On Monday, the Supreme Court declined to take on a case about how the city of Boise, Idaho, treats its homeless citizens, leaving in place a ruling that says it’s unconstitutional to punish people for sleeping outdoors if the city lacks alternatives.

The justices turned away Martin v. Boise, a case where a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals panel ruled that Boise’s practice of citing homeless people for camping outdoors violated the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishments since these people did not have alternative shelter options.

This doesn’t mean that people can just choose to sleep on sidewalks and in parks if they want to, but rather that a city cannot punish homeless people for camping in public space if the city has not provided enough shelter for them. It’s a ruling about shelters and housing, not an acknowledgment of some sort of right to live on public land.

The city of Boise has since changed its ordinances to state that they won’t be enforced against homeless people when shelters are full. But the Supreme Court’s refusal to take the case leaves big cities with large homeless populations along the West Coast (where the Ninth Circuit rules) with a clear message that they can’t use the law to try to run their homeless population out of town—the only way out is to build.

That’s a problem in places like Los Angeles and San Francisco, where overly meddlesome regulations and demands from the state and the cities make it very, very hard (if not impossible) for private developers to build any housing at all, let alone affordable housing for the poor. Expensive labor requirements drive up costs, and unions threaten environmental lawsuits against developers who don’t contract with them. There’s also the issue of homeowners who will lobby their local council members and city planners to block new housing or businesses (or turn to California’s overly broad environmental law to sue them, if lobbying fails).

It’s particularly telling that the Los Angeles Times describes this outcome as a “setback” for city officials in Los Angeles and elsewhere for getting rid of homeless encampments. Even though the city has committed more than $1 billion to build housing for its massive homeless population, resistance from within neighborhoods themselves have made it nearly impossible, and even where it is possible, regulatory and bureaucratic hurdles have made it absurdly expensive, approaching $700,000 a unit. …

Click here to read the full article from Reason.com

Real words no longer have the meanings we have been taught in school or are listed in a dictionary.  The “woke” crowd have changed the meaning of words, to make the words less threatening.  Or then making new definitions for the words—so that educated people do not know what is really being said.  For instance:

“Biodiversity. Biodiversity Excludes Humans. Biodiversity seeks a large, unchanging, and static number of biological species except for one species, human beings. Biodiversity seeks to minimize human presence, habitat, mobility, health and existence. Advocates of biodiversity ban killing mosquitoes, expand species populations, limit family sizes, and control human populations–abortion, infanticide, gendercide.

Manmade biodiversity, horticulture, animal breeding, hybrid plants, Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs), e.g. productive agriculture feeding billions of human beings, is bad.”

You read that right—the killing of mosquito’s is bad based on biodiversity—but killing babies is OK.  Bet you never knew Democrats are protective of mosquito s and hateful toward babies.

Glossary: The Green Regime’s Eco-Speak.

By Dr. Roger B. Canfield, 12/17.19 

excerpt from Death by Ecology; Killing California, America Next  (https://www.amazon.com/author/rogercanfield 

)

The Green Regime has its own language, a politically correct distortion of language and reality to fit its ideological war on western civilization and capitalism. It is a language of ignorance and deceit, just like Orwellian Doublespeak and Newspeak. In Doublespeak, language is deliberately euphemistic, ambiguous, or obscure. Newspeak is doublespeak carrying political propaganda. In Orwell’s 1984, the Ministry of Truth promoted lies. Orwell’s ruling one party state declared War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength. Dissenting ideas were thought crimes.

Similarly, the language of the Green Regime strays far from logic, facts and reality. Ordinary words take on new meanings. Criticisms of the ideology rise to the level of thought crimes, religious heresy, disaster denials, or even hate speech (Environmental justice).

Below an alphabetical sample of eco-speak.

***

Access. Freedom is Mobility Denied.Access to high-density, high-rise (Soviet style) housing and public transit is virtuous. Actual access to cars, parking, single-family homes, commuting and designated “public” areas is prohibited, restricted or limited. Environmentally correct access abhors excessive mobility, freedom, and automobiles. Promoters of “access” routinely deny humans access to the safe spaces and habitat of other species in public forests, parks, monuments, wildernesses and scenic areas.

Big. Big is Evil. In environmental usage Big is a euphemism for evil as in Big Business, particularly Big Oil, Big Chemical, Big Pharma, Big Pesticide, Big Lumber, Big Diaper, Big Beverage, etc. Big is synonymous with corporate, capitalist, e.g. corporate agriculture. Big is the code name for the most evil thing, capitalism.  

Biodiversity. Biodiversity Excludes Humans. Biodiversity seeks a large, unchanging, and static number of biological species except for one species, human beings. Biodiversity seeks to minimize human presence, habitat, mobility, health and existence. Advocates of biodiversity ban killing mosquitoes, expand species populations, limit family sizes, and control human populations–abortion, infanticide, gendercide.

Manmade biodiversity, horticulture, animal breeding, hybrid plants, Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs), e.g. productive agriculture feeding billions of human beings, is bad.   

Capitalism. Freedom is Slavery. Capitalism is a stale and stagnant thing poisoning air, water, land and species for profit at the expense of the common good. Key elements of capitalism, individual freedom, private property and profits ought to be limited, confiscated, fined and taxed. 

Eco-speak turns upside down the wisdom of Frederick Douglass, to whom individual freedom was the answer to the real stagnant thing, slavery.  

CARB. All There is to Fear is Air Itself. California Air Resources Board is an Air Force, militantly exercising extreme prejudice against industrialization, manufacturing, irrigation, and small business. Carbon, methane, ozone, and just plain dust make virtually all air dirty and subject to CARB regulation.

Air is no longer free. It must be paid for in taxes, fees, property and regulations. 

CED. Tyranny is Democracy. Campaign for Economic Democracy is socialism by another name advanced by reducing capitalist plunder on the planet. Eco-tyranny will replace capitalist imperialism.

Clean. Green is Clean. Clean is no detectable level of any suspect mineral, chemical or substance in parts per trillion. Clean is cleaner than nature’s own river or spring water. Sewage water is cleaner than municipal drinking water. Summarily convicting corporations for poisoning clean air and clean water generates fear, hysteria and a straight path to political power of the accuser.

Climate. Weather is Bad. Manmade climate change causes undesirable dynamic changes in temperature, sunshine, wind, precipitation. See also the old school term extreme weather. 

Conservation. Less is More.Scarcity is Good. In California, conservation turned abundance resources into scarcity by prohibiting, reducing or rationing water, timber, minerals, e.g.  California’s 55 gallon a day ration of residential water use. Growing food wastes water. Conservation justifies stopping the building of roads, bridges, dams aqueducts, and suburban housing.

Diversion. Diversion is Theft. Diversion is the illegitimate excess human use of water that might otherwise rightfully passing through the gills of fish or the intestines of other wildlife. Humans divert water from suckerfish, salmon and Delta smelt.

It is considered an outrage that in some years, 90 percent of the Tuolumne River is diverted [to San Francisco], leaving only 10 percent for salmon and the Bay-Delta.

Equity. Some Are More Equal Than Others. Equity is dividing water equally, half to 40 million human beings, half to a few protected fish species. Trillions of gallons of “scarce” precious water equivalent to billions of dollars, are flushed past human uses to save handfuls of Delta Smelt. It would be far cheaper to construct fish hatcheries for all DNA varieties of salmon and smelt.

ESA. TheEndangered Species Act(s) of California and the USA are absolutist laws demanding the preservation of hundreds of species and their habitat from humans accused (with scant science) of threatening or endangering them. Environmental researchers typically down play the impacts of such forces of nature as weather and predators upon species and their habitats.  By law, the economic impact of the ESA upon human well-being or property rights may not be used in species preservation decisions.   

Facilitator. Censored Speech is Free Speech. A facilitator is a well-paid manipulator of stakeholder discussions toward a preconceived consensus.

Gas Tax. Grand Theft Auto. A highway user fee collected from those promised to benefit from spending the collected revenue on roads and bridges. Yet over some decades, California, has spent 80% of gas taxes, tolls, sales taxes on gasoline on “public” transit, bike paths, pedestrian crossings, curb cuts all benefiting very few at the expense of the many.  

Green House Gases (GHG). Deadly Vapors.Gases allegedly destroy the ozone layer subjecting human beings to sunburns or skin cancer (over a lifetime). The State of California has “determined” the guilty “greenhouse gases” are Carbon dioxide (CO2), Methane (CH4), Nitrous oxide (N2O), Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), Perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and Sulfur hexafluoride (SF6).

Regulators have left no suspects, from manufacturers to farmers, bakers, and hair salons, free from conviction by accusation. 

Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs). Food is Unsafe. Man’s domestication of wheat, corn. rice, potatoes, fruits, vegetables and cattle, has modified them genetically. The war on GMOs is actually a war on Big Food and Big Chemical. To sow discord, the Russians have widely disseminated anti-GMO propaganda in the USA.

Green. Red is Green. Humpty Dumpty said, “When I use a word ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.” What’s now called green was once openly authoritarian socialist, communist party red, and Nazi red and black. The Old Left red remains under green camouflage.

Irrespective of facts, the green regime arbitrarily defines what is green and what is not. Hence, the low emissions of natural gas compared to coal or oil and the actual zero emissions of nuclear power and of hydroelectric power are arbitrarily rejected as green or clean by the Green Regime. Facts do not matter. 

Habitat. Private Property is Theft. Air, land and sea is set aside for species to insure their protection from human beings. Designated species, given habitat, receive it from human housing, farming, lumbering, mining, and recreation. Habitat for humanity is condemned and limited

Housing. Do Not build It and They Will Go Away. Human housing is an unfortunate human desecration of soil, land and wildlife habitat. Suburban housing also violates the most enlightened aesthetic and enlightened sensibilities– e.g. ticky-tacky suburban housing tracts. Further, no growth, low growth and slow growth, and restrictive zoning have spectacularly succeeded in reducing housing supplies, making housing unaffordable for most Californians and stimulated mass evacuations.

Management. The Memo is Everything. The administration of processes and people contemplating problems, solutions and alternatives, but doing little about them, e.g. flood management displaces the actual building of flood control projects. No dams, levees, weirs, or flood plains, protecting human life and property, are built. Ideally, human habitat is prohibited or people are relocated from low ground where water flows. Human civilization has long been located close to water on flat ground and swamps were drained and filled in accommodate human habitation.

Forest management does little to manage the forest except to lecture and blame others for how little is done. 

Mitigation. Theft is Justice.Those presumed guilty of damaging theenvironment are required to mitigation, make amends, for their alleged violations of the environment. Mitigation is usually takes the form of taking cash or property in the form of extortions of high fines, fees and taxes and the taking of private property often without due process or compensation. 

Natural. Nature Good, Chemicals Bad. Environmentalists have a static, fixed view of nature whether it climate, species, foods and human bodies. Human modifications of climate, species and foods are dangerous.

“Natural” foods are free of chemicals and processing. Yet natural foods are not nutritionally different from other foods. Of course, all food preparation is some form of processing—washing, slicing, dicing, spicing, culturing, fermenting, cooking etc. Because foods are mostly safe and nutritious, the Food and Drug Administration sees no need for health standards for foods with tiny traces of chemicals.

Organic. Safe Food is Chemical Free. All things, animal, vegetable and mineral are chemical. There is no such thing as inorganic food. Lifeless dirt in inedible. All food is organic. Food designated organic is largely a consumer fraud detrimental not only to one’s pocketbook, but also to the health and nutrition of people terrified of safe food. Heavy regulations born, like Rosemary’s Baby, out of the anti-pesticide hysteria campaigns insured fresh fruits and vegetables became too expensive for poor people to buy.

Planning. The Plan is Final. Environmental planning is typicallyconsumed inthe writing of massive environmental reports, process memos, and the building of bureaucracies to achieve some ideal of things seldom possible or lethargically done, e.g. super fund cleanups, supposedly presenting great dangers to human health, take decades to cleanup, but provided long careers for a few bureaucrats.   

Progress. Progress is Moving Backwards.Progress demands halting industrialization, manufacturing, mining and farming and limiting growth, automobiles, suburban housing, water, and electricity. Going nowhere really slow is progress, a bullet train from Bakersfield to Merced.

Public Transportation. Neither Public Nor Transit. The public writ large avoids it and it transports close to no one.   

“Pure Water.” The Pure Water program recycles toilet water, both to replace water from Carmel River to save species and as an alternative to desalination polluting the salty Pacific Ocean. 

School Bond. Grand Theft Schooling. Money, collected and promised to build or repair student classrooms for schools with declining enrollments, is used instead to pay and office bureaucrats and to fund bankrupted teacher retirement systems. California has the best-paid teachers and administrators and the worst schools dedicated to environmental and progressive indoctrination.

Science. Science is Religious Orthodoxy. Science is whatever research governments, NGOs and foundations decide to fund. The 99% science occurs where the money goes. The Green regime deems, declares, denier and capitalist scientific research is just heresy. 

Smart. Stupid is Smart. Smart on crime means releasing all criminals or redefining down, decriminalizing, murder, rape, assaults and theft. Similarly, smart environmentalism opposes housing, the automobile, dams, aqueducts, roads, bridges. The smart environmentalist deplores all the advances of human civilization from agriculture to logging, trade, money, mining, industrialization and manufacturing.

Stakeholder. Crony Consensus. A stakeholder is a person or an organization selectively invited to participate in amicable rule making and in administrative law decisions. Those who might object, ordinary citizens or their elected representatives, are not informed of or not invited to help decide. Tight agendas and long meetings discourage and exhaust those who show up uninvited.

Sustainable. Sustainable is the Unattainable. To sustain a thing is to keep it static, the same. Neither Nature nor economics follow the doctrine of sustainability. Environmentalists dismiss dynamic natural forces such as the sun, earthquakes, and floods.  The dynamics of economic growth and technological innovations are often condemned.

The purest environmentalism is a utopian end state of no species extinctions and the absence of bad weather. The sustainability of species does not include the well-being of human species. The human species is only tolerated living and working at subsistence levels as low- income baristas, maids, chauffeurs, cooks. Such creatures are privileged to serve a leisure class usually given access to nature off limits to most others.

Sustainability was originally a compromise concept allowing “good development” of third world countries, while the rest of the world wound down growth, industrialization, and population.   

Takings. We Shall Steal is the first environmental commandment:. Environmentalists are very concerned with the taking of the lives and habitats of protected species. Such takings of species are ruthlessly prosecuted through the taking of private property with minimal due process under the 14^th Amendment and without just compensation under the Fifth Amendment. Radical losses of the value of private property are routine.

Transportation. Going Nowhere Slow with High Costs and Low Benefits. “Public” transit is moving proportionately small numbers of persons short distances by all manner of trains, buses and bicycles, but not automobiles.

The best transportation for the environment is the most primitive for humans–hiking, biking, walking, and busing. California Republican leader Ross Johnson once said he was willing to spend billions on roads and bridges, but not a nickel on “transportation.”

The principal exception is billions spent on a bullet train, if ever built, going very, very fast from nowhere to nowhere, Bakersfield to Modesto.

Visionary. Fantasies are Visionary. The description the California Coastal Commission gave to San Diego’s no parking plan was “visionary,” a delusional fantasy. San Diego is over budgets for bikeways.

Vehicles Miles Traveled. VTM. Have Car Cannot Travel. The ideal is zero vehicle miles traveled. Dense housing, public transit, bike paths and pedestrian walkways replace car miles traveled.

Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs). Evil Vapors Are Everywhere, particularly in gas stations, body shops, hair salons and bakeries. VOCsare gases, smells, scents, often formaldehyde, emitted in paints, resins and coatings. Exposure is irritating to the senses and ought to be avoided.

Yet enviros have stimulated medieval fears of unseen things, vapors, as imaginary causes of multiple diseases usually by mere statistical association and over hum,an lifetimes during which other things can happen including nothing at all. 

Water Bond. Grand Theft Water. A promise to build new water storage, with only 12% of bond funds borrowed actually used to store water during wet years and to move water from the wet north to the dry south of California.   

Weather. Old school term used to describe changes in temperature, precipitation, wind speeds etc replaced by “climate” usually modified by cooling, warming or changing. Overlooking sun spot cycles, magnetic fields, volcanos, earthquakes and ocean currents, climate alarmists explain naturally occurring extremes in weather as entirely the result of manmade changes in climate.

Zero Emission Vehicles. ZEV. The Future of Mobility is Immobility. Many are led to believe electric cars are run by “clean” electricity produced by the sun and wind. In fact, electricity generated from natural gas, coal, oil, nuclear and hydroelectric power plants charge most car batteries. Generating electricity from burning fuels produces emissions. There is no such thing as a “zero” emission vehicle, until ancient sailing skills are returned.

Not doing a voter registration drive since March, 2013 is having its effect on the Republican Party and its candidates.  It can be starkly seen in the Orange County 37^th District.  In just three years, the District gained 1% Democrats and lost 4% Republican.  What could it have been if the GOP had been diligently working in that time?  Why 2020 is possibly the last time the GOP is relevant in California?  The conscious decision NOT to register voters.

Scott Lay, in the NOONER

“October 24, 2016: 30.95% Democratic, 39.42% Republican, 25.12% no party preference

October 1, 2019: 31.96% Democratic, 35.27% Republican, and 27.87% no party preference.”

While this article is about one district, last week I noted the same problem in several congressional, state senate and assembly districts due to the lack of voter registration.  We are paying the price of bad policy—and continue to do so, since we still are not doing a serious voter registration drive led by the CRP.

“BATTLE STATION” IN THE OC: The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee yesterday opened a “battle station” in Irvine, reports Brooke Skaggs in the OC Register. While the DCCC is working to defend the four seats the party flipped in 2018, the additional organizing likely will be a boost to the party’s efforts to flip Senate District 37, where John M.W. Moorlach will be seeking re-election.

Registration in the district has shifted significantly since 2016.

• October 24, 2016: 30.95% Democratic, 39.42% Republican, 25.12% no party preference
• October 1, 2019: 31.96% Democratic, 35.27% Republican, and 27.87% no party preference.

Democrats challenging Moorlach are Costa Mesa mayor Katrina Foley and UC Irvine law professor Dave Min. Min placed in third in 2018 for CA45.

Gavin Newsom won in the district 50.2-49.8% and Katie Porter (D) defeated Mimi Walters in the largely overlapping CA45 by a 52.1-47.9% vote. SD37 has the beach cities in it, which also now have a Democrat in Congress and the State Assembly with Harley Rouda and Cottie Petrie-Norris, respectively.

This is an interesting question:  What happened to the 152,000 children that left Medi-Cal in 2018?  It could be they got out of poverty, left the State for a cheaper State, deported—most are illegal aliens.  It is interesting to note the Assembly Democrats and Guv Newsom have agreed to spend $98 million MORE for illegal aliens to get free health care.  But Senate Democrats have not agreed yet.  Oh, while spending more on illegal aliens, they will NOT help honest California seniors—they will not get increased benefits.  That means the Democrats are financing health care for illegal aliens by DENYING better health care for honest California seniors.

“It’s not yet clear whether these children have lost health insurance coverage altogether, or enrolled in private insurance plans. Health policy advocates and the report’s authors say it’s likely that at least some of decline is a result of wary immigrant families pulling eligible children out of government health insurance programs. Federal attempts to undermine Affordable Care Act reforms, such as by removing the individual mandate for people to enroll in health insurance, may also play a role, they said.

“The loss is alarming,” said Michael Odeh, health policy director for Children Now, a children’s health advocacy group. “We’ve seen an uptick in the number of uninsured kids from other data, so this declining enrolment and lowering of participation in Medi-Cal is truly concerning.”

What is alarming is that Democrats prefer to use your tax dollar to help here illegally, while holding back care for honest citizens—that is alarming.  It is also alarming that the media refuses to tell the public about Democrat Priorities.

As More California Kids Drop Medi-Cal Coverage, Experts Seek Answers

By Claudia Boyd-Barrett, California Health Report,  6/5/19   

More than 150,000 California children dropped out of federally funded health insurance programs in 2018, a trend some experts blame on the Trump administration’s anti-immigrant policies and efforts to upend the Affordable Care Act.

Enrollment in California’s low-income health program, called Medi-Cal, and the low-cost Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) dropped 3 percent in 2018, according to a report by the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families. That’s a total of 152,515 children leaving the two programs.

The enrollment drop follows stagnation in California’s uninsured rate among kids in 2017, reversing years of growth in health coverage rates following implementation of the Affordable Care Act.

It’s not yet clear whether these children have lost health insurance coverage altogether, or enrolled in private insurance plans. Health policy advocates and the report’s authors say it’s likely that at least some of decline is a result of wary immigrant families pulling eligible children out of government health insurance programs. Federal attempts to undermine Affordable Care Act reforms, such as by removing the individual mandate for people to enroll in health insurance, may also play a role, they said.

“The loss is alarming,” said Michael Odeh, health policy director for Children Now, a children’s health advocacy group. “We’ve seen an uptick in the number of uninsured kids from other data, so this declining enrolment and lowering of participation in Medi-Cal is truly concerning.”

California’s loss of young Medicaid and CHIP enrollees is part of a national trend. Across the country, more than 820,000 children left the programs last year, the Georgetown report found.

The California Department of Health Care Services attributed the decline to improvements in the economy and the state’s low unemployment rate. In a statement, department spokesman Anthony Cava said it’s likely more families are gaining job-based health insurance and earn too much to qualify for Medi-Cal.

“Medi-Cal enrollment is typically counter cyclical.  During economic downturns, enrollment rises as individuals may see declines in income and/or the loss of jobs that provide for health care coverage. This can create a demand for Medi-Cal coverage,” he wrote. “Conversely, during economic expansions, the demand for Medi-Cal coverage declines, as job opportunities and incomes increase.”

But report co-author Edwin Park, aresearch professor at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy, said economic growth is not enough to explain the drop in enrollment. Although enrollment in Medi-Cal and CHIP typically slows during a strong economy, it’s unusual for it to go down, he said. What’s more, the loss of children in the programs is happening across the country, even in states where the unemployment rate is stagnant or has increased, Park added.

“There weren’t any particularly noteworthy changes in economic indicators in (2018) that could explain a sudden reduction in the number of people eligible or a big increase in alternative forms of coverage like employer-sponsored insurance,” he said.

Pending bills in the state legislature to reinstate the individual mandate and to make health insurance more affordable could help keep more children insured, Park said. The state should also double down on outreach to low-income and immigrant families to reassure them it’s safe to enroll their children in Medi-Cal and to educate them on the benefits of having health care, he and Odeh said.

Nevertheless, Park said the data shows California can “only do so much,” in the face of hostile federal policies.

“The national headwinds were hard and likely were contributing to the Medicaid and CHIP enrolment decline in 2018,” he said.

Kids without insurance “may end up in poor health, do worse in school and over the long term have poorer health and other life achievement outcomes than they would if they had health coverage,” he said. “These are all very troubling, worrisome signs.”

Really?  A big issue in Sacramento—created by the Democrats is whether STRIPPERS should be considered employees or independent contractors.  We have failed government education, worst roads and streets in the nation, 12 million people in poverty—I could go on, but you get the point.  Now a San Diego Democrat Assembly member has decided strippers need protection.  It reminds me of a Federal study, $500,000 spent on it—“Why do San Francisco prostitutes use drugs”.  Really!  The answer is obvious—they are prostitutes.  But, some love to spend the money—really a payoff for political support among academia.

“Strippers, including Stormy Daniels, have strutted to the forefront of the vibrant worker classification debate in California.

They have done so in part through lawsuits asserting exotic dancers should be treated as employees rather independent contractors, and San Diego Superior Court has been one key venue for the litigation seeking to expose strip clubs’ alleged unlawful practices.

A class-action complaint filed here last year targeted alleged worker misclassification by Las Vegas-based Deja Vu Services Inc., which operates dozens of strip clubs nationwide, including Deja Vu Showgirls on Midway Drive.

A judge rejected a settlement of that case in late 2018 after Shannon Liss-Riordan, an attorney who’s taken on prominent gig-economy companies, objected on behalf of dancers to what she alleged would be a paltry payout to the entertainers.”

Dumb issue—but I rather the Democrats spend time on this rather than tax increases.

The Legal Maneuvering That Put Strippers at the Center of the Gig Economy Debate

Two cases involving strippers and how they’re treated by their employers have made San Diego ground zero in the fight over how to classify workers.

 

Lyle Moran, Voice of San Diego,  2/13/19

 

Strippers, including Stormy Daniels, have strutted to the forefront of the vibrant worker classification debate in California.

They have done so in part through lawsuits asserting exotic dancers should be treated as employees rather independent contractors, and San Diego Superior Court has been one key venue for the litigation seeking to expose strip clubs’ alleged unlawful practices.

A class-action complaint filed here last year targeted alleged worker misclassification by Las Vegas-based Deja Vu Services Inc., which operates dozens of strip clubs nationwide, including Deja Vu Showgirls on Midway Drive.

A judge rejected a settlement of that case in late 2018 after Shannon Liss-Riordan, an attorney who’s taken on prominent gig-economy companies, objected on behalf of dancers to what she alleged would be a paltry payout to the entertainers.

Liss-Riordan also represents dancers in a new class-action suit filed in San Diego claiming that even though Deja Vu clubs have now made their dancers employees, they retaliated against them for their prior legal activities by drastically cutting their pay.

The case, filed in late January, could be a harbinger of similar suits to come as companies grapple with how to comply with the California Supreme Court’s 2018 Dynamex decision that makes it more difficult to classify workers as independent contractors.

Meanwhile, legislation introduced by Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez of San Diego to codify the court’s decision has already sparked plenty of public discussion and drawn the ire of business groups. It even prompted Daniels, an adult entertainer best known for her claimed affair with President Donald Trump, to publicly advocate for allowing strippers to remain independent contractors.

Misclassification Class Action

The class-action lawsuit filed against Deja Ju Services last May in San Diego Superior Court was brought on behalf of exotic dancers at Deja Vu-affiliated clubs statewide. One of four initial class representatives, who were all unnamed, was a dancer who had performed at Deja Vu Showgirls in San Diego.

The suit alleged that under both the Dynamex decision and the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, the dancers had been miscast as independent contractors.

In its unanimous April 2018 Dynamex decision, the state Supreme Court adopted a so-called ABC test featuring three factors an employer must establish to demonstrate a worker is properly classified as an independent contractor. The three factors are:

• A. The worker is free from the control and direction of the hiring entity in connection with the performance of the work.
• B. The worker performs work that is outside the usual course of the hiring entity’s business.
• C. The worker is customarily engaged in an independently established trade, occupation, or business of the same nature as the work performed.

To make their case they should have been classified as employees, the exotic dancers cited multiple examples of how the defendants had control over their activities at work.

“Defendants dictate: the hours of operation; length of shifts dancers must work; the show times during which a dancer may perform; minimum dance tips; determine the sequence in which a dancer may perform on stage during her stage rotation; the format and themes of dancers’ performances (including their costuming and appearances),” the suit stated.

As part of a proposed settlement filed with the San Diego court last fall covering roughly 5,800 dancers with claims against 25 strip clubs, Deja Vu agreed to convert all the class members to employee status.

The $1.5 million settlement would have also provided about $900,000 to the dancers in the class, or roughly $300 per dancer if half of the dancers were located and cashed their checks as estimated.

“This settlement provides substantial benefits and monetary recovery for defendants’ alleged wage and hour violations,” the plaintiffs’ attorneys wrote in a court filing.

Objection and a Rejection

Enter Liss-Riordan, a partner at Lichten & Liss-Riordan P.C. in Boston, who has gained prominence for filing worker misclassification suits against gig-economy giants like Uber and Lyft.

She filed an objection to the San Diego settlement on behalf dancers at Deja Vu clubs, arguing that it would provide “minimal compensation” to the dancers.

While class counsel had estimated the full verdict value of the plaintiffs’ claims at $32 million, Liss-Riordan wrote that data she reviewed led her to calculate damages of more than $102 million for the 1.5-year period at issue. She said her calculation did not include additional penalties that could be recouped under the Private Attorneys General Act, known as PAGA.

The settlement proposed to provide just $20,000 to resolve dancers’ PAGA claims, while Liss-Riordan said in a different case dancers were “poised to obtain potentially millions of dollars in PAGA penalties against a single club.”

Overall, the settlement amount was “merely a fraction of the relief that has been obtained in judgments and settlements of cases brought on behalf of exotic dancers around the country,” Liss-Riordan alleged.

San Diego attorney Tammara Bokmuller, who represents Deja Vu in the case, defended the agreement in an interview.

“It was a fair, reasonable and adequate settlement,” said Bokmuller of the Clark Hill law firm.

In November, San Diego Superior Court Judge Timothy Taylor denied a motion for preliminary approval of the settlement, writing that there would need to be an “enhanced showing” for him to approve such a pact.

His denial was without prejudice, meaning the parties could try to seek approval again after modifications or supplying additional information.

In December, Liss-Riordan’s clients were granted intervenor status in the case and filed their own complaint. Just days later, Deja Vu removed the case to federal court. Bokmuller said Deja Vu did so because of the federal Fair Labor Standards Act issues in play.

Liss-Riordan said her clients will try to move the case back to San Diego Superior Court.

“Deja Vu is clearly trying to get away from the state court judge who granted our clients intervenor status and declined to approve their settlement,” she wrote in an email.

‘Collusion’ Among Attorneys

Liss-Riordan said in a recent interview that the San Diego settlement was part of Deja Vu’s pattern of “trying to rid themselves of liability for wage violation to these dancers by entering into extremely lowball settlements with willing plaintiffs’ lawyers.”

One of the other examples she cited was a $6.6 million settlement Deja Vu reached in Michigan to resolve misclassification claims covering more than 28,000 dancers at 60-plus clubs nationwide.

Liss-Riordan said the 2017 settlement provided less than $1 million to the dancers.

“No matter how many dancers or how many clubs are involved, somehow it always comes out to just under $1 million for the dancers,” she said.

The Michigan settlement was approved by a federal judge, but Liss-Riordan’s firm has appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.

In her successful objection to the San Diego settlement, Liss-Riordan noted that the plaintiffs’ counsel in the Michigan case were also involved in the case here. One of the section headers in her objection filing says, “The Appearance of Collusion between the Parties Raises Serious Red Flags.”

Jason J. Thompson, a Michigan attorney listed as one of the plaintiffs’ lawyers, did not respond to requests for comment. Trenton Ross Kashima, a San Diego-based lawyer for the plaintiffs, also did not respond to requests for comment.

Bokmuller denied there was any collusion in crafting the settlement.

“This same attorney has made the same allegation in numerous class actions,” she said. “There is no credibility to it.”

She said Liss-Riordan’s tactic of objecting to the settlements Deja Vu has reached causes delays that hurt the dancers who would receive payments under the deals.

Retaliation Class Action

Even though the 2018 settlement in San Diego was denied, Deja Vu made its California dancers employees late last year.

Notices about the change posted in the dressing rooms at Deja Vu Showgirls mentioned the misclassification lawsuits strip clubs had been fighting in what it said were efforts to protect dancers’ rights.

The notice also said, however, that as a result of the lawsuits and “unrelenting demands by the attorneys, the club is now FORCED to make all entertainers become EMPLOYEES and end your right to be an independent contractor.”

But if Deja Vu hoped the change would put an end to the litigation, it was wrong.

In late January, Liss-Riordan filed a class-action lawsuit in San Diego Superior Court alleging dancers at Deja Vu clubs in California were retaliated against for filing the earlier lawsuit.

The new lawsuit claims that the retaliation consisted of reducing the dancers’ pay “far beyond any amount that would be arguably justified to offset their increased costs in classifying the dancers as employees.”

SFBSC Management LLC, which the complaint says has “management authority and control” over the operations of a number of Deja Vu clubs in California, is a named defendant in the suit along with two Deja Vu clubs in San Francisco.

Ryan Carlson, director of operations for Deja Vu Services, denied the company engaged in any retaliation.

“A business simply can’t pay an employee dancer as much as a contractor dancer could earn, because it incurs substantially increased taxes, benefits, and costs to pay an hourly employee,” Carlson wrote in an email.

“Dancers are earning an hourly wage plus a commission on their sales, and always earning more than minimum wage,” he wrote. “Effectively, they are earning the same percentage of money as before in most cases, but more of it is actually going toward taxes and costs.”

The independent contractor-to-employee transition also generated thousands of dollars in extra administrative costs, Carlson said, causing many of Deja Vu’s clubs to become unprofitable during the change.

“Some of the smaller clubs will have to close because the cost is simply too great,” he said.

Quieter Times at San Diego Club

On a recent Friday afternoon at Deja Vu Showgirls in San Diego, “God’s Plan” by Drake played over the speakers to a near-empty club.

One of the two exotic dancers present waited on stage for more guests to arrive, while the other entertained a visitor in the Hookah lounge.

A dancer who goes by the stage name “Alyssa” said the afternoons have always been slower than the evenings, but they have been even quieter since entertainers like herself transitioned to being employees.

That is because the club can’t afford to pay too many dancers receiving an hourly rate to be on hand if they are not generating a steady flow of money for the club. And Alyssa said guests are less likely to drop by if they are not going to see a variety of dancers.

“There was a customer here the other day who said, ‘Why do I always see you?’” she said.

The mother of three, who has danced at Deja Vu for three years, said she keeps showing up to perform because she has bills to pay and regulars who expect to see her.

But while the dancers used to take home their pay with them as independent contractors each day they performed, they now are paid by check every other week, causing Alyssa to have to monitor her spending much more closely.

“I have to be saving money and waiting for the check,” she said. “I preferred being an independent contractor.”

Dave Sieckman, a manager at Deja Vu Showgirls, said the sentiments expressed by Alyssa were common among the entertainers.

He said a number of dancers have left to perform at other clubs locally and elsewhere that allow them to work as independent contractors. Deja Vu Showgirls used to have upward of 70 dancers it would feature, Sieckman said, but that figure is now in the mid-to-high 30s.

Even before converting the dancers to employees, the dancers were given the option of being employees rather than working as independent contractors, he said.

“The entertainers didn’t take the option,” Sieckman said.

For the dancers who have remained at Deja Vu, Sieckman highlighted that they are benefiting from new flooring, lighting and counters in their dressing rooms.

He also said he has maintained an optimistic outlook about the club’s future amid disappointment about the worker classification changes.

“We are figuring out how to make money in this structure and staying positive,” Sieckman said.

Lively Debate About Gonzalez Legislation

Meanwhile, Liss-Riordan said the dancers’ retaliation suit in San Diego could have resonance beyond what happens at Deja Vu’s clubs and in the broader exotic dancing industry.

The alleged retaliatory conduct at issue could give pause to other employees seeking their rights to proper classification, she said, and undermine the public interest in correct worker classification recognized by the California Supreme Court in Dynamex.

Gonzalez, a San Diego Democrat, wants to codify the court’s decision through legislation, and she has written AB 5 to achieve that goal. She said it is important to take action supporting the decision because others, including fellow lawmakers, have proposed altering its provisions.

“What we are trying to ensure is that working-class and middle-class workers don’t get squeezed by companies coming in wanting to do away with this decision,” Gonzalez said.

An updated version of AB 5 will provide exemptions for certain groups of professionals that have long operated as independent contractors, Gonzalez said, though she does not anticipate exotic dancers will be among them.

Daniels, who is normally in the news for her legal battles with Trump, argued in a recent Los Angeles Times op-ed that exotic dancers need legislation giving them the option of working as independent contractors.

“Many dancers are raising kids, attending school, or engaged in some other demanding pursuit, and we need to be able to work when we want, where we want, making reliable money paid at the end of each shift,” she wrote. “That’s the way it has always worked — until now in California, that is.”

Daniels identified herself in the piece as a spokeswoman for Deja Vu.

Gonzalez responded on Twitter: “Dear @StormyDaniels – if you’d like to really weigh in this bill, come see me. (I’m the author.) Or let’s do a live debate, if you prefer. But this is poppycock. Let’s protect all women. #AB5.”

Other business interests also are planning to fight against Gonzalez’s legislation, arguing that applying the ABC test broadly would hurt both employers and workers desiring flexibility.

The San Diego Regional Chamber hasn’t taken a position on AB 5, but its Small Business Roundtable has raised several concerns about the Dynamex case, said chamber spokeswoman Alison Phillips.

Gov. Gavin Newsom announced during his State of the State speech Tuesday he will appoint a Commission on California’s Workforce & Future of Work tasked with developing “new ideas to expand worker opportunity without extinguishing innovation or flexibility.”

“This, respectfully, is much bigger than Dynamex,” he said.

Liss-Riordan said she fears any legislative action in Sacramento could water down worker protections in Dynamex, including through carve-outs for certain industries. She would prefer to see issues arising from the decision sorted out in the courts.

That is likely to be exactly what happens in San Diego in the coming months as the legal claims she has filed on behalf of strippers move forward.

 

In the first words of this article, Joe Mathews explains why the choo choo to nowhere, the Brown Folly, the Delta Tunnel and other government projects are and will be failures.

“How do you learn from a really big mistake?

Walk across it.

Which is why I recently found myself putting on a windbreaker and beginning a long, slow walk across the east span of the Bay Bridge, from Oakland to Yerba Buena Island. This piece of the bridge, completed in 2013, is probably the biggest California mistake of the last generation. The east span was completed a decade late, cost seven times more than official projections, and remains dogged by serious safety concerns.”

Want to see government failure—do as Joe did, walk across the Bay Bridge.  Maybe we should force every member of the Legislature and the Governor to do that?  Maybe all journalists need to see the fiasco of government  SEVEN TIMES THE COST—That would put the $78 billion choo choo to nowhere at the $500 billion mark, not the expected $200 billion, of which the money will never be available to complete—total, absolute boondoggle and scam.

Can a Troubled Bridge Show California How to Avoid Big Errors?

The Bay Bridge’s New East Span Proves Why Megaprojects Must Be Both Transformational and Functional

The Bay Bridge Trail of the Bay Bridge. Courtesy of Joe Mathews.

By Joe Mathews, Zocalo Public Square,  12/3/18

How do you learn from a really big mistake?

Walk across it.

Which is why I recently found myself putting on a windbreaker and beginning a long, slow walk across the east span of the Bay Bridge, from Oakland to Yerba Buena Island. This piece of the bridge, completed in 2013, is probably the biggest California mistake of the last generation. The east span was completed a decade late, cost seven times more than official projections, and remains dogged by serious safety concerns.

However, the bridge does have one virtue: It holds lessons for the future, as California faces massive challenges that will necessitate big projects. Indeed, after eight years of the cautious, small-bore governorship of Jerry Brown, new state leaders are preparing to take on big initiatives on infrastructure, taxation, and early childhood.

Before they do, they should read a recently published book I brought on my bridge walk: A Tale of Two Bridges, by Stephen D. Mikesell, a Davis-based historian who previously served as deputy historic preservation officer for the state. Mikesell compares the original 1936 Bay Bridge with the troubled 2013 east span, but his book is really about the special challenges of megaprojects—that is, complex and controversial initiatives costing more than $1 billion.

Today’s cynical conventional wisdom is that big projects are nearly impossible to carry off, and that those that do go forward are destined to fail. But Mikesell argues otherwise. He explains that the original 1936 Bay Bridge met conditions for successful megaprojects.

First, local and state leaders built broad consensus about the purpose and need for the project: constructing a bridge from San Francisco to Oakland was clearly a game-changer for the region in that era. Second, political people made the political decisions about the bridge, and technical people made the technical decisions. While a politically appointed commission approved the bridge and its budget, the details of design and construction were left to technical experts brought in from all over the country. Third, costs were estimated accurately and the bridge came in under budget. And finally, the bridge builders used proven methods for construction and materials, emphasizing functionality rather than trying to make an artistic statement.

The 2013 eastern span didn’t pass all these tests, Mikesell writes. The bridge was a divisive political issue for years. Cost estimates were way off. Technical decisions about bridge design and engineering were made through political processes. And the crucial political decision—to build an expensive new span instead of a less costly retrofit of the old span—was made inside Caltrans. Who were these decisionmaker? Shockingly, Mikesell, a seasoned expert on bridges, writes that the process was so messy it’s impossible to identify exactly who was responsible.

Ultimately, warnings from leading bridge engineers were ignored as Bay Area political leaders chose what they saw as the most visually attractive bridge—a self-anchored suspension bridge—even though this less common design created all sorts of problems.

The bridge does have one virtue: It holds lessons for the future, as California faces massive challenges that will necessitate big projects.

To walk the span today is to get a firsthand sense of a bridge gone wrong. The walkway itself offers the first clue: It’s on the wrong side of the bridge, the south side, which means that you get a view of the port of Oakland. If the walkway had been on the north-facing side, better views of the north bay, and even the Golden Gate, might have been possible. The walk is also polluted from the passing cars. I was often startled by loud noises from trucks hitting seams on the bridge; the eastbound traffic is so close it feels like it might run you over.

It took me nearly an hour to walk from a small parking lot at the Bay Bridge Trail entry point on Burma Road to the bridge’s signature tower and curve. There is nothing particularly beautiful or interesting about this tower and the cables attached to it. That’s a shame, since this is the section of the bridge that created most of the cost overruns. The tower is also the site of many structural problems, including saltwater intrusion into the foundation, damage to anchor rods, and substandard welds.

The bridge is also a failure because of what it didn’t do. Big projects should be transformational. But this span isn’t. It didn’t increase the bridge capacity or improve traffic flows. It is no artistic masterpiece. Paying for it actually raised bridge tolls. And prominent engineers argue that the new span may be more prone to fail in an earthquake that the old bridge it replaced.

“The 2013 East Bay is notable for how little it actually changed things in the Bay Area,” Mikesell writes.

The bridge was such a fiasco that prominent officials skipped its opening in 2013. It was left to the lieutenant governor, Gavin Newsom, to handle the ceremonial chain-cutting. In brief remarks, he expressed hope that the bridge would inspire “a generation to dream big dreams and do big things.”

Now that Newsom is becoming governor—and promising big things—perhaps he can turn the bridge into a perverse inspiration by following its essential lessons. Any big project must be truly transformational, providing a service or a connection that truly changes people’s lives. Paradoxically, the execution of such transformations must be intensely practical and risk-averse, emphasizing function over form.

In other words, when you are pursuing a transformational project, achieving the transformation itself must be the sole focus.

How might such lessons be applied? If Newsom wants to build a single-payer health care system, it shouldn’t be the gold-plated model that progressive groups have been advocating for, but rather something simple, cheap and sturdy, covering everyone. He’ll need to resist efforts to make his promised new systems for taxation, homebuilding, and early childhood highly complex with loads of new formulas; the simplest systems are more likely to be durably transformational.

After reaching Yerba Buena Island, I walked around and enjoyed views of Newsom’s city of San Francisco for a few minutes. Tired and sweaty, I called for a Lyft to take me back to Oakland. But no driver would come. So I trudged all the way back, on sore feet, repeating my earlier mistake.