SB 30 – Putting Politics Ahead of Jobs

The Truth about Senate Bill 30

Here we go again…

California Senate Democrats are once again attempting to circumvent the president of the United States through means of reckless political grandstanding.

Recently, the Senate passed SB 30. If enacted, this bill will prevent private companies that work on a southern border wall from doing any other state construction work.

For a moment, put aside the arguments for or against a southern border wall. It is a very controversial topic, and there are legitimate arguments on both sides as to whether or not the proposal is appropriate or even doable.

What is clear, though, is that our small businesses that already face some of the toughest and most punitive regulations in the nation are struggling to stay in business. It makes zero sense to have California companies looking to hire employees to work on big construction projects be penalized for bidding on a federally approved and government-sanctioned project for purely political purposes.

It’s bad enough that California is becoming more and more of a nanny state, but now we’re going to tell companies who they can do business with? Like it or not, the Border Wall is a project that is in the planning stages, and it would be better to have California companies be the winning bidders. Instead, Senate Democrats have chosen to pursue this dangerous legislation just because they are having a temper tantrum about everything President Trump is doing.

SB 30 will be used as a tool for political intimidation. It would allow the government to openly discriminate against companies that conduct legal business with the federal government. These companies have not committed any wrongdoing and are within the full scope of the law.

What should happen if a major contractor who bids on the Border Wall wants to bid on the governor’s $100 billion choo-choo-train-to-nowhere?

SB 30 will kill jobs. With so many jobs and companies leaving California, we need more people working, not fewer.

We need more families who know they can feed their children and afford to live in a safe community, not fewer.

Our people deserve to have government decision makers and legislators act in the best interests of our state instead of trying to score cheap political points against a president who was duly and legitimately elected. Like it or not, he is our president, and he will be president for at least the next three years.

Senate Democrats, however, can’t seem to accept that fact. That’s one reason I suggested to the Senate that we allocate time at the beginning of every week to allow Democrat legislators from San Francisco and Los Angeles to vent about the president and to allow them to get it out of their system so we can focus on the real issues affecting Californians.

Jeff Stone represents California’s 28th Senate District. The district, which is entirely in Riverside County, stretches from the vineyards of the Temecula Valley to the Colorado River and includes the cities of Blythe, Canyon Lake, Cathedral City, Coachella, Desert Hot Springs, Indian Wells, Indio, Lake Elsinore, La Quinta, Murrieta, Temecula, Palm Desert, Palm Springs, Rancho Mirage and Wildomar.