Opinion: In today’s pages: Budgets, Bashir and research-bashers
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The editorial board throws its support behind a bill (AB 1411) to hit California legislators where it really hurts when they fail to produce a budget on time: it would ban fundraising and suspend their per diems. That’s a far greater threat to lawmakers than suspending their paychecks, the board declares:
Politicians have to pay their bills like everyone else, but the real coin of their realm is the political donation. Campaign contributions are what keep their eyes on the next office and on each others’ clout with constituent groups and special interests. It is as if people in elected office live on an entirely different type of currency. Gold guineas, perhaps, instead of pounds sterling.
The board also derides the Glendale Unified School District for the penny-wise, pound-foolish move to ban small kitchen appliances in classrooms. And it urges Congress to heed Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s suggestions for revamping regulation of financial markets, while also absorbing the lessons of the Bernie Madoff scandal.
On the Op-Ed page, columnist Tim Rutten defends UCLA researchers against animal welfare extremists, whose efforts he dubs ‘a tantrum masquerading as a movement.’ Author Gustavo Arellano discusses the odd reversal of fortunes for two generations of Mexican immigrants in southern California: ‘The immigrants of my parents’ generation are better off than their educated American kids.’ Finally, former State Department lawyer David Kaye urges the Obama administration to ‘become more engaged’ in the International Criminal Court:
... [E]ngagement with the court is possible, even without joining. The Obama administration’s first job, working with Congress, is to reverse the hostility of the last eight years. Among other things, we should sign back on to the Rome Statute -- a step that merely indicates that the U.S. affirms the ICC’s objectives.