Tuesday, July 16, was another big day in state politics, as the ongoing meltdown in California was met with a sharp response from Elon Musk. Musk announced his intention to move the headquarters of both X (formerly Twitter) and SpaceX from California to new locations in Texas after passing a controversial new law.
Assembly Bill 1955 triggered the event. This bill prohibits any school board, administrator, employee, or contractor from disclosing “any information related to a student’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression to any other person without the student’s consent.”
This prohibition is pointedly intended to hide such matters from parents, who would normally want to be involved with their children as they navigate difficult currents in their young lives.
The measure passed the legislature on a party-line vote and was signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday, July 15. No Democratic lawmakers voted against it. Assemblymember Chris Ward (San Diego) sponsored it, and state Sens. Toni Atkins and Steve Padilla were co-sponsors, among others.
Musk described AB 1955 as “causing massive destruction of parental rights and putting children at risk for permanent damage.”
“I did make it clear to Governor Newsom about a year ago that laws of this nature would force families and companies to leave California to protect their children,” Musk said.
This is the final straw.
Because of this law and the many others that preceded it, attacking both families and companies, SpaceX will now move its HQ from Hawthorne, California, to Starbase, Texas. https://t.co/cpWUDgBWFe
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 16, 2024
Berkeley journalist Michael Shellenberger also condemned the measure, contrasting California’s move with recent steps in the United Kingdom. After a UK government-mandated study into the ethics and effectiveness of puberty blockers highlighted their psychological and medical risks, the decision was made to ban their use.
This followed the closure of Britain’s Tavistock Child Gender Identity Clinic in 2022 after the validity of surgical procedures was challenged. California seems to be going the other direction.
Musk’s move out of California will worsen the trend of out-migration. Many individuals, families, and businesses have left the state for more hospitable locales, resulting in population declines or stagnation even in some areas that have seen an increase in the illegal immigrant population.
This negative trend naturally affects California’s economy, creating a more challenging environment for businesses, consumers, and the government.
According to a report by the Tax Policy Center, a joint project of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution, in the fourth quarter of 2023, California suffered the sharpest decline in “real” tax revenues among the 50 states, corresponding with GDP growth below the median.
Moves like Musk’s will worsen things; we can’t afford that. The state government is bleeding red ink profusely. Sacramento will have two options for dealing with the problem – cut spending materially or raise taxes.
Which way do you think they’ll go? We have already seen a push for higher taxes in San Diego County and some individual municipalities. At the risk of stating the obvious, high tax rates are destructive to economic enterprises and diminish our standard of living. It’s not a direction we want to go.
Once again, California voters face bad ideas passed into law by the Democratic supermajority. Unchallenged power always presents a temptation, but it is especially prone to abuse now that the party in power is dominated by its radical progressive wing. We’ve never seen anything like this. The inmates are running the asylum.
As we enter election season, it seems like a good time to remind people that “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.”
If measures like AB 1955 are what California voters really want, then they’re on the right path. But if they don’t want this kind of destructive legislation, they must elect different people to represent them in Sacramento.
1 comment
Consider, if you will, a child who lives under the control of an oppressive and volatile parent. The child feels comfortable revealing themselves to a trusted teacher, counselor, and/or fellow students in school, but lives in abject fear of their parent finding out. That is the point of the AB1955. The author of this opinion omits his own history of anger issues which include a New Jersey criminal conviction for harassment of a teenage child who failed to show proper “respect”. While that conviction was later overturned when the Appellate Division determined it was simply a family dispute gone bad, the court acknowledged that the child was in fear and believed the defendant had gone “crazy”. (State v. Walsh, 360 N.J. Super. 208, 822 A.2d 611, May 9, 2003).
In a perfect world, children can trust their parents with every secret and will consult them with their problems, including gender identity issues. In reality, the news is replete with reports the horrors of children whose parents have neglected, abused and even killed them for not meeting their definition of acceptable behavior. Some children have learned to fear and distrust their parents. Children are not property – they deserve to feel safe, wherever they find their refuge. In some cases, that is not with their parents.