Patterico's Pontifications

9/20/2018

The California Nanny State (Nearly) Dictates Statewide School Starting Times

Filed under: General — JVW @ 6:47 pm



[guest post by JVW]

Earlier today, Governor Jerry Brown vetoed a bill that had been duly passed by the Democrat-dominated state legislature which would have prohibited middle schools and high schools in the state from commencing classes any earlier than 8:30 am. This legislation had passed the Assembly by a fairly close 41-34 margin (with five abstentions) and the Senate by a more healthy 23-14 margin (with three abstentions). The narrowness of the Assembly vote suggests there thankfully won’t be much appetite for trying to override Brown’s veto.

Heaven forbid that local school districts make decisions based upon the needs of their own families, rather than the legislature imposing a one-size-fits-all solution. This is what it’s like living in California in 2018. Now that the problems of homelessness, pensions, unaffordable housing, poverty, and crumbling infrastructure have been solved, the legislature can start micromanaging morning start times for sleepy teenagers.

This is an increasingly rare case of Governor Brown being Good Jerry, the pragmatic sole adult in the room (or, more pointedly, in the Democrat caucus room). Once in a while he has managed to rise above his manifest weirdness and shoot down some of the more puzzling flights of fancy upon which his legislative allies regularly embark. But Moonbeam is leaving us in January, and I for one have zero faith that a Democrat successor like Gavin Newsom won’t gladly indulge the Sacramento nutcases and sign these ridiculous bills into law. As crazy as it sounds, we will soon come to miss Jerry Brown here in the Golden State.

Sic transit gloria Californiae.

– JVW


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