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SACRAMENTO - State Sen. John M.W. Moorlach, R-Costa Mesa, issued the following statement today after Gov. Gavin Newsom delivered his 2020 State of the State address to a joint session of the California Legislature:
“I want to commend Gov. Newsom for spending so much of his State of the State address on California’s homelessness crisis. He brought up several reforms I am working on with my colleagues, both Republican and Democrat. These include:
“1. Reforming the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act (LPS Act), for which I have authored Senate Bill 640. He correctly said we need to protect civil liberties while bringing help to those who cannot help themselves. Last month I published “A Short History of the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act” to provide background information. I recommend that the Governor contact my friend Dr. Drew Pinsky, a psychiatrist who has been working on this issue for decades.
“2. Revisiting Senate Bill 50, by state Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, which I co-authored, which encourages high-density housing construction near job centers.
“3. Making it easier to construct homes through reducing and reforming regulations, such as the California Environmental Quality Act.
“4. Reforming Proposition 63, the Mental Health Services Act. In 2018 I co-authored Senate Bill 1206 with then-Senate Majority Leader Kevin de Leon, D-Los Angeles, to put Proposition 2 on the November 2018 ballot. It provided $2 billion in funding for housing mentally ill homeless people, without raising taxes. Voters passed it with a greater margin than any measure that election.
“Of course I don’t agree with the Governor on everything, such as his contention that the state’s ‘wall of debt’ disappeared. In fact, now that government balance sheets are required to include retiree medical and Other Post-Employment Benefits (OPEBs), the amount of unfunded liabilities has soared to more than $1 trillion statewide.
“The Governor mainly addressed homelessness, mental health and housing. He did not discuss high-speed rail, hardening utility overhead electric lines, hiring independent contractors and hemorrhaging unfunded liabilities.”
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