California Assembly Elects Gay Speaker; Unions Rejoice
I wish I could be as sanguine about the the election of the firmly openly gay Speaker of the California Assembly as I am about the first openly lesbian Mayor of the City of Houston. And while I have met Assemblyman John Pérez, an openly gay Latino Democrat from Los Angeles elected by his fellow partisans to preside over the state’s lower house, I don’t have great hopes that he’ll initiate the kind of reforms we need here in the Golden State.
Pérez is certainly a very nice man with a polished presence, but he’s also the favorite of the state’s unions. According to the biography on his his campaign’s web-site, he spent the 15 years prior to his election to the General Assembly “working for labor unions, most recently serving as UFCW (United Food and Commercial Workers International Union) political director.“ Wikipedia identifies his as a “union organizer“. Just what we need another “organizer” in a position of political power.
Don’t think he’ll be standing up to those public employee unions who, while one in eight Californians are out of work, with employees in the private sector taking pay cuts to keep their jobs, continue to fight for higher wages for the already highly paid state employees. Those unions will continue siphon off a hefty portion of their members’ salaries to fill their coffers, replenish the war chests of state Democrats and campaign for higher taxes.
I would wager that Pérez was elected to such a powerful position so early in his legislative tenure (he was first elected only last year), in large part, due to backing from public employee unions who wield the power behind the various Democratic Party thrones in Sacramento. They know that a man who cut his political teeth in union activism would not join the growing chorus of Californians upset at that power. Indeed, thanks to that power–and the unwillingness of California politicians to challenge it, our state is in one heck of a fiscal mess.
His election may be a historic milestone for gay Americans, but it’s also a sign that Democrats in the California Assembly are in the pocket of the state public employee unions and a guarantee that the fiscal problems which have plagued this state won’t get any better. In fact, they are likely to get worse. Much worse.
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A gay man, and a champion of the working class! And a “very nice man” to boot. Fantastic news.
Comment by Tano — December 14, 2009 @ 9:19 am - December 14, 2009
It is ironic,
Two elected represenatives, and while ‘we’ (meaning the small community of posters here on GP) accept that their sexual preference is a component of their personalities worth noting, our host’s primary concern is the agendas of the two individuals, not their choice of bedmates.
Defiantely a victory of the conservative value of judging someone by the content of their characters.
Comment by The_Livewire — December 14, 2009 @ 9:34 am - December 14, 2009
Cont.
Compare and contrast that with the post of certain Trolls Annoying with No Opinions of their own. They celebrate the one candidate’s sexuality first, then can’t say anything nice about the one they disagree with.
Comment by The_Livewire — December 14, 2009 @ 9:38 am - December 14, 2009
CA’s employee unions are truly job-destroyers, having sucked the life out of CA’s economy. Thus, Perez is truly an enemy of the poor and an enemy of working people.
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — December 14, 2009 @ 10:18 am - December 14, 2009
I salute Annise Parker, her fiscal position will be what matters in Houston. I’m sure she is very happy to go home to a loving partner – but that will have little effect on her constituents.
Perez on the other hand, will destroy some more CA businesses with union rules. but hey, he’s gay so those newly jobless people should be very happy at the turn of events.
Comment by Leah — December 14, 2009 @ 11:45 am - December 14, 2009
What a surprise — Tano supports and endorses the person who believes in massive tax increases to give already-overpaid and unproductive government workers salary and benefit increases.
That shouldn’t surprise anyone, given that Tano is paid illegally by the US government to propagandize for his Barack Obama and the Obama Party on websites. It’s just another example of how Barack Obama breaks the laws as he sees fit — particularly disgusting in this case, because Tano, as he has bragged, is paid by the Department of Health and Human Services. Literally, money is being taken away from disease prevention, health management, and providing care to those who genuinely can’t afford it so that pathetic Tano can propagandize and spread lies for his Barack Obama.
Comment by North Dallas Thirty — December 14, 2009 @ 12:28 pm - December 14, 2009
A “champion of the working class” is one who’s a champion for enriching union bosses at the EXPENSE of the “working class”. All unions are good for is keeping the incompetent employed.
Comment by ThatGayConservative — December 14, 2009 @ 12:51 pm - December 14, 2009
Tano: Why does this man’s sexuality matter one bit if, unlike what you claim, he is going to continue to the same nonsense which has gotten California into the mess they find themselves in? “Champion of the middle class” my foot. Run businesses out of state, destroy jobs while hiking up the tax rate – NONE of this makes one a “champion of the middle class”, if anything it makes them their enemy!
Comment by John — December 14, 2009 @ 3:28 pm - December 14, 2009
You forget, John, you’re talking to an Obama Party member.
It’s not what you do, it’s what minority status you are. If you are not a minority, everything is your fault, and if you are a minority, nothing is.
Therefore, Perez can run the state’s economy completely into the ground (granted, it hasn’t far to go), impose ridiculous taxes to give gold-plated benefits and salary increases to lazy government workers, and still be hailed as a champion of the “working class”.
Union members claim to be “workers”, but honestly, the only thing unions support and endorse is being paid for NOT working.
Comment by North Dallas Thirty — December 14, 2009 @ 6:47 pm - December 14, 2009
[...] California legislators electing a union acolyte as their new Speaker of the House, the odds for reforms beneficial to small business are next to nil. And our legislators in [...]
Pingback by GayPatriot » Small Business Bankruptcies Way Up in Golden State — December 23, 2009 @ 2:54 pm - December 23, 2009
Agree with all the comments regarding unions.
What really gets me is how most union members somehow feel they represent the middle class???
And what really infuriates me is how most union members somehow feel they’re “underpaid” when compared to their private sector counterparts…
Comment by Dee — February 25, 2010 @ 6:44 pm - February 25, 2010