Over 40,000 New Laws. Whatever Happened to Gridlock?

It’s that most wonderful time of the year when I get myself into trouble with some readers simply by pointing out a handful of the staggering number of new laws that have been foisted on Americans in general and Californians in particular as the New Year begins.

How many laws, you ask? Buckle up because there are more than 40,000 new restrictions, regulations and statutes that became law at midnight on Wednesday, Jan. 1, 2014. So much for the so-called gridlock in Washington, DC and other seats of government. (And we know which body part sits in a seat, am I right?)

On the national front, some of the new laws (including some that were passed years ago but did not become law until this year) include one that makes it illegal to produce 40-watt and 60-watt incandescent light bulbs for sale in the USA. This comes after the banning of less frequently used 75- and 100-watt bulbs beginning in 2012. Thank you, control-freak government zealots for keeping us in the dark when it comes to choice.

The mother of all new federal laws, however, that will affect every man, woman and child (not to mention doctors, nurses, hospitals, clinics and medical device manufacturers, to name just a few of those afflicted) is the legislation that dropped on Jan. 1st like the trap door on a gallows; “Obamacare,” officially known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Sadly, with every passing day we’re seeing more incontrovertible evidence that this mind-numbing 10,000-plus-page swamp of legislation protects no one, is neither affordable, nor does it provide any improvements to care (quite the opposite) and everything promised to the American public in order to drum up the slightest modicum of support was, indeed, just an act.

“If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. Period. If you like your health insurance plan, you can keep your health insurance plan. Period.”

Not hardly.

On the state level, there are far too many troubling new laws to begin to cover in this space. Just here in California, for example, the chuckleheads in Sacramento have gone well above and beyond their usual social engineering and legal bullying to inflict more than 800 new laws on citizens of the Golden State. These include the wildly dangerous mandate that students as young as kindergarten must be allowed to use whichever bathroom is consistent with their self-proclaimed gender identity on any given day regardless of what’s listed on their school records or birth certificate. This self-selecting choice also applies to participation in school sports. Think of the implications of such moronic foolishness. Got a daughter in high school? Or a son who wants to visit the girls’ locker rooms unhampered? You can thank Jerry Brown and his bullying band of boneheads for one more parental nightmare to keep you up at night.

Another new law that defies any sense of logic is one that allows the licensing of “qualified” lawyers regardless of their immigration status. In other words, in California you can theoretically practice law even though you are here illegally. Hello … is this thing on?

Finally, and in a delicious irony of timing given the recent reports of local pets being killed and dragged from their backyards by mountain lions, the dangerous beasts have even more legal protection against elimination or even relocation thanks to a new law restriction such actions by California Fish & Wildlife wardens. Drag a beloved family pet out of its own backyard to certain death? No problem. Tranquilize and remove a killer predator from the community? Not so fast, bucko.

I can only explain these and other such legal lunacies with the possibility that California’s legislators must have spent too much time in Colorado where as of Jan. 1 it is okie dokie to buy and consume up to an ounce of marijuana at a time. Rocky Mountain high, indeed.

I’ll see you ’round town.

  Jim Chase