California Just Proved That Progressives Can Score Big Legislative Wins Even Under Trump
Earlier this month, California passed the strictest net neutrality laws of any state in the country, effectively undermining Donald Trump's FCC's efforts to give cable companies unfettered control of consumers' internet access. It was unclear at the time if Governor Jerry Brown would ultimately support it or not, but on Sunday we signed the bill into law. And immediately, in a testament to the conservative commitment to small government, the Justice Department announced that it would sue the state.
Per The Verge:
As the most populous US state and home to many of the world’s largest tech companies, California’s net neutrality rules, passed into law Sunday, hold significant sway. The DoJ lawsuit is likely to become a key test of the federal government’s net neutrality legislation, establishing whether states have any right to enact their own rules that go against those imposed at the national level.
The potential for a huge showdown with Donald Trump and two of his most loathed underlings, Jeff Sessions and Ajit Pai, is a real headline-grabber, but it also eclipses a lot of other big news out of California that should excite progressives.
For one thing, California signaled to automakers on Friday that it was moving forward with enforcing Obama-era emissions standards regardless of whether or not the Trump administration chooses to roll them back federally, which it looks poised to do. On Saturday, Brown signed new gun control legislation that, among other things, raises the minimum age for gun ownership from 18 to 21. Also on Sunday, a new law went into effect requiring all publicly traded companies headquartered in the state to have at least a single woman on their board by the end of 2019.
It wasn't all good news for progressives though: Brown also vetoed a plan for supervised injection sites, which is an extremely effective way to prevent opiate overdoses, and reached an agreement to keep the state's National Guard working with the Trump administration on the Mexican border for another six months.
But those questionable decisions notwithstanding, this weekend California demonstrated what a legislature can do when it's run neither by the GOP nor Democrats too preoccupied with desperately trying to convince Republicans to get on board. In states and districts that are safely blue, Democrats can push for big ideas and policies that both work as models for other legislatures and shift the Overton window back toward the left after literally decades of Republicans jerking it their way.
And that it all happened in California is further evidence that claims that the U.S. is "too big" for quick, substantial reform on multiple fronts at once; California has a bigger population than Canada and is one of the biggest economies in this hemisphere. Besides, look how many fires Trump's cabinet and the Republican Congress have started in just the last two years.
