Please, No ‘Oops’ This Time

Because Brooks Firestone (R-Los Olivos) is a gracious man, he suggests it was not politics but an honest mistake that led Democrats on an Assembly committee to defeat his popular legislation to help parents save for their children’s college educations.

The assemblyman’s bill had zipped along with strong bipartisan support before it ran into a wall in the Appropriations Committee, where some Democrats voted no even though they were listed as co-authors of the legislation. Talk was the Democrats didn’t want Firestone to be able to use the success in a possible campaign for lieutenant governor next year.

Democrats insist the bill just fell through the cracks. Now, they have revived the measure by inserting it, through amendment, into an Assembly-approved measure. It would create a state-run investment pool intended to give parents a larger return than their personal savings would.

This is exactly the sort of program Californians need to help them meet one of the major costs of family life. We trust there will be no more mistakes as the bill continues along its journey to becoming law.