OC state legislators ALL vote against ‘100% Renewable Electricity by 2045’ Bill

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It’s fair to complain that the state legislature views OC as a hopeless disfigurement on the state’s body politic and takes frequent opportunities to siphon more money from the county than is injected back into it, among other indignities.

Gee, why do they feel this way about us?  OJB might just have uncovered a clue!

SB-100 is a bill that commits the state to move its electricity generation entirely off of fossil fuel sources by 2045.  As the CBS News site puts it:

The vote comes on the heels of a sobering report detailing the effects of climate change on the state. California stands to lose up to two-thirds of its beaches to erosion, and a similar portion of its water supply, depending on how quickly the world reduces greenhouse gas emissions, the report found. Average summer temperatures are set to rise between 5 and 8 degrees Fahrenheit, and the average area burned during yearly wildfires would increase 75 percent.

“California would really become a shining state in terms of creating a real example for the rest of the country to look toward for creating an alternative to fossil fuels and having a healthy, growing economy,” said Dan Jacobson, state director for Environment California, which supports the bill.

About 72 percent of Californians back the proposal, according to public polling. The state’s business groups, as well as some utilities, oppose it. It narrowly failed in the assembly last year after some utility worker unions opposed it, citing concerns about jobs.

The nation’s largest state currently gets just over one-third of its energy from wind, solar or geothermal power, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Another 9 percent comes from nuclear plants. Natural gas, considered a “cleaner” fossil fuel, makes up 49 percent of the energy mix.

If you scroll down to the link to yesterday’s roll-call vote, you’ll see that of the 33 votes cast against this bill in the Assembly, seven of them — over 21%! — came from OC Asssemblymembers.

Maybe we need to have some sort of intervention.

Forlorn Travis Allen, Bill Brough, Philip Chen, Steven Choi, and Matt Harper are Republicans — and at least a couple of their seats have a decent chance of switching to Democrats this year.  Tom Daly is the most Republican-voting Democrat in the Assembly, so there’s no shock there.  (No Democrat has been bold enough to oppose him since his election, though this year he does face a challenge from Autumn Browne, a Libertarian whose dispalcement of Daly might free up the seat for an actual Democrat in two years.)  But I was shocked to see Sharon Quirk-Silva’s name in the “Nay” column.  I think of her as someone inclined to take “safe” votes when she can, but this isn’t even a safe vote for her.  Politically, this is a calamity for her.

While I’ve dutifully supported Sharon over the years, and will still support her for reelection over the worse in many ways Alexandra Coronado, at some point a supporter who doesn’t shriek when she does something this bad becomes an enabler.  I don’t know what Sharon’s plans for higher elected office may be, but this vote is high-profile enough to kill any chance she might have had to become Speaker when she has the seniority.  Running for her mentor Loretta Sanchez’s Congressional seat, now held by Lou Correa, won’t happen until after Correa leaves office — probably decades from now.  This loosens what might otherwise have been her grip on the Ed Royce seat, even if Gil Cisneros doesn’t beat Young Kim and stay there for two decades himself.  She may have eyes on taking the Fiona Ma, Betty Yee, John Chiang tour through the Treasurer’s and Controller’s offices some day — but having stood with Republicans against clean electric energy makes it likely that she’d lose in a primary.  This was one of hugest deals I can remember among activists — and it won’t be forgotten.

The charitable explanation would be that Fullerton’s foothills do stand to become beachfront property after more decades of rising sea levels, but that won’t happen soon enough to benefit Sharon’s political future.  (Well, probably not.  And even if it did, the ruckus over the loss of the rest of OC — which will probably continue to exist, and to vote Republican, from a system of barges and rafts — will disrupt politics as usual even north of Orangethorpe.)  The less charitable explanation is that Sharon will simply do whatever the unions ask of her in order to preserve a few jobs no matter what the cost– and that characterization as a “union stooge” is much more perilous to her near-term political future.

I don’t even want to talk to Sharon about this vote.  It makes me too sad — and knowing that she’s not going to listen anyway leaves me too frustrated.  But if other of Sharon’s closer and dearer friends might like to hold an “intervention” for her, I wish you good luck.  The rest of us can write her through her official government link.  Take a screenshot if you do.


About Greg Diamond

Somewhat verbose attorney, semi-disabled and semi-retired, residing in northwest Brea. Occasionally ran for office against jerks who otherwise would have gonr unopposed. Got 45% of the vote against Bob Huff for State Senate in 2012; Josh Newman then won the seat in 2016. In 2014 became the first attorney to challenge OCDA Tony Rackauckas since 2002; Todd Spitzer then won that seat in 2018. Every time he's run against some rotten incumbent, the *next* person to challenge them wins! He's OK with that. Corrupt party hacks hate him. He's OK with that too. He does advise some local campaigns informally and (so far) without compensation. (If that last bit changes, he will declare the interest.) His daughter is a professional campaign treasurer. He doesn't usually know whom she and her firm represent. Whether they do so never influences his endorsements or coverage. (He does have his own strong opinions.) But when he does check campaign finance forms, he is often happily surprised to learn that good candidates he respects often DO hire her firm. (Maybe bad ones are scared off by his relationship with her, but they needn't be.)