Susan Shelley: The ‘final straw’ for innovation in California

“This is the final straw,” wrote Elon Musk on his X platform. “Because of this law and many others that preceded it, attacking both families and companies, SpaceX will now move its HQ from Hawthorne, California, to Starbase, Texas.”

The straw that broke it was Assembly Bill 1955, described in the text of the bill as an act “relating to pupil rights.” From another perspective, it’s an act relating to parental rights. More specifically, an act that removed them, probably in violation of the U.S. Constitution.

AB 1955 prohibits the enactment or enforcement of any policy, rule or administrative regulation that requires a school employee or contractor to disclose “any information related to a pupil’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression” to any other person without the pupil’s consent.

It was titled the “Support Academic Futures and Education for Today’s Youth Act.” It would have been more accurately titled the “Keep Secrets from Parents Act.”

The same law requires the California Department of Education to develop or update resources for “the support of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and questioning (LGBTQ) pupils” along with strategies to increase this support.

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed AB 1955 on July 15. Musk’s reference to “many others that preceded it” may have included a bill Newsom signed in 2022,  Senate Bill 107. It was intended to expand access to “gender-affirming care” for children younger than 18 who were barred from receiving it in their home states. “Gender-affirming care” may include a range of interventions, including drugs that suppress puberty and surgeries that can cause the lifelong loss of fertility and sexual function.

Or Musk could have meant this one: in 2023 Newsom signed AB 665, which allows children as young as 12 to check themselves into a residential mental health shelter, and also allows a list of “professional persons” including a “clinical counselor trainee” and a “social work intern” to decide that the parents will not be told that their child is there.

On the false premise that parents should be presumed hostile to their child’s best interests, the state of California has created a path for children to enter public school at age 4 or 5 and immediately begin receiving services from teachers and counselors that “support” their “gender expression.“ At age 12, kids can be “helped” into a residential shelter. And parents won’t be told about any of it. As a bonus, California will hide the details of medical care from parents in other states.

What does any of this have to do with a rocket company in Hawthorne?

Well, imagine you’re trying to hire people from all around the world to come to California and work in your enterprise. Imagine these potential employees have families. Now imagine these employees discovering that California’s public schools have abysmal academic performance records, but instead of improving basic teaching, the schools are required by state law to spend their time “supporting” the gender expression of elementary students while keeping the discussion and the outcome secret from parents.

Texas doesn’t do that, and it also doesn’t have a state income tax.

Factors contributing to California’s putrid business climate now go beyond taxes, regulations and a well-established reputation as a judicial hellhole. Add “schools keep secrets from parents” to the list.

Certainly all children should be protected from harm. The problem with these laws is that no evidence or allegation of harm is required before revoking parental rights. Parents are presumed to be a source of harm, while school employees and contractors are presumed not to be. That’s obviously not a standard that reliably protects children.

How do laws like this pass in the first place?

In December 2018, outgoing Gov. Jerry Brown gave an “exit interview” to NPR and said this: “The weakness of the Republican Party has let the Democratic Party, I think, go get further out than I think the majority of people want.”

There’s evidence to back him up. At the same time that Californians were electing Democratic majorities if not super-majorities, they were seeking to shake up the political system to get some new people elected. Voters passed term limits, citizen redistricting, and a new voter-nominated top-two primary system that sought to limit party influence.

But these changes didn’t get to the heart of the problem, which is that public employee unions have become the most powerful force in California politics, and they run things along with their ideological and activist allies.

Pro-business candidates are financially orphaned because businesses are held like hostages, threatened with exclusion from “the table” when the portions are carved up.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

Elon Musk’s ejection seat is one option, but another path would actually solve the problem instead of escaping from it.

All that’s needed for California to be rational again is an aggressive effort to break through the weakest points in the incumbent supermajority. The problem of the Democratic Party going “further out” than the voters want can be solved with checks and balances, by recruiting and supporting rational candidates in many districts and super-funding the ones with the best chance to win. Surrendering to entrenched nihilism is not productive.

In the meantime, the Chino Valley Unified School District, represented by the nonprofit Liberty Justice Center, has filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of AB 1955. California voters have the power of referendum as well. If someone was willing to pay the cost of collecting 546,651 valid voter signatures within 90 days, the pending referendum would halt the implementation of the law until voters can weigh in at the next statewide general election.

But this is a wider problem than any one bill. The state government is sailing away on a sea of egotistical recklessness, with every new wave of taxes, debt and zealotry drowning more of the passengers in the lower decks. Time for an intervention.

Write Susan@SusanShelley.com and follow her on Twitter @Susan_Shelley