect segue, you had
00:34:29
mentioned you had some plans and actions ready and you had
00:34:32
mentioned Protect Kids California.
00:34:34
So tell us a little bit about that.
00:34:38
I know this is an initiative that you have started.
00:34:40
So yeah, so Protect Kids California is actually a
00:34:44
political it's a primarily formed political action
00:34:48
committee to support measures to protect the kids.
00:34:51
So it's a, it's sponsored by Students First California, but
00:34:57
it's a separate, technically a separate entity for political
00:34:59
fundraising and political action.
00:35:01
And the goal of that is to make sure either through a CA or
00:35:05
through, you know, hopefully through an A/C, A would be nice
00:35:08
if we could get the legislature to do this, to get onto the
00:35:10
ballot. But but ultimately if we can't
00:35:13
do that, the goal would be to take it to the voters.
00:35:16
And so we collect the necessary signatures needed to do these
00:35:20
things, right. You see right here on the
00:35:21
screen, stop schools from keeping secrets from parents,
00:35:24
protect girls, sports and spaces and protect kids from
00:35:27
sterilization and mutilation. I think you know these are,
00:35:30
these are very common sense issues and they're actually
00:35:33
favorable in California. And so Phil, I don't know if you
00:35:38
can go to the the the polling on this, but I I can show you how
00:35:40
favorable it is for each of these these issues.
00:35:45
Sure. Is it on this page?
00:35:48
Yes. Just go to the top left and go
00:35:49
to polling. Yeah, Yeah.
00:35:52
So we look at this first issue. So this is what passed in Chino
00:35:55
Valley. Essentially, you know, 68% of
00:35:58
California's California voters support schools notifying
00:36:00
parents of kids wanting to socially transition at school.
00:36:04
And if you look at those numbers, 65% of Democrats do
00:36:09
this. Would you know if this was in
00:36:10
front of any kind of voter, this would pass in every single count
00:36:14
in California it's has widespread support.
00:36:19
This was part of a poll that real impact put together
00:36:21
specifically over parental rights and parental issues done
00:36:25
I believe early June. And what's interesting is they
00:36:28
had other questions on here that kind of that were similar.
00:36:32
There was. There was one that asked if your
00:36:34
kid is bullied or is is deteriorating.
00:36:37
Men, you know, their mental health is deteriorating.
00:36:38
What do you want to be notified? It was like 93%.
00:36:42
I mean, almost everybody says yes, the school should notify
00:36:45
the parent when you ask. This 7%, this is no what?
00:36:50
Yeah. We're laughing, but what?
00:36:53
Yeah, exactly. Well, I want to know who are
00:36:55
these 24% here that oppose this, right.
00:36:59
It's it's basically it's the the, the radical progressive arm
00:37:02
of the Democratic Party. It's 20.
00:37:04
It's it's not very many people. I would argue there might be a
00:37:08
few folks that are also saying, well it's an administrative
00:37:10
burden. I don't want to burden the
00:37:12
school district on another rule, right.
00:37:14
They just nationally against regulations.
00:37:16
But you know by and large most of the people support this.
00:37:19
I mean it's 2 to one in support. Scroll down a little bit.
00:37:24
The next issue on sports, this was a national poll that was
00:37:30
done in May and it was the data that we have here is adjusted so
00:37:36
that the the the demographics, the the percentages nationally
00:37:39
are the same. So it's 48% Dem 47% are get are
00:37:43
opposed. Republicans 93% of support this
00:37:46
this policy, 6% of pose. But this is you know ultimately
00:37:50
when you blend it for California, it's 64% of
00:37:53
Californians agree that student athletes should only play on
00:37:55
sports teams matching the biological sex.
00:37:58
And so our initiative that's essentially what we're going to
00:38:01
do, We're going to repeal a B12 or repeal that provision of a
00:38:03
B1266. There's another provision about
00:38:06
gender identity and facilities on college athletics.
00:38:09
And this is going to basically remove those aspects and to say,
00:38:12
hey, in order to promote fairness in girls sports, if
00:38:15
it's any competitive athletics that are for girls, are for
00:38:18
actual girls, pretty simple based off biology.
00:38:23
And then it has a the component of facilities as well, making
00:38:27
sure that you know that girls don't have to change in front of
00:38:30
biological men and locker rooms. Let's say there's one more.
00:38:36
Yep. One more, yeah, So this is
00:38:39
another important one. If you've been paying attention,
00:38:41
what's happening in California, California is turned into a
00:38:45
essentially a child trafficking, trans trafficking state.
00:38:49
And it's going to get worse if some of these other bills this
00:38:51
year pass And it's if if what it does is it says, hey, other
00:38:55
states have bans or laws and you can't get this this tight, you
00:39:00
know surgeries and hormones for minors.
00:39:02
There will come to California. You can get it.
00:39:04
Well, that's one thing if your parents are taking you, but kids
00:39:07
can actually run away from home and become wards of the state in
00:39:10
California and then take it this, get this kind of, quote
00:39:15
medical care. So, right, this is happening in
00:39:19
California already. People, parents are losing
00:39:21
custody. They're told if you don't, if
00:39:23
you don't make let your kid go on hormones and cut off their
00:39:26
genitals or they're going to kill themselves.
00:39:28
And by the way, since you're going to let them kill
00:39:30
themselves, we're going to basically remove custody.
00:39:32
And and that's happened. That's happened already in
00:39:35
California, especially when there's divorce cases and and
00:39:39
parents are separated. And so this, this basically
00:39:42
would say, hey, to protect the reproductive health of children,
00:39:46
right? As they move into adults, you
00:39:48
would make sure that things that have any kind of material, you
00:39:51
know, likelihood that they would have an impact on their their
00:39:53
sexual health and reproductive health, those things aren't
00:39:56
allowed. So that would be things like
00:39:58
puberty blockers, cross sex hormones, removing your
00:40:01
genitals, cutting off your breasts, right.
00:40:05
Those basically things that would damage your ability to
00:40:08
live a healthy reproductive life and care for children as an
00:40:12
adult. Those things would be, you know,
00:40:13
wait until you're older and age of consent of 18.
00:40:17
And and again when you just for California, 75% of California
00:40:21
voters agree with that. That's always incredible to me.
00:40:27
It when it comes down to it, Californians don't like voting
00:40:32
for conservative politicians, but they vote and support
00:40:35
conservative policies. We see it in like propositions.
00:40:39
We see it on taxes. We saw it on affirmative action,
00:40:42
which was voted down by a large majority, and this polling that
00:40:45
you're showing us. Shows that most Californians
00:40:49
actually agree with the conservative side of this and
00:40:55
hopefully if you can get this on the ballot.
00:40:57
Do you feel pretty confident that most people would support
00:41:00
this? Oh absolutely.
00:41:02
And I think you just point to that recent case with
00:41:04
affirmative action that was it had a bad title summary that
00:41:09
that made it seem like you wanted to to vote yes on it to
00:41:12
to repeal the provisions in our Constitution that says you can't
00:41:15
make decisions based off race and discriminate based off race.
00:41:19
Yet that still failed. You know 50% of voters knew that
00:41:22
they didn't want racial discrimination in California.
00:41:25
And so the radical the basically the the the the legislature does
00:41:29
not represent the the regular California voter right.
00:41:32
We do skew more more left right on a lot of policies but at the
00:41:37
end of the day we're not we're not California average
00:41:39
California voter isn't crazy. It's the people in Sacramento
00:41:43
that are crazy and that's because of how they get into
00:41:45
power. The most extreme candidates and
00:41:48
and the most extreme positions ultimately get elevated in
00:41:51
California and because they have a supermajority, there's no one
00:41:55
there to check them. Now they were successful like we
00:41:57
we saw with SP14 using the media and just how crazy of a policy
00:42:01
that was, but it's completely out of touch with the average
00:42:05
Californian, I think. I think it was like 2% of people
00:42:09
agreed with the position of the Democrats in power.
00:42:12
You know, so it's it's just absurd with with the positions
00:42:15
that they're taking. But it's because that's what the
00:42:17
base wants, right? That's what their constituencies
00:42:19
that help get them into power want.
00:42:21
And as long as you're not hearing about it, you don't know
00:42:23
about it, right. You're being told, oh scary
00:42:25
Republican bad, don't vote for them.
00:42:28
You'll just continue to vote Democrats.
00:42:30
So I think the having these issues on the ballot will also
00:42:33
scare a lot of the Democrats because it's going to force them
00:42:36
to take a position. And many of them are not going
00:42:39
to want to take a position in favor of vitalating children or
00:42:43
thinking that that girls should be able to play against
00:42:45
biological boys or that they should keep security from
00:42:47
parents. They can do that kind of kind of
00:42:50
quietly because the, you know, generally the media doesn't keep
00:42:52
them in check. Or if there is no one's really
00:42:54
paying attention, they can prevent bills from going having
00:42:57
hearings, but they'll be forced to grapple with these issues
00:42:59
because it's going to be on the ballot and representatives will
00:43:02
be bringing them up. And then that's really going to
00:43:04
open up a lot of people's minds just how crazy the
00:43:06
representatives are. Some of those extreme
00:43:12
politicians like we've talked about tonight, like Alex Lee and
00:43:15
Scott Weiner, both notorious Bay Area legislators, both who don't
00:43:21
have kids, mind you, but they are obsessed with writing
00:43:24
legislation about your kids, even though they don't have
00:43:27
kids. It's always I I guess it's
00:43:32
always hard for me to wrap my head around that.
00:43:37
The Democrats push this. Yeah.
00:43:39
Yeah. I can't hear you feel.
00:43:41
Oh, sorry. Am I?
00:43:41
Am I breaking up? Am I better?
00:43:43
You're good now. OK, sorry.
00:43:45
Where did where did you lose me? At the beginning.
00:43:48
At the beginning. OK, Is that what I did?
00:43:52
About Scott Weiner and Alex Lee. OK, I was talking about Scott
00:43:56
Weiner and Alex Lee, 2 legislators who don't have kids,
00:44:01
which is interesting that they write legislation targeting your
00:44:04
kids and control over your kids, even though they don't have kids
00:44:07
themselves. Which is kind of weird and its
00:44:10
own right. But this polling and the
00:44:14
Democratic messaging, it's always so weird for me to wrap
00:44:18
my head around. And I have friends who are
00:44:20
Democrats who are all for, you know, trans rights and we should
00:44:24
support this and support that. But I think if you got down to
00:44:27
it and you were, you know, sitting down having coffee with
00:44:31
them and they were parents and you said looked them right in
00:44:34
the face and said do you want your kid going to school?
00:44:38
And teachers hiding this from you or for your child to go
00:44:42
through this? A lot of I would.
00:44:45
I'd like to think that a lot of people who identify as Democrats
00:44:50
who might publicly support this and say I'm all for trans
00:44:54
rights, when it comes down to their kids specifically, all of
00:44:59
a sudden behind closed doors they go no, no, no, I don't want
00:45:01
it from my kid. But maybe it's fine because I
00:45:04
just want a virtue signal. Good question.
00:45:06
And I would start with the premise like what rights do not
00:45:08
trans individual? What rights do trans individuals
00:45:10
don't have? That's what I want, right?
00:45:13
They they question literally. I've always heard about them
00:45:17
losing their rights and I'm like, what?
00:45:19
What? What rights?
00:45:21
Yeah, I don't understand what rights they have the right same
00:45:23
rights as everybody else. I there's no, there's yeah.
00:45:27
So you can't discriminate off housing.
00:45:29
You can't consume enough employment.
00:45:31
You know, there's they get to vote.
00:45:34
I don't understand what the, the the issues.
00:45:36
There's not any kind of, they don't have to worry about
00:45:40
violence. I mean, I, you know, Sonia Shaw
00:45:43
who put this forward, has to worry about violence.
00:45:44
She's perceived death threats. I mean, people call the school
00:45:48
threatening to dismember her family, remember, You know, kill
00:45:50
her and her dismember her, kill her family, dismember them.
00:45:53
I mean, it's absurd, right. And I'm sure people get, you
00:45:56
know, you know, all sorts of people.
00:45:57
I'm sure Scott Weiner gets death threats because he's just so
00:45:59
vocal and anybody who's out in the open is going to get them.
00:46:03
But the the but really you have to ask questions what rights?
00:46:06
And the really what this is about is it's taking the rights
00:46:09
away from parents. These are parents you know have
00:46:13
wanted parent and they they send their kids to school trusting
00:46:15
that they're going to get a good education and then they're not
00:46:18
going to be. There's not going to be someone
00:46:20
there trying to secretly transition their kid, which is a
00:46:22
possibility in California and is and is and that that action is
00:46:26
protected under California. The parent is not and we've seen
00:46:29
it in California. We see them telling, you know,
00:46:32
do you want to send your kid to a school in their 5th grade?
00:46:35
And the kindergarten teacher saying to your son, oh, you like
00:46:38
long hair, maybe you're a girl, right.
00:46:41
And then and then the and the boy says, oh, maybe I am.
00:46:44
And then the the teacher doesn't say anything about it.
00:46:46
I mean that's not what you were expecting to happen.
00:46:49
And I'm not saying this is a widespread issue, but it is
00:46:51
happening in some places and can happen and there's people that
00:46:55
are trying to push it to happen more.
00:46:57
And so that's the. And that's really, ultimately, I
00:46:59
think people are starting to see that this public opinion has
00:47:03
shifted over since last year. It's shifted away from, you
00:47:07
know, wanting trends, for example, transgender sports that
00:47:10
shifted 10 points up, you know, where they want to protect girls
00:47:13
sports. And I think the reason why is in
00:47:15
theory, you're like, oh, yeah, they should, because you're
00:47:17
thinking that it's a rare issue. You're thinking that it's
00:47:21
actually a legitimate issue for most people.
00:47:23
And then we're starting to see that a lot of this is a social
00:47:25
contagion. It's actually being taught and
00:47:28
that maybe we should put the brakes on this for a little bit
00:47:31
and wait till people older. And oh by the way we are seeing
00:47:34
male athletes, male athletes who say that they're they're women
00:47:38
dominate girls sports. And so now there's just a lot
00:47:41
more examples that they're seeing and so used to be from
00:47:44
this very obscure like I've never seen that.
00:47:46
I don't know it. Of course, if they're saying
00:47:48
they're transgender, they must have a must be real, you know,
00:47:50
serious about this, trying to make it similar to, you know,
00:47:55
being being gay or sexuality, which is completely separate
00:47:58
from the transgender issue. And so now people are kind of
00:48:02
seeing that. Now they're they're hearing
00:48:03
about it. In no way do they want them
00:48:05
doing it to that to their kids at school, especially outside of
00:48:08
their care. Do you think if there's any shot
00:48:13
of turning around California, do you think it stems from a parent
00:48:17
parental revolution or a parental revolt going back to
00:48:22
COVID and continuing up through this?
00:48:24
Is that where you think it starts to stem from?
00:48:27
I think so too. I think the pendulum has sung
00:48:28
way too far and parents are activated and they're going to,
00:48:32
they're not going to stand for it.
00:48:34
And so if we're able to get this on the ballot and and and I
00:48:37
think we can, that's going to be the hard part.
00:48:39
But once it's on the ballot, it will pass.
00:48:41
It's just there's no way it it won't the way that the polling
00:48:45
is. And so yes, I think that will be
00:48:48
and it'll be a wake up call and hopefully can bring some
00:48:51
normalcy back to the legislatures here in California
00:48:54
to not be so crazy or else they're going to start losing
00:48:57
seats or else nationally they'll start losing seats and and
00:49:01
basically will just be an issue that will just keep running on
00:49:03
year after year. Right.
00:49:04
Don't, don't put porn in schools.
00:49:07
Pretty obvious why are you trying to defend porn in schools
00:49:09
don't you know it's just it's it's just absurd what's
00:49:12
happening in California And so there's there's so many issues
00:49:18
that could be be rain on and just to hold them accounting
00:49:22
kind of kind of expose how crazy some of the policies are in the
00:49:26
politicians are in California. I keep calling for a vast
00:49:29
exodus. I know that's extreme, but I
00:49:31
just, I'm like parents, just don't send your kids back.
00:49:36
And eventually they're going to have to listen, you're right,
00:49:40
except that just brings more state dollars than go to
00:49:43
everybody else. And so until we have some sort
00:49:45
of initiative that can then transfer those dollars out of
00:49:49
the system so that you can then send your kid to school of your
00:49:51
choice, then you know that's not going to hurt, right.
00:49:56
But you know, the more people leave California, the harder it
00:49:58
is to vote and get these things passed for that because all the
00:50:00
people who are paying attention and have kids are left.
00:50:03
We saw that famous comment from Scott Wilk during one of the the
00:50:06
I think it was maybe 957 hearing says if you if you have kids and
00:50:10
you love your family, leave. Yeah.
00:50:14
I just agree. I like that he stood up the
00:50:17
comment that he made before that, you know, when he said.
00:50:20
I've been at this 1012 years of Harvard.
00:50:22
Long he's been at it. And we we're all about, you
00:50:25
know, protect the children, protect the children.
00:50:26
But at this point we need to protect the parents.
00:50:28
And I so agree with that statement, but I didn't like the
00:50:31
run and flee. I personally homeschool.
00:50:33
I think I mentioned that like every episode, I've always
00:50:36
homeschooled. But I understand that that is
00:50:38
not a possibility for everybody and I more people are doing
00:50:43
that. I I mean I can just from the
00:50:44
enrollment numbers, Plaster County was the only only county
00:50:48
in California that actually saw kids increase, the population
00:50:53
increase, They're decreasing everywhere else dramatically
00:50:56
like San Francisco dramatically and and yeah, and even with that
00:51:00
increase, we're not necessarily necessarily seeing an increase
00:51:03
in the numbers other other schools.
00:51:06
So that means that there must be people doing homeschool charters
00:51:09
or or private school. They're doing some other means,
00:51:11
but they're not, They're not attending the public schools
00:51:13
because those are relatively flat even though we've seen that
00:51:16
population growth. I'd say too, Phil, on just one
00:51:22
of the logistics for those who are wondering how that
00:51:24
initiative process works, kind of starting backwards, you know
00:51:29
to get on in November 2024 ballots so we can vote on it.
00:51:32
We have to go through the signature gathering process
00:51:34
since we're we're starting that now.
00:51:36
If we can't get a legislator to to put these bills forward and
00:51:39
and do it, do it for us. We'll be submitting the the
00:51:42
language to the Secretary of State end of August probably and
00:51:48
we'll have about 65 days under review period.
00:51:51
We'll get title and summary that puts us around early early
00:51:55
November, end of October. And we'll have 180 days to
00:51:58
gather 550 ballot signatures out of a population of almost 40
00:52:03
million. So that's what we're kind of
00:52:05
getting the word out now. So if you're hearing this and
00:52:08
you want to participate and help, go to protectkidsca.com
00:52:11
and there's a sign up form that you could be able to sign up.
00:52:14
So you'll be notified of Zoom meetings, You'll be able to get
00:52:16
links to our social media, any fundraisers, or just want to
00:52:19
contribute. All of those links are right
00:52:21
there on our website today. We will be revamping that, but
00:52:25
it'll be the same links and same information in the future.
00:52:29
So go there and sign up to learn more.
00:52:32
Are you afraid that once you submit this to the Secretary of
00:52:35
State, they're going to name it something like right wing bigots
00:52:39
want to kill trans kids? Proposition 27 or something.
00:52:43
Yeah, they will. Oh, absolutely they will.
00:52:47
I'm not. Worried we just got dropped from
00:52:49
every platform, Phil. Yeah, well, hypothetically, I'm
00:52:53
speaking their language and I imagine the summary would be
00:52:58
something like if you hate trans kids and want them to die, sign
00:53:02
this bill. Yeah, it's gonna be like vote,
00:53:05
you know, end life saving care for kids or something like that.
00:53:08
They won't even make. Some trans things like that.
00:53:10
So yeah, they'll do something like that.
00:53:13
You know, discriminate against girl, you know girls sports.
00:53:16
They'll probably call it something like that.
00:53:18
You know, we could sue to see on the when it gets to the ballot
00:53:20
what's what's what gets circulated.
00:53:22
I'm not too concerned with what's on the ballot matters
00:53:24
more and we'll have time to to prepare for that.
00:53:28
But again because these issues are so easily digestible.
00:53:33
Right. Don't you know, don't keep
00:53:35
secrets from parents about kids, protect girls.
00:53:38
Sports, you know, protected the reproductive health of of kids
00:53:42
so they don't mutilate themselves before they're 18.
00:53:44
Very easy to understand there. There's going to be much harder
00:53:49
for it to fail even on even with a bad name.
00:53:51
And I go back to the affirmative action initiative, right?
00:53:55
Yes. Felt meant that you repealed the
00:53:57
protections and would have voted for affirmative action.
00:54:00
Well, it came up with a very, very positive sounding name.
00:54:04
I don't recall it. It was.
00:54:05
But they wanted you to vote for it.
00:54:08
You know, something for, you know, equal rights, protection
00:54:10
something. You're right.
00:54:11
It was very positive sounding. Even with that, even with being
00:54:15
outspent like 16 to 1, the no side still won.
00:54:19
Sanity prevailed, even with all of those odds against them.
00:54:22
And it was like 58% voted no to keep the protections in place.
00:54:27
And so I would imagine we're going to see the same thing
00:54:29
here. It might move the needle a
00:54:31
little bit, but when we have, you know, 64 percent, 68
00:54:34
percent, 70 percent, 75% favorability, we could afford to
00:54:39
lose 5%. And do you think they'll
00:54:43
probably be the big money interest like California
00:54:46
Teachers Association, they'll all be behind a push against
00:54:49
this or you know, that's what we think, you know, if it's on the
00:54:54
ballot, we think they will. But but think about that
00:54:56
conversation. A lot of teachers, you know,
00:55:00
don't support this, right? But your regular teacher doesn't
00:55:03
support this and so wait till they find out that their
00:55:06
association is funding money to help keep secrets from parents.
00:55:10
I mean, that might just be the straw that breaks the candle
00:55:11
back to make all these teachers suddenly leave the CTA.
00:55:14
I mean, that would be my hope if they see this happening, right?
00:55:17
Taking that position, right? So they so they're going to have
00:55:22
to be careful, right, to not not upset their members too much and
00:55:24
get them to leave because they can leave now.
00:55:26
Prior 2018 they couldn't, but now they can leave and it'd be
00:55:29
kind of a weird thing. You have this bill that says
00:55:31
let's make sure that parents are involved in the equation and
00:55:34
then you have a teachers association spending money to
00:55:36
keep secrets from parents. I I just it's not a good look
00:55:40
for them. So I know I think they will just
00:55:42
because they're going to be called in.
00:55:44
You know, favors will be called in from other groups.
00:55:46
They said, hey, we'll support your issue.
00:55:48
If you support our issue, we'll be outspent 16 to one.
00:55:52
We'll still win. It's it's yeah, it's crazy.
00:55:56
It's it's such a political hot potato that no one really wants
00:55:59
to touch it, but somehow it just keeps getting forced on
00:56:02
everybody. So it's just it makes you wonder
00:56:05
how a very small minority here in California and Sacramento has
00:56:10
so much power to push something like this when it's not
00:56:12
politically popular. It's not popular with the
00:56:14
public, it's not popular with teachers.
00:56:17
So that is definitely interesting to see where it's
00:56:20
coming from. All right.
00:56:25
We're coming up on the hour here.
00:56:27
Anything you want to add or kind of finish off the episode?
00:56:32
We talked a lot about Temecula, Chino Valley.
00:56:34
We talked about the new initiative, anything.
00:56:37
Any final thoughts on this Now I'll just say have hope I I do
00:56:41
think we're we're going to swing the opposite direction and and
00:56:45
you know as you mentioned parents can help take back the
00:56:47
state and so you can follow me on Twitter at Jay Zacherson,
00:56:51
JZACHRESON, you can follow Protect Kids California at
00:56:57
Protect Kidsca you can go to protectkidsca.com and sign up
00:57:02
and if you're able to contribute to help the cause as well.
00:57:06
Awesome. Well Jonathan, thanks for coming
00:57:08
on. As always, always enjoy having
00:57:11
you on. You're very knowledgeable guy,
00:57:12
so I like listening to your input on this stuff.
00:57:15
And you're also quite the, the good Twitter follow.
00:57:18
So anybody out there who's a big Twitter, it's for X, it's X now.
00:57:21
It's not Twitter anymore, it's X now, it's not Twitter anymore.
00:57:24
So he's a good Twitter slash X follow, very knowledgeable, lot
00:57:29
of information coming out of him and he got sort of retweeted by
00:57:32
Alex Lee. So that's a badge of honor.
00:57:34
He did reply to me, Alex Lee replied to me once.
00:57:38
And I think he thought I was a constituent who supported him.
00:57:41
And then he, I think he saw my reply.
00:57:43
I was like, this guy's not serious, they actually talking
00:57:45
to me, so I'm not going to engage with them anymore.
00:57:48
But yeah, good Twitter follow, definitely go follow them.
00:57:50
Go check out Protect Kids ca.com for this initiative.
00:57:55
This is really important politically.
00:57:57
I think this just has huge ramifications across the state.
00:58:00
You know, make them put their money where their mouth is.
00:58:02
Really kind of pin them against the wall with this issue.
00:58:05
And I think you'll see a lot of apple carts being overturned, a
00:58:07
lot of political allegiances being shifted.
00:58:11
So with that, as I end every episode, if you enjoy this
00:58:16
episode, the best thing you can do to share and support this
00:58:19
episode is share it with somebody.
00:58:22
X, what do they call it now? It's not tweeting, It's Xing it
00:58:25
or something. You know, I'm not.
00:58:28
You know, I'm not always gonna call it tweeting.
00:58:30
Yeah, it'll be tweeting for me forever.
00:58:32
It'll just be like old hat at this point.
00:58:35
So you can treat it. Breaking up with someone.
00:58:38
Accent just sounds too close to like something.
00:58:41
Yeah, or something. Well, like, you're gonna block
00:58:43
them. Like get rid of them.
00:58:44
Yeah. Yeah, accent amount.
00:58:47
So. However, whatever social media
00:58:48
platform it is that's changing, you can post it up there, share
00:58:51
it, message it, text message, e-mail, whatever.
00:58:55
Threads don't Threads. I'm not on threads.
00:58:59
You want somebody to see it, but yeah.
00:59:02
Yeah, yeah. I mean, if you put it up on
00:59:03
threads, it might just go off any either.
00:59:05
It's like if a tree falls in the woods, does it actually happen?
00:59:08
If you actually post social media on threads do, does it
00:59:11
actually happen? So yeah, make sure you share
00:59:14
with anybody. This is important episode.
00:59:15
Parents definitely share this. If you have kids in public
00:59:19
schools is a really great episode.
00:59:20
And like share, subscribe, review, YouTube, rumble, all of
00:59:25
that stuff, comment after the episode.
00:59:27
It all helps with the algorithm helps us.
00:59:29
Get more followers and all that stuff and spread the word.
00:59:32
So with that, we'll see you on the next one.
00:59:35
Everybody have a good night. Good night.