Assemblyman, San Diego mayoral candidate, and Rostrafarian Nathan Fletcher was named Wednesday as chairman of a new jobs creation committee by Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez.
That Fletcher, from San Diego, is a Republican, while Pérez, from Los Angeles, is a Democrat, is remarkable. Typically, committees are chaired by members of the majority party. Why Fletcher and not a Democrat? I’m sure our informed political readership will explain it to me.
Nathan Fletcher takes a question at a press conference announcing creation of a new Assembly jobs committee
Here’s my North County Times blog post about the new Select Committee on Job Creation for the New Economy. The post includes MP3 audio from the press conference and much more.
And here’s my article about it.
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It should also be noted that for all the talk about Sapphire Energy (where the press conference took place) being headquartered in La Jolla, they opened their refinery in . . . New Mexico. That happens quite often with so-called “green companies”. The HQ is in California, the majority of blue collar manufacturing jobs, in other states.
Lets not kid ourselves. This committee won’t change a thing. They’ll produce a lot of smoke and hot air about what is wrong and come up with a few proposals that won’t make a dent in the unemployment rate and even less in terms of lowering the cost of business. However, it will allow them to go in front of the voters and say who much of an effort they made to increase jobs,
If the state creates any jobs, it will be in the government and semi-government (a.k.a. nonprofit) sector. Or maybe in some favored industry, using government subsidies. Building sports stadiums, for instance.
It’s not that the committee will make bad recommendations — it’s just that any sensible recommendations will be ignored by the union-controlled state legislature.
Lt. Gov. Newsom is also working on some sort of jobs creation deal. His includes forming a new state department to help…which will only get in the way, slow things down and cost us more money. We’ve already moved one of our companies – a technology company to New Mexico, and have completely eliminated any association for that company with California.
Now I am not going to quibble about California vs. other states. But Saphire’s new Mexico decision is actually really interesting (and also shows the limits of trying to make sense of state competitive issues by looking at ONE company). Plus it is a great factoid to bore your dinner guests with.
One of the things you need to grow biofuels is water. And New Mexico, believe it or not, sits on a huge aquifer – but which is too saline to be used for ground farming or irrigation. So essentially it is “free”. New Mexico, in case you don’t know, also has vast amounts of free land and lots of sunshine. So it is pretty darn ideal place to grow algae. My understanding is that water in Imperial County wasn’t “free” and that while land was cheap it was even cheaper in NM – a state markedly poorer than CA.
As with other issues, the differences could not be clearer…
Fletcher celebrates the creation of another study committee comprised of career politicians…but provides zero concrete proposals.
DeMaio releases a report filled with a detailed set of proposals, and taps 15 business owners and leaders to help implement and devise more.
Go Carl Go,
I don’t know the answer, but it might be interesting to find out how many of those 15 business owners have contributed to DeMaio’s campaign.
Go Carl Go,
I found the answer: 9 of the 15 members of the task force are already donors to DeMaio’s campaign and six of those gave the maximum $500.
The key phrase is “Select committee”. Select Committees are a running joke in Sacramento . They rarely produce any legislation. Their main function is to provide photo ops and TV exposure for mean-nothing hearings in the home media market of each committee member. Imagine! Cynicism and empty gestures from our state legislature.
Bradley J. Fikes:
Why Fletcher and not a Democrat? I’m sure our informed political readership will explain it to me.”
Why did powerful Democrat Assy. Speaker John A. Perez give not so powerful Republican Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher chairmanship of a “Select Committee” which will basically provide a PR platform for Fletcher in his run for SD mayor? What is the quid pro quo? Or what was the quid pro quo? Why is Fletcher the left’s favorite Republican?
That is the issue.