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 Assemblywoman Diane Dixon of the 72nd Assembly District to discuss how important it is people vote for their state legislators, how crucial it is to break up the Democratic supermajority, and public safety issues.
This episode was recorded on 8.15.23
*The California Underground Podcast is dedicated to discussing California politics from a place of sanity and rationality.*
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What's going on? Everybody, thanks for tuning in
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to another episode of the California Underground Podcast.
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I'm your host, Phil, as always, with my trusty cohost, the best
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and fastest researcher in the West.
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And tonight, we are very privileged to have the
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Assemblywoman Diane Dixon joining us tonight from
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Sacramento to tell us all about what she's doing up there.
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She's been hard at work. We're going to be talking about
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several of the bills that she's authored.
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That's right, Republicans can author bills in Sacramento.
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It's a crazy notion. It does happen.
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And we're going to talk about what her goals are as long as as
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well as the Republican Party as well.
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So, Assemblywoman, thank you for coming on to the show.
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How are you doing tonight? I'm great and thank you both for
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even providing this vehicle to communicate what's going on in
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Sacramento. It's my favorite subject.
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So thank you for inviting me. I'm delighted.
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Yeah, we we found that recently. It's we've been very lucky past
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couple weeks. We've had a lot of Assembly
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members on and it seems that you guys really like to kind of sit
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down and chat about this because it doesn't seem like you really
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get anywhere else to go to kind of have an outlet.
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It seems like all the media doesn't really give you guys a
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fair shake. Or I mean even if you get a news
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spot, it's what like 2 minutes to even put out your ideas.
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So we found that people really enjoy this kind of long form
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format right now, so. I think it's great.
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You're right. I mean, this is our.
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Public Forum The Public Public The public circle here that we
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can talk and inform your listeners of the important
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activities and issues that are going on in Sacramento.
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So before we begin, for the people who don't know who you
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are, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself, your
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background, how you got started in politics and how you got to
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where you are now? OK, Yeah.
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Well. Where do I begin?
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I have been been in business. I'm a business person.
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I would describe myself as a business executive.
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I had been for over 30 years, worked for a Fortune 300 company
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and global company. So I've traveled the world and
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did government relations, financial communications,
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marketing, communications across 84 countries in the world.
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And I had a wonderful career. I loved every minute of it.
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And then I realized I had a great team and I needed to let
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them use the fly in their wings. And so I've been in the position
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for 30 years and and in in Pasadena in Los Angeles County.
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And so my husband and my husband were still married to each other
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after almost 45 years. He is a career, still is a
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career prosecutor. He'd been with Los Angeles
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County District Attorney. Head of major crime the worst of
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the worst crimes in Los Angeles County and then when we moved to
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Orange County he started working for Todd Spitzer who's now DA
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District Attorney. Todd Spitzer.
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When Todd was running for District Attorney and since I
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was at that point I had run for City Council in Newport Beach.
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Was elected. Served as mayor in the my first
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term. Was reelected.
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And served as mayor again. So that was two 4014 to 2018.
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So my husband decided since I was doing that he would go to
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work for the Orange County DA cuz he was not done yet and I
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wasn't done yet and I wanted to continue to give back.
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We are parents of a prosecutor although she's kind of retired
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now. She lives our daughter lives in
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New York as was a Manhattan District Attorney.
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Manhattan district district District Attorney.
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Now she's. Mother to our three grandsons.
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But public safety issues have been dinner table conversation
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for us for forever. So when I concluded my we turned
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out in City Council after eight years, the Assembly district
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was. I needed to.
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We needed to get a Republican into the Assembly, and so I ran
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in 2020 against Katy Petry Norris, who had won in 2018.
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We needed to get it back. We have lost it after many, many
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years and I lost by about 1000 votes and.
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Then there was so I, but I wasn't done.
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I said well, I'm going to do this again.
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Who's going to run? OK, I'll run.
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No one else wanted to go to Sacramento.
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That was true in 2020 and again in 2022 that we had
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redistricting and it really made my district much more favorable
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plus five or six point Republican advantage.
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And so it was an open seat because Connie by then had moved
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to Irvine, so she represents Irvine.
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So I thought, who's going to run?
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Who's going to run and represent local government, fiscal
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responsibility, Common sense business, especially small
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business? Who's going to go to Sacramento?
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You know, dead silence. Nobody wanted to do it.
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And our daughter, I mean, we just had one child.
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She's in New York, as I said, And my husband's working, busy,
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serving the public and keeping our community safe had a major
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crime in Orange County. And I said, OK, I'll go to
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Sacramento. No one wants to go.
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I will go. And I'm so glad I did.
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So that's what I will talk about and and why I am here and what I
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intend to do and why I have not given up on Sacramento because
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we need to make changes. Well, thank you so much for
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stuffing up running and winning and representing part of Orange
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County. Well, you guys, sorry you and at
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first I thought you you were Camille's Assembly
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representative because you guys are sort of close in Orange
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County, but. Not that close.
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It's like right outside line. So Phillip Chin is a great
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assembly person, one of my favorite people.
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So you have a great representative.
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Yes. So most people, you know, we
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just came back this week from a four week recess, so to speak.
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And most people, you can ask me the question that everybody
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says, well, Diane, how is Sacramento?
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How bad is it? And my answer is whatever you
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think about Sacramento and how bad it is, it's worse than what
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you think. Wow.
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I. Was afraid you're going to say
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OK, yeah, I thought maybe you were going to say it's better
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than what people make it out to be.
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No. And there are no surprises.
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My eyes are wide open and that's why I'm here, because I if I
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have a voice. We have the public square, I'm
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speaking in the public square, thanks to both of you and that's
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what we can do. I mean I talked to legislators
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who've been here for a few years and they came when there was
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pretty much equal match Republican, Democrat.
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And so it it is it's gotten significantly well obviously
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that we have a supermajority advantage.
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The Democrats have a supermajority and.
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I can talk to Democrats and they will say yes, they're too many
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Democrats. There's no debate.
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There's no negotiation. They can ignore Republicans.
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They don't need Republicans. Well, that's just music to my
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ears because I intend to fight, and that's a longer term, but
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not too long. In 20/4/2020, twenty 4/20/26.
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I am working very hard to elect more Republicans, the
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supermajority. Many people think it's like 20
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more seats that the Democrats have.
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It's it's only 9. We need to elect 9 more
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Republicans, flipping 9 seats that used to be read all up and
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down, primarily Central Valley and a few other seats around
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Orange County and San Diego. It can be done.
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And this is all I talk about and I have to wake up Republicans on
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several levels. People need to vote.
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Each of these in each of these 9 districts and offline I can
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share them with you. But each of these nine
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districts, the Republican candidate for Governor and the
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Republican candidate for Controller Lonnie Chan and Brian
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Dolly won in these nine districts by one or two points.
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The Republican Assembly candidates, this is last
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November. The Republican Assembly
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candidates lost by 1:00 to 5:00 percentage points.
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These are districts Republicans should be winning.
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And we can't give up on them. And it's not impossible and it
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is, it is a cause we're fighting for.
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I I guess I'm my message is we can't just keep winning one seat
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at a time. Well, I'll be gone.
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You know, there's not enough time.
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We have to get these seats replaced with the right
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candidate in 24 and in 26. And so the caucus, which is the
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Republican caucus and the party are.
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Heavily recruiting and identifying and recruiting
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potential candidates who can win.
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I'm very pleased with our caucus.
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Very smart people. Not really, No.
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No one's A crazed ideologue. They they want to make good,
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quality public policy and that's what we are all committed to and
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they're all committed to being successful.
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So I am really focused on my own reelection, of course, but my
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district? I don't know if I have an
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opponent yet, but I'm not sure I will.
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But my district does have a Republican advantage, but I have
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to appeal to independence too. It's 3030 thirty and you can't
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win just with Republican base alone.
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So my message to Republicans, especially the grassroots as
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well as activist people, is people have to vote because you
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know what? These Republican candidates last
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November lost by about 1000 votes.
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This is the difference. It's not these wide margins and
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these. Purplish districts, it's just by
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1000 votes. When I lost to Kati country
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Norris in 2020, I lost by 1000 votes.
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So the losses are not huge in this in these swing districts.
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So this is, this is my soapbox. This is what I talk about.
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It's it's not about me. It's about all of us getting
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back to common sense policy that will protect California.
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Frankly, I am tired, tired, tired.
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Of people telling me they're moving to Tennessee, You
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probably know them. I hear about it every day.
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When I fundraise, people say, oh, Diane, so great to talk to
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you, but you know what? I'm in Florida now.
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I'm in Texas. I will not give up on
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California. And we have to get back to
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common sense because we all know we're falling off a Cliff and
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we've got to bring it back. But the only way we can bring it
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back is Republicans and independents have to be.
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Highly motivated to vote. And when people, there's another
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soapbox issue. When people say, oh, I don't
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trust it, I trust it, I trust the Orange County registrar
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voter systems. I truly do.
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And we have to give people the confidence that their every
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single vote counts. It's less than 1000 sometimes.
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Greg Wallace, who won in A and a curing process.
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He lost on Election Day in Palm Springs out there.
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And the Republicans last Thanksgiving weekend came down
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to cure ballots because ballots get thrown out if the signature
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is not legible. And you go to, you get these
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ballots and you get an affidavit.
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You go to the person's home and you knock on the door and say
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they threw out your ballot because they couldn't read your
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signature. Would you attest to this, that
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this is your ballot and they sign it?
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He won by 600 votes because of curing A ballot.
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This is what the Democrats do. This is Republicans just like
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ballot harvesting, which is legal.
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Republicans have to be smarter, better, faster at this, and we
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can win, but we have to be well organized.
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So that's what I'm doing and it takes a lot of money.
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That's what I'm raising a lot of money as well.
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Yeah. So I guess this is a bad time to
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mention that I'm closing escrow on a house in Arizona, right?
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I'm just kidding. I'm not going anywhere.
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Camille knows I'm not going anywhere.
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We have no plans going. Anywhere either.
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No, I I love San Diego. I don't want to go anywhere.
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There's so much you said that's like so refreshing and stuff
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that I've said plenty of times before on this show.
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And I I'm really glad you're on here.
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And we we've been lucky to have so many Assembly members on to
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really kind of focus people back on the fact that if you want to
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fix California, it's the state legislature.
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It's not. No it's no offense to people who
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run for Congress. People who say oh I'm going to
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fix California by running for Congress that I that always
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drives me nuts. It's not you know whoever's in
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president or White House it's the legislature.
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If you're tired of taxes and all this stuff, yes you have to
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focus on the state legislature. So let me.
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Tell you what I think. Yes, sorry, I just want to
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finish this. Yeah, go ahead.
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And I I've said the same thing. The supermajority is not that
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far off to being destroyed. And that can change so many
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things and how Sacramento is governed and it slows down some
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of these crazy bills that the rest of the country looks at and
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goes Is California like have they all gone just insane?
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And so yeah, it's really great to have someone who's in
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Sacramento elected saying the same exact thing.
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So that that's really great to hear.
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Let. Me tell you my talking point on
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that. And I talked to a lot of
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business people who are major donors to other to congressional
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candidates and and I didn't use to talk like this just since
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I've been up here for eight months.
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And I I really got jelled in my head.
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And I say to them, what if you you you ignore Sacramento at
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your own peril. If you're in business, or you
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have any profession, or you have a family in schools, or you as a
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parent, you ignore Sacramento at your own peril because.
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Let me assure you, everything you don't like about Sacramento
00:14:44
is going to Congress. It's going to Washington.
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DCI have heard. Well, maybe you could even look
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this up at an assembly percent Democrat assembly person in
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California was interviewed the New York Times Not many people.
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I do read multiple newspapers the old fashioned way as well as
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digitally. But anyway the New York Times
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did about a month or two ago. Did a California on their Sunday
00:15:08
magazine did a. Profile in California kind of
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the good, bad and the ugly mainly praising California.
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We all know that their problems but they didn't that's the New
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York Times. But anyway, so they interviewed
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one of the the assembly people and who's responsible for a lot
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of the housing legislation and all this says it's been
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changing. That's another reason why I ran
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They're taking all these imposing all these state
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mandates on local government. But anyway, they asked her.
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Well, why don't you go? To Congress, where you could do
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so much more. And you know what her answer was
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in the New York Times? Why go to Congress?
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I could, I could change the world from Sacramento.
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And that is true. They are so because everybody
00:15:50
looks to California. Progressive Democrats.
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Incidentally, there are three political parties in California,
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Democrat, Republican and progressives.
00:16:00
The Progressive Democrats are not satisfied with 0 emissions.
00:16:05
And being number one in the United States they want to be #1
00:16:09
in the world in 0 emissions. So their their horizon is not
00:16:15
the United States it's the world and they are empowered through
00:16:20
self empowerment because they have a supermajority and no one
00:16:24
resists them. I heard a story today from a
00:16:26
Democrat who has been here for a number of years and turning out
00:16:30
and he was here when Willie Brown and.
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The last two years, I guess, of Willie Brown's speakership, and
00:16:36
at that time, the Republican Democrat count was like 39 to 41
00:16:43
or something like that, and it was pretty balanced.
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And Willie Brown is the speaker and the Assembly Minority
00:16:50
Leader, Republican leader, work together every single day.
00:16:56
And Willie said, now you got to get these Republicans.
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How many Republicans do you have on this so we can get this up?
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How many Republicans do you have that we can pass this?
00:17:03
How many Republicans got every day they strategize to pass
00:17:07
legislation that both parties could agree on.
00:17:09
Of course, we don't have any of that now.
00:17:12
And that California is suffering because of that, as we all know,
00:17:17
because there's no resistance. They.
00:17:20
They are empowered by no resistance.
00:17:22
So what we can do is what? And talk and talk and talk and
00:17:27
get through social media, which we've never had that kind of
00:17:31
voice before. People like you are so critical
00:17:34
to your listeners listening to be involved in stopping this
00:17:39
power that the supermajority has.
00:17:41
And that means by getting behind Republican candidates who can't
00:17:45
win. There's another problem
00:17:46
Republicans have. They run against each other in
00:17:49
the primary. That's what happened to me.
00:17:52
My 2020 race spent 300. I spent $350 of donor money
00:17:58
to defeat my other Republican candidate, and I was $350
00:18:03
short in the general election. And Connie Petrie Norris had 4
00:18:06
million to my 1 and I could have had that extra
00:18:10
$300. I could have done whatever and
00:18:13
maybe been successful. To get that extra 1000 votes, we
00:18:15
waste. We have to be smarter.
00:18:18
And Republicans are really locked into, well, let the
00:18:21
people decide in the primary. Well, we have to be smart if we
00:18:25
want to win. And I found out too.
00:18:27
There are many Republicans, sadly, who really don't care
00:18:30
about winning. They just want to speak loudly
00:18:34
about their own positions on things, and it's just not
00:18:38
effective. And I and I feel very strongly
00:18:41
that we have to unite and realize that we have,
00:18:44
fortunately. Social issues may not be the
00:18:47
number one issue going into 24. That's where Republicans step
00:18:51
all over themselves. Homelessness is the number one
00:18:53
issue. The economy is the #2 issue.
00:18:56
Public safety is #3. If Republicans just all align on
00:19:01
those issues, I think we can really get a powerful message
00:19:04
across. Yeah.
00:19:07
And my bigger point about why it's so crucial to focus on the
00:19:13
state legislature in these races is a lot of people want to
00:19:17
abandon California. A lot of people, the pundits,
00:19:20
want to give up on California. But my thing is, and this is
00:19:25
sort of a dire way to put it, I say if you give up on
00:19:28
California, just give up on the rest of the country.
00:19:30
Because if you, if you are not going to stop it here in
00:19:34
California, it's going to spread to Arizona, it's going to spread
00:19:37
to Nevada, It'll get to Texas, it'll get to Florida.
00:19:40
So you had this is the front lines right now.
00:19:43
And if you can stop it and turn the tide back, that does wonders
00:19:47
for the rest of the country to show.
00:19:50
You can push back on this progressive policy or these
00:19:53
progressive agendas and you can, you can win and you can actually
00:19:57
change the tide here. And I think that's really
00:19:59
crucial that people start to believe we can turn it around in
00:20:04
these local races and in these Assembly and Senate races.
00:20:08
Well, you're looking at your phone at so many people fled to
00:20:11
Arizona and then they elected a Democrat governor last year.
00:20:15
You know, what did? What did fleeing to Arizona do?
00:20:18
And I just wanted to say real quick, to your point on, you
00:20:21
know, Republicans need to get out and vote and quit talking
00:20:24
about, well, you didn't say this exactly, but quit talking about
00:20:27
stolen elections, etcetera, etcetera.
00:20:30
I heard it. Someone said, and I thought this
00:20:32
was so great. You know, there's about 10
00:20:34
million Democrat registered Democrat voters in California,
00:20:37
and I think 5 million Republican.
00:20:41
I believe that's about the number.
00:20:43
And when you put it that way, it does sound very like there's no
00:20:46
point. We're never going to win.
00:20:47
They're going to crush us. But someone made the point that
00:20:50
we don't have to go and register 5 million Republicans.
00:20:53
We just each have to register one.
00:20:56
Each Republican just needs to get one person registered
00:21:00
Republican and of course get them to vote.
00:21:02
And if every Republican registered in California did
00:21:05
that, we could win. Well, that's a very good point.
00:21:09
As I said earlier about independence, we can't win
00:21:11
without independence. I can't tell you how many I
00:21:14
primarily knock on independent doors because you get that
00:21:17
information from the registrar voters.
00:21:19
And they will. They're usually all former
00:21:21
Republicans. They just got mad during the
00:21:23
Trump years and whatever. And they go, oh, Diane, you're
00:21:29
just the kind of Republican I want to hear your common sense.
00:21:32
And so. They, the the independents who
00:21:35
used to be Republicans can vote Republican with the right
00:21:38
candidates. And that's what Republicans have
00:21:40
to appeal to. But you're absolutely right not
00:21:43
to give up on California. We have to tell too many people.
00:21:47
I think they they're going to escape it, but it's just going
00:21:49
to follow them to Arizona, Texas, Georgia, I just read it
00:21:54
something news clip today. We, Georgia, used to be solidly
00:21:58
Republican. And now for a lot of different
00:22:01
reasons. It's not, I mean the governor is
00:22:03
but the two set US senators are not and now it's a toss up state
00:22:08
And when it used to be solidly Republican we have to be
00:22:11
smarter. What a comment.
00:22:13
I say this a lot when I knock on doors and you know who is a
00:22:17
registered voter and how many elections they have voted in the
00:22:20
last five elections. And many, many people say, oh, I
00:22:24
I'll say, why didn't you vote in the last election?
00:22:27
Well I didn't think I had to. It's always been Republican in
00:22:30
Orange County. It's changed.
00:22:32
I said your county has changed. We must all vote and you and to
00:22:37
your point bring in take people with you to the polls and and
00:22:41
don't wait until Election Day vote when the polls are open and
00:22:45
then when you get your mail in ballot get that in there.
00:22:47
Because what the Democrats do is they see that the Republicans
00:22:51
are kind of dragging and and not going because they want to go to
00:22:54
the polls and turn in their their ballot.
00:22:56
So the Republican So the Democrats promote the fact that
00:22:59
the Republicans are slow, they're slow, they're not
00:23:02
voting. And then Republicans say, well,
00:23:03
maybe I don't need to vote and you do need to vote.
00:23:07
So I urge everybody to vote early.
00:23:10
I I'm from, I was born in Chicago.
00:23:12
Vote early, vote often. Yeah, I I've always been a
00:23:17
proponent of that too. I get people pushing back like
00:23:20
I'm I'm a fan personally. I know a lot of listeners or
00:23:24
followers have pushed back on this.
00:23:26
I like when I get the ballot and I make a little night out of it
00:23:30
because California, so many things to vote on anyway, You
00:23:32
know, I pour myself a nice bourbon, I'll sit down and I'll,
00:23:35
I'll read everything. I'll go through it meticulously.
00:23:37
It takes me like an hour. And I take my time and I vote
00:23:41
and I fill it out, you know, in pencil.
00:23:43
And then I go and I drop it off at a polling location to which
00:23:46
to me seems pretty secure because you're handing it,
00:23:49
you're literally handing it and putting it in that safe box that
00:23:53
then has to go to the registrar. As opposed to any electronic
00:23:57
machine or anything like that. So don't be afraid of early
00:24:00
voting and don't be afraid of dropping it off at polling
00:24:03
locations and Republicans. Just just vote.
00:24:06
There should be no excuse. Just get out there and vote.
00:24:08
Don't wait till the last minute. The one time I voted, sorry, The
00:24:13
one time I voted electronically, it was in the recall election.
00:24:17
It got all screwed up. It was Canada I voted for,
00:24:20
wasn't there. The machine people were touching
00:24:23
it. They weren't supposed to, but.
00:24:25
Anyway, point of the story is, if you can get the paper ballot
00:24:29
vote, vote early, drop it off, it's fine.
00:24:31
Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead.
00:24:34
Well, what would you say to people?
00:24:35
Because there's going to be pushback for your comment.
00:24:37
What would you say to people who are going to say no, We should
00:24:40
only vote one day, mail in, ballots aren't secure, etc, etc.
00:24:43
What would you say? I I will say mail in ballots are
00:24:46
you drop them in the county boxes that are the ballot.
00:24:51
Boxes that are situated all over the county.
00:24:53
They are secure. I'll tell you why.
00:24:55
Because you you get a barcode and when you submit it in and
00:25:00
you register that online and then when you when you submit
00:25:03
your ballot that barcode you get an e-mail that says the county
00:25:06
reserve, the registrar, voters received your ballot.
00:25:09
It's the best protection you I've ever had in my voting
00:25:12
history to get that confirmation.
00:25:15
So it is going through the machines.
00:25:17
And be let, I mean be smart about it.
00:25:19
I tell people make your your signature legible And now if
00:25:22
you've changed your name since you registered maybe you should
00:25:26
go to the polling place when the polls open and explain now I'm
00:25:29
Susie Smith instead of Susie Taylor.
00:25:31
But because that if your name is different than what's on the on
00:25:35
the rolls and he gets thrown out so people need to be smart about
00:25:39
it. One other thing to put your
00:25:41
point. When I knock on doors on on the
00:25:44
final on Election Day, the traditional Election Day, and I
00:25:48
see from the registrar we can tell who they released the
00:25:51
information, it's really very smart.
00:25:53
So candidates don't have to keep selling out, sending out mailers
00:25:57
to people who've already voted. So you match that up anyway.
00:26:00
I'll knock on doors to people who've not voted because their
00:26:03
ballot has not been turned in, because everybody knows that now
00:26:06
electronically and I can't tell you, many people say.
00:26:09
I don't, you know, I got my gun on three weeks ago.
00:26:11
I don't remember where it was. My husband took it, my care.
00:26:15
Grover took it. I said, well, maybe it's
00:26:17
somewhere. Why don't you look for it?
00:26:19
Well, I don't have time, so it's too.
00:26:22
I wish we didn't have the four weeks, but it is what it is.
00:26:25
Please vote on the day you get your ballot and hand carry it
00:26:29
either to that voting box or to when the polling center opens is
00:26:32
2 weeks before the Election Day. It's absolutely critical.
00:26:35
No excuses. Republicans must vote.
00:26:38
Every vote comes. I can already tell I really love
00:26:42
your passion about all of this, so.
00:26:45
It's. It's really refreshing to know
00:26:47
that there are people like you open Sacramento.
00:26:49
Like we could just sit back and just let her talk.
00:26:51
We've. Got We'll just sign off you can
00:26:55
you can hit the stop button when we're done, so turn the lights
00:26:58
out when you're done. You know, I'm a lifelong
00:27:00
Republican. I, you know, Ronald Reagan and
00:27:06
Pete Wilson. George, you've made you in this.
00:27:08
What I know and I know we had good policies and they were
00:27:13
bipartisan, bicameral policies. And when you have, it's not even
00:27:16
democracy. When you have one party making
00:27:18
all the decisions, no debate, no negotiation, no consensus, no
00:27:22
coalitions, it's one party. It's wrong.
00:27:25
It's not democratic. It's not democracy.
00:27:28
And even the Democrats will say they're just too many data and
00:27:33
the anyway, the Democrats have their issues.
00:27:36
Republicans have to be smart. And start talking about this.
00:27:39
And so let me just shift gears and talk about some bills like
00:27:43
you know, about SB14 and for your listener Shannon Groves
00:27:46
bill on child trafficking, which made it through unanimously
00:27:50
through the Senate. It comes to the infamous
00:27:53
Assembly Public Safety Committee and gets defeated on a party
00:27:57
line vote by 62. And we raised holy hell.
00:28:01
The Republicans did and said, how can the Democrats protect
00:28:05
child traffickers? So these are issues that I mean
00:28:09
our our people. Both parties have to say, well,
00:28:13
nobody supports child traffickers.
00:28:15
Well, the Assembly Public Safety Committee majority didn't want
00:28:19
enhancements to call it a strong felony that Prop 47 reduced that
00:28:25
classification of felony. And so we just hit the social
00:28:29
media and the news media and got the victims of child traffickers
00:28:33
to a press conference. I mean, they're just terrible
00:28:35
stories. These people, these women
00:28:37
haven't been through and and fortunately going, we just had
00:28:42
gone through the Democrats, elected a new speaker and the
00:28:46
Speaker didn't want all this drama and criticism and even
00:28:49
Newsome got in the act. And so the speaker said to the
00:28:52
chair of public safety, you will have another meeting of that
00:28:55
public safety. Committee of your special
00:28:58
meeting of your committee and you are going to pass out this
00:29:01
bill. And that's what happened.
00:29:03
And we were all sitting there while it happened.
00:29:04
And the chair comes and we were waiting for the quorum.
00:29:07
So he comes in after we adjourned from the assembly
00:29:11
session and there was a special meeting of public safety.
00:29:13
He banged his gavel. I thought the windows would
00:29:16
shatter all through the capital. He was so mad that the new
00:29:20
speaker which Rendon. Anthony Redden was the former
00:29:24
speaker. Apparently he didn't exert that
00:29:26
kind of control on the committee chairs and he, Rivas told the
00:29:31
committee chair, Reggie Jones Sawyer, Thou shalt have a
00:29:34
hearing and get this bill out of public safety.
00:29:37
And he banged it and it was a 30 second meeting because two
00:29:40
people changed their vote, the Republican votes or three people
00:29:43
did. And so it was six to two again
00:29:45
on the passing it out. Now that bill will go to
00:29:48
Appropriations where it will be tomorrow.
00:29:50
I'm on Appropriations. So Shannon Grove will be
00:29:53
speaking on her bill at Appropriations and then if
00:29:56
assuming it hopefully passes out of Appropriations and then it
00:30:00
goes to the floor of the Assembly, and then before
00:30:02
September 15th that we adjourn. So this would be a real telltale
00:30:06
sign if Republicans can keep mobilizing people to fight for
00:30:11
common sense and for our strong public safety laws.
00:30:16
And this gets through. Mark my words, this would be
00:30:19
huge. This is an earthquake.
00:30:20
If this bill gets passed before September 15th when we adjourn
00:30:25
and then it tells all of us, there are other bills that are
00:30:29
that must pass. Public safety, especially
00:30:32
related bills that must pass to protect our communities.
00:30:36
I can tell you, I'll spend a minute and tell you another real
00:30:40
bad bill that we have to not. That has to be defeated.
00:30:43
The bad bill that I'm talking about or we'll talk about, has
00:30:46
to be defeated. A lot of bad bills have to be
00:30:48
defeated. A lot of good bills have to
00:30:50
pass. But if this SB14 gets through,
00:30:53
it's a new day where we can mobilize public opinion through
00:30:57
social media, news conferences, and the grassroots.
00:31:01
Activist groups are alive and thriving on the issue related to
00:31:06
parental control. We had a news conference here
00:31:08
today. Yesterday, I guess it was.
00:31:11
Signs everywhere. People carrying signs protect
00:31:13
parents protect parents. We we would need to control
00:31:18
protect our children. So this kind of movement that
00:31:21
they're seeing they will be getting hurt.
00:31:23
Fentanyl, the people that come up here on fentanyl who can
00:31:26
support fentanyl dealers. I have, I have a constitutional
00:31:30
amendment proposed a CA-12 that would enhance.
00:31:34
They sentenced to prison someone who dispenses fentanyl, and
00:31:38
they've been warned that if you if someone dies, you go to
00:31:41
prison. Well, that didn't get through.
00:31:44
A Democrat, Senator Umberg, had that same bill, Senate Bill 44
00:31:48
didn't get through the Senate because it couldn't get through
00:31:50
their public safety committee. So I'm taking it to the voters.
00:31:54
That's what I said. I had a news conference on this,
00:31:56
but let the voters decide what the penalty should be for
00:31:59
someone who's a dealer who sells Fentanyl.
00:32:03
And young and people, young people especially die that's a
00:32:06
grain of salt. That fentanyl that's injected
00:32:09
into those that those pills and people are dying. 7000 people,
00:32:14
7000 Californians died last year because of fentanyl.
00:32:18
So this momentum is starting and I am willing and we've let me
00:32:23
just talk a minute about a CA-12.
00:32:25
There's a support group, the Fentanyl Coalition.
00:32:28
They are organized and prepared to raise the necessary money to
00:32:33
$16, six million to get the signatures for the
00:32:36
initiative. It does if my bill doesn't get
00:32:38
through the legislature and another 10 million for the
00:32:41
ballot activity to get it to win for the election, the campaign
00:32:47
in November of 2024. So people are feeling beginning
00:32:51
to feel empowered and realizing they can make a difference to
00:32:54
the public square. So that's really exciting.
00:32:58
The one thing, sorry, I just want to make this point and this
00:33:03
may be to your point about there's no debate and there's no
00:33:08
pushback in Sacramento in terms of the numbers.
00:33:11
So you have the Republicans and they're a small minority and you
00:33:13
have the Democrats. But I think there's an X Factor
00:33:18
that works in Sacramento, which is the people and I think the
00:33:22
the, the uproar over SB14. Was the push back externally
00:33:29
that forced a lot of Democrats who may have been all, like, on
00:33:32
the fence to go, whoa, wait a second, okay, maybe we need to
00:33:35
refocus. And I think that's such an
00:33:37
important thing that listeners need to hear is that, yeah, when
00:33:41
you call in, when you bombard those offices and you hit them
00:33:44
with emails and contact forms and phone calls, you're The X
00:33:49
Factor that pushes back on the legislature that makes them back
00:33:53
off this stuff or support stuff. That needs to get passed, and I
00:33:57
think that's a way of helping Republicans kind of be like the
00:34:00
Calgary's coming in. That's the only leverage we
00:34:03
really have, because the vote doesn't count.
00:34:05
We have to influence it from the outside.
00:34:07
And they're on the news. These were the SB14.
00:34:10
Child trafficking was on the news.
00:34:14
Not just Fox News, but it was on local news all over Sacramento.
00:34:17
And Newsom didn't like the I mean, he's running for
00:34:20
president. He didn't like that negative
00:34:22
publicity, and the Democrats didn't either.
00:34:25
There's another bill. I'll tell you about it.
00:34:27
It's SB-94. It's passed the Senate.
00:34:32
It's now over in the Assembly. And what it will do, it's it's
00:34:36
the worst of the worst. Prisoners will get early
00:34:40
released without too much getting into the weeds, if that.
00:34:44
If a murder the worst of the worst crimes, they were
00:34:47
sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.
00:34:51
They weren't sentenced to the death because the defense
00:34:53
attorney said, why do death do L walk Life without possibility
00:34:58
parole. These people will This person
00:35:01
will never get out of prison. The victims will never have to
00:35:03
worry again. Well, here we are 30 years
00:35:06
later, crimes that were committed before 1990.
00:35:10
This bill, SP-94, will let these prisoners be released early if
00:35:16
they're over 50 years old. And they have been in prison for
00:35:19
20 years, regardless of the crime.
00:35:22
So it's the victims, the witnesses to those crime, the
00:35:25
victims of the crime they lost a loved one to murder the
00:35:29
witnesses to those crimes. Sometimes it's gang members who
00:35:32
testified, the state's evidence. Their lives are at risk, The
00:35:36
prosecutors who convicted these people, The judges who promised
00:35:41
the victim's family. This person will never get out.
00:35:44
They are sentenced to life without possibility parole.
00:35:47
If you don't believe in the death penalty, they will never
00:35:49
get out. Now they are looking at Elwop,
00:35:53
as in this bill that will allow Elwop to get out of prison.
00:35:58
And this is it's a violation of every honest dealing that
00:36:03
prosecutors judges were told to the victims.
00:36:06
And they're making liars out of of the prosecutors and the
00:36:10
judges who promised the victims, families they will never get
00:36:13
out. You are safe.
00:36:15
And this bill is not pending. And I'm going to speak on this
00:36:18
on the floor of the assembly when it comes in the next within
00:36:21
the next three weeks, I will speak on it.
00:36:23
It is horrendous. My husband, as I told you, is a
00:36:26
career prosecutor. He had about eight people on
00:36:31
death row. And these people get out.
00:36:35
They were sentenced to death or life without.
00:36:37
They're the worst of the worst. Murders, rapes.
00:36:40
It's so this is what's happening and this that you talk about my
00:36:43
passion. This is what gets my blood to
00:36:45
boil that that our criminal justice system.
00:36:48
I believe in rehabilitation that these people I we don't even
00:36:53
know. There's not even a we don't even
00:36:55
know if these people will be rehabilitated.
00:36:58
That's another issue. I introduced my first bill last
00:37:01
December. AB15 would allow a Public record
00:37:05
Act request to for someone to make an inquiry about whether
00:37:10
this person who's being subject to release early parole, Did
00:37:15
that person complete the educational programs, the
00:37:17
vocational programs, the quality of life improvement type
00:37:21
programs? We don't know when someone's
00:37:23
convicted and sent to prison, the arrest, the trial.
00:37:27
The sentencing is all public information, but we don't know
00:37:30
once they go to prison if they're rehabilitated.
00:37:33
So someone got early release out of prison a year ago.
00:37:38
A year and a half ago they had been in prison for wife abuse,
00:37:41
10 years sentence, wife and spousal abuse and horrendous
00:37:44
other crimes. Gets out at four years of a 10
00:37:48
year sentence. And what did they do within two
00:37:50
weeks? Murdered six people here in
00:37:52
Sacramento, about five blocks away from the state Capitol.
00:37:56
And so the Sacramento Bee at did a APRAR and it was rejected.
00:38:02
So how did this person get out? What was the terms?
00:38:04
So no one knows, if any. There's no standard for
00:38:09
rehabilitation to know if if these people have been, we want
00:38:12
people to enter our communities, if they've been at serve time in
00:38:15
prison to be rehabilitated. But there's no way to evaluate
00:38:17
that. So there's a lot going on in
00:38:21
Sacramento. That's why I said I'm glad I'm
00:38:23
here. Because you know what?
00:38:26
This is what I do. I I hope to motivate other
00:38:30
people to care about what's going on in California.
00:38:33
We're all invested in California.
00:38:35
So many business owners. I, I mean invite me back.
00:38:38
I'll talk about climate change. And there's so much of of our
00:38:44
businesses that regulated, our businesses in California are.
00:38:49
Leaving California, many small businesses who are the supply
00:38:53
chain to all the climate change businesses because these small
00:38:57
businesses can't afford to be in California, the regulations.
00:39:00
Now the one thing I have to talk about real quickly, how are we
00:39:03
doing on time on business? Are you familiar?
00:39:06
15 minutes. OK.
00:39:08
Have you been to Newport Beach? Have you ever seen?
00:39:12
I mean, I'm there often, but OK. Are you familiar with the Balboa
00:39:17
Ferry? Yes, of course.
00:39:20
The Balboa Ferry. I grew up in Orange County, so.
00:39:24
Alright, so it runs eight. It was.
00:39:27
The Balboa ferry was founded about in 1919 by the big family.
00:39:34
The Big Family still owns the Balboa ferry makes a crossing
00:39:37
800 feet from Balboa Island to Balboa Peninsula.
00:39:41
If you haven't, Phil. If you haven't written on the
00:39:45
Balboa Ferry. Cost a dollar and a half.
00:39:48
To put your car or your bike or your two legs on the Balboa
00:39:51
Ferry, there are three ferries that run continuously from
00:39:54
eleven 7:00 AM to 11:00. OK, 5 minutes.
00:39:58
Let me tell you, if you haven't run, I'll written it.
00:40:01
You better hurry. It's a California Air Resources
00:40:04
Board is going to shut it down because Mr. Beak has not
00:40:09
replaced converted his diesel engine to electric.
00:40:14
By 2024, January 1/20/25 in a year and 1/2 he has to convert.
00:40:22
Let me just tell you, there's no technology, there's no battery,
00:40:25
there's no boat design, ferry boat design.
00:40:28
He only has the only three of this size.
00:40:30
They hold three cars. It's not like in Seattle.
00:40:33
It holds 200 cars, Three cars and a handful of bicycles and a
00:40:37
handful of pedestrians for a dollar and a half can ride this
00:40:41
low cost visitor serving amenity in Newport Beach.
00:40:44
But because the unelected regulators of the California Air
00:40:49
Resources Board have mandated by 2035 all trucks, diesel trucks,
00:40:56
cars, everything has to be electric.
00:40:59
OK, well, said to commercial fishermen, you have to be
00:41:04
converted to your battery power by 2035.
00:41:07
The commercial fishermen, of which there are hundreds in
00:41:09
state, successfully lobbied CARB for the air resource for it and
00:41:16
they got a delay to 2035, Seymour Be, the owner of the
00:41:22
Elbow Island ferry, said. I need I I'm happy to make the
00:41:26
conversion, but I need 10 years. There's no battery.
00:41:29
We don't know how big a battery we.
00:41:32
I can't convert my existing structure.
00:41:35
I have to hire a naval architect A1 off.
00:41:38
There's no barge. There's ferry his size.
00:41:41
He has to spend $100 which is more than he makes probably
00:41:45
in three years because this is kind of just an iconic family
00:41:49
owned little business to spend $100 to hire a naval
00:41:54
architect, retired neighbor architect to design this and
00:41:57
then look for a battery that will fit.
00:42:00
So I've gone on, I've said when he Seymour told me this last
00:42:03
January and as his assembly person I said, well let me look
00:42:07
into this. So since then, like 35
00:42:11
people have signed a petition to save the Balboa Island ferry.
00:42:15
We got the attention of CARB. I've met with the car people and
00:42:18
they're trying to work with Seymour, but Seymour still has
00:42:21
to spend about $100 and create a new boat design before
00:42:25
they will even consider giving him an extension.
00:42:28
They can't give him an extension till he fills out a stack of
00:42:32
forms of foot high. And then with the boat design
00:42:35
and the electrification and all that's about this is nonsense.
00:42:39
And these people are not even elected and they are regulators.
00:42:43
And I asked the former director, I happened to be at a meeting
00:42:46
where he was speaking the former executive director of CARP
00:42:49
several months ago. I said, do you have I asked him
00:42:52
the same question? Have you ever ridden the
00:42:53
Belleville Island ferry? No.
00:42:55
Well, I said you better get there quick because you guys are
00:42:58
going to make it illegal. And so I had to tell the story,
00:43:01
what I just told you. He said, well, we had 10
00:43:04
hearings for small businesses and businesses all sized.
00:43:08
We announced these hearings. I said, well, I never heard of
00:43:10
them and Mr. Big never heard of them.
00:43:12
And I he's going to be run out of business by the state of
00:43:15
California. So this is still a live issue.
00:43:19
I said I'm either going to, you guys are either going to give
00:43:22
him an exemption or I'm going to introduce a bill next January to
00:43:26
preserve Protect and he put the Babble Island Ferry as it exists
00:43:31
or give him 10 years or we'll look at some other legal names.
00:43:34
But it really is the problem of California writ large.
00:43:38
The regulators have too much power.
00:43:41
They're changing their whole industrial framework of the
00:43:43
state to go electric and big companies can manage that.
00:43:47
They have the resources, but the legislators don't really
00:43:51
understand business and they said, well, business makes
00:43:53
profits, they can afford it. What?
00:43:54
There's no technology. The diesel people say there's no
00:43:57
technology. Where we going to plug them in?
00:43:59
It's crazy making and all I want to do.
00:44:02
I'll talk about it until the cows come home, because it is
00:44:05
nonsense what's happening in California to business.
00:44:08
Small and little companies like the Bevel Island Fairies just
00:44:12
writ large of the problem with California.
00:44:16
Before I make my next point and I want to touch upon that whole
00:44:20
issue with the electric batteries, I have an issue with
00:44:23
your math saying that 1990 was 30 years ago.
00:44:27
So I I just want to put that out there I.
00:44:31
It's no, it's getting worse. I think the 90s are still 10
00:44:35
years ago, but that's just me. I was a 90s kid, so I I whenever
00:44:40
I hear the 90s, I'm like, I wasn't that long ago.
00:44:42
I was like 10-15 years ago. Track of that is my daughter was
00:44:48
born in 81 and she's 40s so I know it was 30 years ago.
00:44:53
Well, I was born. I was a year old when the Mets
00:44:56
last won a World Series. I'm a big Mets fan, so when
00:44:59
people ask how long has it been since the Mets won a World
00:45:01
Series, I just tell them my age. So that's that's how I know.
00:45:06
But in terms of the electric battery stuff, real quick about
00:45:10
it. My I brought this up on the show
00:45:11
before. My wife works for a bigger
00:45:13
trucking company and they're under the same issue.
00:45:17
And even the big companies aren't really immune to it
00:45:19
because. The technology is just not there
00:45:21
and that's usually how they legislate is they'll say, well
00:45:24
if we legislate it, the businesses will follow, not
00:45:28
really. Most of the businesses will just
00:45:29
get up and leave and they just won't stay.
00:45:31
And I I think that's crazy that California, I mean that's just
00:45:34
sort of the mindset. If we legislate it magically
00:45:37
this technology will appear, it doesn't exist.
00:45:40
We don't have the infrastructure for it.
00:45:41
So it's it's just kind of pie in the sky legislation.
00:45:45
The California Trucking Association, I talked to their
00:45:47
government relations persistence maybe when I was running, so
00:45:50
maybe 9-10 months ago and I said how are the trucks going to
00:45:53
conform to this? What did you say when they told
00:45:56
you no way out, you have to do this by 20.
00:45:59
And he said figure it out your business, you can make all this
00:46:02
money, you can figure it out. I mean there's no, I mean you
00:46:05
know what, there's no infrastructure.
00:46:07
I mean how do they go from the ports to the Inland Empire which
00:46:10
all the warehouses they're going to have to stop every 30 minutes
00:46:13
to recharge and then spent three hours recharging.
00:46:16
I mean it's nonsense and that it's the concept, I don't think,
00:46:21
let me put it this way, I think I can count on three fingers how
00:46:24
many people out of 120 members have ever worked in business and
00:46:28
under have read a profit and loss statement, have read a
00:46:31
financial statement, have under. I think profit is is bad and so
00:46:36
you should give it away. They have.
00:46:39
It's all about redistribution. And you know it's I was telling
00:46:41
somebody today I was probably wasn't this passionate until I
00:46:46
got here and realized that's what I said to people this past
00:46:50
three weeks is worse than you think because they don't
00:46:52
understand what they're doing. And you know what, because of
00:46:55
term limits, they'll be gone when all this bears fruit or no
00:47:00
fruit, they'll be gone in eight or ten years.
00:47:03
So don't worry about it. They just want California to be
00:47:06
the number one in the world for transforming the industrial base
00:47:10
of the of the United States. Because California leads
00:47:13
everybody and everybody follows. And it's it's it's bad for
00:47:19
business, it's bad for people, it's bad for the voters.
00:47:23
And it's and we need to get people mobilized to stop this
00:47:26
madness. I have two comments.
00:47:31
My dad has owned a battery business my entire life and
00:47:34
before I was born and he will tell you there is nothing green
00:47:38
about battery recycling. So there's one point, and then
00:47:44
this is kind of embarrassing. I read Us Weekly magazine
00:47:47
sometimes and Leonardo DiCaprio is on a yacht every week with
00:47:51
the new supermodels credit and well, that too.
00:47:55
But it made me think how clean energy are yachts.
00:48:00
And so I looked it up. And allegedly, they're worse
00:48:02
than airplanes. And I don't know because I don't
00:48:05
give in to all these, but that's what the claims are, is that
00:48:08
they're worse than airplanes. And he's always on a yacht with
00:48:11
this, a new supermodel and has been my my entire life, like,
00:48:16
you know, ever since I knew about Leonardo Gaffer.
00:48:17
He's on yachts and and I'm just yachting.
00:48:22
To preach to us about how we need to save the world and you
00:48:25
know, save energy and whatnot. But he's yeah, And actually,
00:48:30
it's just so hypocritical. Phil, I sent you that article.
00:48:34
It was based in Canada, but it was a story of a guy who bought
00:48:37
an electric an EV truck and then he came on a trip to America and
00:48:42
ended up having to just ditch his truck.
00:48:45
The charging stations were half of them weren't operating, they
00:48:50
were super expensive, they were took hours, they would only go
00:48:54
so much. All these things where he had to
00:48:57
keep paying to convert these things and he ended up like
00:49:00
putting so much money. Into the truck and it was making
00:49:03
him go broke and then the truck would break down and there was
00:49:06
just the whole the whole thing. He said it was a scam.
00:49:08
Electric vehicles are just a scam.
00:49:10
I wish I had the article for you know what?
00:49:14
And that's and you know, there's actually the Wall Street Journal
00:49:17
or somebody coined this phrase that the fear of people have, I
00:49:20
don't own an electric vehicle. People have because they don't
00:49:24
know when they're going to be able to recharge.
00:49:26
And this, this has really slowed down the whole marketplace for
00:49:29
converting to people driving EV cars.
00:49:32
You see a lot of them in California, but the risk Middle
00:49:34
America is not by tracking right?
00:49:37
Yes, I was going to say that. So people aren't in the first
00:49:41
truck? Yeah.
00:49:42
She's in Oklahoma, in the middle of nowhere.
00:49:44
Oklahoma, though, And. She had a story a couple years
00:49:47
ago where she broke down. She, she's a nurse and she was
00:49:51
on her way home from her shift at like 2:00 AM and it was
00:49:54
winter and her car broke down and she was the middle of
00:49:57
nowhere and had no cell service. And this is, I'm like, this is
00:50:00
how all horror stories began and you know, she lived to tell
00:50:04
about it. But and where she broke down, it
00:50:07
was really dark and like around a corner where if a car did
00:50:10
come, they could easily hit her car, all the stuff.
00:50:12
But it's it's winter. It's Oklahoma.
00:50:15
It's freezing. And I could think like some guy
00:50:18
in a truck came by and it's also OK.
00:50:21
So it's also the middle of nowhere, Oklahoma, where
00:50:23
everyone's friendly. But he ended giving her a ride
00:50:26
home and she again lived to tell the story.
00:50:28
But I was the whole thing. I'm like, no, you could have
00:50:31
frozen to death. You could have been hit by a
00:50:32
car, You could have been picked up by the wrong person.
00:50:35
All the possibilities now. Her car broke down.
00:50:40
Yeah, as it wasn't an electric vehicle.
00:50:41
But what is in that situation with people in electric vehicles
00:50:45
breaking down the bill of note word that they can't charge.
00:50:48
That's the reality. And the trucks especially
00:50:50
because they it takes hours to recharge the technology.
00:50:54
The technology doesn't exist. My philosophy or my position on
00:50:58
all of this transformation is let the marketplace decide.
00:51:02
There wasn't a regulation that mandated that everybody buy a
00:51:05
gasoline powered automobile and get rid of horses.
00:51:08
I mean it evolves. This is what this is what I had.
00:51:11
It will evolve faster because technology does that and that's
00:51:15
what the marketplace does. Why it has to be mandated prove
00:51:19
that it can work and it is creating new technologies and
00:51:22
new kinds of businesses. Great, but it's not enough to
00:51:25
power that 10s of millions of cars that need to be powered and
00:51:29
the grid doesn't. That's a whole other story.
00:51:31
The grid, the electric grid is not powerful enough to sustain
00:51:35
all these things from the heat water heaters to cars to trucks
00:51:41
to everything that's going to be electric.
00:51:43
It's just craziness. And you know, I heard a good
00:51:45
presentation recently. It might be something you get
00:51:48
somebody to speak on. Hydrogen is really not talked
00:51:50
about and hydrogen powered is. It's a product I guess of
00:51:56
natural gas. But it can be.
00:51:58
It can be. Oh, that's a whole other thing
00:52:00
though. Oil industry.
00:52:01
I mean it. Every industry is being
00:52:04
adversely affected. In California hydrogen is a
00:52:08
source of power that could be a competitive alternative to
00:52:11
electric power. Let me just say a few words
00:52:14
industry and I'm not an advocate for the oil industry but it's
00:52:17
just foolish because I did sponsor a bill.
00:52:21
This is an kind of an important point I'm going to make.
00:52:24
I did. One of my second bill was to
00:52:26
allow the governor to authorize the governor to defer the
00:52:31
automatic gas tax increase which occurs every July 1st.
00:52:36
And I thought, who is going to oppose this?
00:52:38
This is when I was really naive last December on my first day
00:52:41
and when I introduced 2 bills when we were all sworn in.
00:52:45
Who's going to oppose this? This will help lower income
00:52:47
people who can't afford the seven $6 a gallon gas.
00:52:51
This will give them relief from that automatic increase of the
00:52:54
state taxes that are just mounting, mounting money.
00:52:58
I couldn't get any support for this.
00:52:59
It didn't even get assigned to a committee.
00:53:01
And I go, who's not supportive of this?
00:53:04
Then I found out The Dirty little secret in California
00:53:07
Transportation committee circles and advocates.
00:53:12
This was quoted to me, but I'll just repeat it legislator
00:53:16
California Democrats do not want to make anything easy for
00:53:21
California drivers. They don't want it to be
00:53:23
inexpensive. They don't want the roads to get
00:53:26
repaired. No more freeways will be built.
00:53:29
And the reason is you cannot change behavior and change
00:53:33
people's behaviors so they go to electric vehicles or public
00:53:37
transportation. You cannot change behavior
00:53:40
unless you make driving miserable for California
00:53:44
drivers. That's the goal.
00:53:48
And so they're going to keep gas prices high.
00:53:50
So on with the controls on the the special session
00:53:55
extraordinary session that the governor had to put control more
00:53:59
regulator over the oil companies.
00:54:01
Just so you know, because the state of California has not
00:54:05
issued additional permits, refining permits for the permit
00:54:09
holders who want to drill new oil wells, not necessarily in
00:54:12
the ocean but just wherever in California, they've been denied
00:54:16
permits for two years. So California is importing,
00:54:19
maybe others have built to this importing what it can't refine
00:54:23
or drill out of or bring out of the ground in California.
00:54:26
We're importing it from Venezuela and the cost of
00:54:30
shipping it from Venezuela, Venezuela and their human rights
00:54:34
issues, their lack of environmental control issues.
00:54:38
And that oil is dirty oil coming to California that has to be
00:54:42
refined in in in expensive California because we refined,
00:54:47
the state requires a higher grade of refined gasoline.
00:54:51
This is nonsense. It's not even logical.
00:54:54
It's not even logical. But the point is make people
00:54:58
miserable. So you have what construction
00:55:01
workers riding the bus to their construction site to clean their
00:55:04
bag of tools they use. There will not be any more
00:55:08
freeways bill. Make people miserable to have
00:55:10
them sit in traffic, that's true.
00:55:13
Well, we're we're seeing it down here in San Diego.
00:55:15
They are continually try and try again to do the tax per mile and
00:55:21
their whole goal is we want to tax people out of their cars and
00:55:25
into public transportation when only. 3% of San Diego County
00:55:29
uses public transportation and San Diego County is a big
00:55:32
county. It's widespread, so it's very
00:55:34
hard to do any public transportation.
00:55:37
But in terms of energy itself, I can never take anybody seriously
00:55:42
who says we need to transition to electric cars.
00:55:45
If you are not willing to agree, that's fine.
00:55:49
Let's open up 3-4 more nuclear power plants if you if you say
00:55:54
no to that. Then I I can't take you
00:55:57
seriously that you really want electric cars, because nuclear
00:56:00
has been proven to be the. It's the most efficient carbon
00:56:04
neutral or carbon zero source out there, much better than many
00:56:10
of the other things. And in terms of the oil, I I
00:56:12
think it's a great point. No, people really don't talk
00:56:14
about this. California could be a energy
00:56:19
exporter. For the whole West Coast, in
00:56:23
terms of we could produce our own oil, we could make sure it's
00:56:26
clean, we can make sure the workers do it under humane
00:56:30
conditions and they get paid a good wage.
00:56:33
We can make sure we can control everything from the oil and then
00:56:37
have enough of it to not only supply California but probably
00:56:41
other states as well. So it's crazy that we do that.
00:56:46
Do you know that the oil workers are typically high school
00:56:48
graduates and they are making high middle income jobs wages
00:56:54
because they are highly skilled and have longevity and they are
00:56:59
the backbone and there are hundreds of thousands of workers
00:57:02
whose jobs are going to be eliminated.
00:57:05
These are people who can buy homes.
00:57:08
I mean it is just craziness that we're depriving an industry that
00:57:13
incidentally is enforced every regulatory clean oil refining
00:57:20
process. It's cleaner than any oil
00:57:22
produced anywhere in the world in California because it's the
00:57:26
most expensive and the best clean jobs, hard working jobs,
00:57:32
well paid jobs and we're trying to shut them down.
00:57:37
There's that one real quick story.
00:57:38
So on the governor's special session when we they were
00:57:41
passing this oil company Control Board, there is one Democrat,
00:57:47
one who voted against it and she represents a section of
00:57:52
Bakersfield. And they excoriated her on
00:57:56
social media and she was confident she was doing the
00:58:01
right thing. She was representing her
00:58:03
district and the governor's secretary put on Twitter at the
00:58:08
time. You are alone.
00:58:10
No one's going to stand with you.
00:58:13
And she posted, she's Indian, Asian, Indian.
00:58:18
She posted on her Twitter page a picture of her extended family,
00:58:22
like 40 members of her family. And she said I am not alone And
00:58:27
it's, I mean these people are so misguided that that's why I hope
00:58:34
you through the growing popularity of your wonderful
00:58:38
program, Underground Studio. I love it.
00:58:41
You continue to grow because people need to hear these
00:58:44
stories and how crazy it is and they can stop it.
00:58:48
They buy voting and voting for Republicans and get good
00:58:51
Republicans to run for ours and help support good Republicans to
00:58:55
run for ours. Well, I think that's a perfect
00:59:00
place to kind of wrap it up. We're coming up on the hour.
00:59:03
This has been a great talk. I feel like we probably could
00:59:06
have talked for like two or three hours, so.
00:59:09
With that said, whenever you want to come back on open door,
00:59:12
open invitation, please feel free to reach out and let us
00:59:15
know. Whenever you have something
00:59:17
coming up, yeah, let us know and we'll be happy to have you back
00:59:20
on. SO we'll keep doing the great
00:59:22
work you're doing and I will become a regular listener.
00:59:26
Now I'll make sure I clip that app and follow you and podcast
00:59:30
you and all that need to do. Keep doing.
00:59:32
It's people like you that are going to make the difference.
00:59:34
Spread the word. So thank you.
00:59:37
Well, we, we appreciate that. So where can people find you and
00:59:40
follow you if they want to learn more about what you're doing?
00:59:44
Because you're doing a lot up there.
00:59:45
So it's real simple. Google, Diane Dixon Assembly and
00:59:50
I pop right up. So that's probably the easiest
00:59:52
thing. I do have
00:59:55
diane.dixon@asmcaasmdot.ca.gov. I think that's it.
01:00:06
Diane B Dixon. But just dial Diane or just type
01:00:10
in Google Diane Dixon. Assembly 72 is my district and
01:00:14
you'll come right to me and you'll get all my contact
01:00:16
information. Great.
01:00:18
And Instagram Diane Dixon. You'll find me there too.
01:00:22
Great. Well, thank you again for coming
01:00:25
on and to everyone as I always end every show.
01:00:28
If you enjoyed this show, make sure you share it with somebody.
01:00:31
That's the best way to support this show, and this is a free
01:00:34
way to support this show is to just share it with somebody who
01:00:36
you think would find this helpful.
01:00:38
Make sure you like, share, subscribe, leave a review,
01:00:41
comment. All of that stuff helps the
01:00:43
algorithm, helps people find us. And with that, have a good
01:00:47
night, everybody and good night. Thank you so much.
01:00:50
I enjoyed it. Take care.
01:00:52
Thank you, Diane. Bye, bye, bye.