The Real Dirt on Our New Laws

The state motto is “Eureka!” the state flower the golden poppy, the state tree the California redwood. As for state bird, it is neither the California condor nor a familiar salute sometimes used by angry freeway motorists. It’s actually the California valley quail.

And now the so-called Golden State has another official symbol that encyclopedias may note and schoolchildren may learn. As of Jan. 1, “San Joaquin Red” became the official state dirt under a law written by state Sen. Dick Monteith of Modesto.

This must have been a proud day for his constituents, because California has an awful lot of dirt. Why San Joaquin Red and not some tawny grit from the Mojave? Why not some beige powder from a vacant lot in Reseda? Why their dirt and not ours?

Just imagine the cloakroom deals: “Listen, Polanco, you’ve got my vote on ear wax if you’re with me on dirt. . . . Yo, Hertzberg! McClintock! You want me on secession? Well. . .”

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Or maybe it didn’t happen like that. At any rate, it’s always worthwhile to review and reflect upon the new state laws brought into effect with each New Year’s Day.

There was, of course, the new law that prohibited smoking in bars. That was, however, only one of 959 bills that Gov. Pete Wilson signed into law last year. The Times on Thursday published brief descriptions of 110 of them. Some were deemed noteworthy because of their significance, some for other reasons. State Sen. Richard Polanco (D-Los Angeles) really did champion a bill that allows licensed audiologists to legally engage in “planning, directing, conducting, supervising or participating in” removal of patients’ cerumen, also known as ear wax.

What this says about Polanco, his district or hidden power of the audiologists’ lobby, I don’t know. But certainly Monteith’s San Joaquin Red coup says something about the agricultural character of his district. If all politics is local (and what is more local than dirt?), then the laws pushed by our local legislators must say something about the local values.

For our purposes here, we’ll describe this region as “the Greater Valley”--the valleys of San Fernando, Conejo, Santa Clarita and Antelope. Plenty has been written about the bill by Assemblymen Tom McClintock (R-Northridge) and Bob Hertzberg (D-Sherman Oaks) to create a new process for municipal secession. But what about the other laws that emerged from the Greater Valley?

Look over that list of 110 laws and a distinct pattern emerges. Even as the crime rate dropped, Greater Valley lawmakers focused more on a law-and-order agenda than on such areas as public education, the environment, health care, taxes or family-oriented issues. Among 20 laws listed under four overlapping classifications--”Crime, Police and Courts,” “Juvenile Crimes,” “Witness Protection” and “Guns and Other Weapons”--10 were written or co-written by local legislators. I’ll describe a few here.

Perhaps the most ambitious was Hertzberg’s bill for a state witness-relocation program that, like the federal program, would allow the state attorney general to offer relocation and other protection to witnesses who testify in organized crime, drug and gang-related cases.

Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank) wrote a law that would allow police, with Juvenile Court approval, to publicly identify minors being sought for various felonies. He also wrote a law allowing victims of crime by juveniles to submit written statements about the impact of the crime on their lives to judges for sentencing.

Assemblyman Jack Scott (D-Altadena), whose district includes parts of Glendale and the western foothill communities, is credited for a law creating a felony offense for passengers caught with handguns concealed in cars in which they are riding. He also wrote a law that would make it illegal to possess practice military hand grenades that can be altered to explode.

Other law-and-order measures pushed by local reps include McClintock’s bill that ensures immediate family members of murder victims be allowed to witness executions; Sen. Tom Hayden’s (D-Los Angeles) bill requiring the California Youth Authority to buy tattoo-removal laser equipment to help juveniles leaving custody to seek jobs; and Assemblyman George Runner Jr.’s (R-Lancaster) law increasing the fine for battery of a police officer and a public transit driver from $2,000 to $10,000.

A more complete list might reveal another pattern, but the theme still seems to ring true. Here in the increasingly urbanized suburbs, crime is on the front burner--and especially juvenile crime.

Look under “Consumer Protection.” You’ll find another law expressing concern for our infamously wayward youth. It’s now an infraction for anyone to pierce the lip, tongue, nose, eyebrow or body part other than ears of someone younger than 18, unless the child’s parent is present or provides consent in a notarized letter.

Runner wrote that law, one I’d have listed under “Families and Children,” not “Consumer Protection.” Seems to me that only adults should have the unsupervised right to self-mutilation.

Yes, a fine law but overdue. It’s fairly shocking that it hadn’t been enacted and enforced years ago, long before a certain 16-year-old girl I know got her tongue stud. It is, as her family knows, just a symptom of deeper troubles, but parents can use a little more help.

That’s a sentiment embraced, officially, throughout the State of California, but perhaps the need is felt a little more urgently here amid the troubled sprawl of Greater Los Angeles, a place known for people, millions of them, and not for the dirt below.

Scott Harris’ column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. Readers may write to him at The Times’ Valley Edition, 20000 Prairie St., Chatsworth, CA 91311, or via e-mail at scott.harris@latimes.com Please include a phone number.