What do we do with everything named after Cesar Chavez?

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Speaker 1: And very happy Wednesday to you. At twelve oh seven. In the West, it's the John Phillip Show, Mister Randy Wags in Culver City.

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Speaker 2: John, we have a brand new La Times UC Berkeley, Paul. When it comes to the race for governor of California coming in first place, Steve Hilton with seventeen percent, second place Chad Bianco with sixteen percent, and tied for third place at thirteen percent each are Eric Swallwell and Kat Parter.

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Speaker 3: I'm pulling in to the bakery.

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Speaker 1: It's going to turn into a cage match between those two.

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Speaker 2: Tom Steyer is down in fifth place at ten percent, and then it's a big jump Besserah at five Viragosa and Mayheon at four, Betty Yee and Tony Thurmond at one.

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Speaker 1: It'll be interesting to see if Matt Mayhon starts to gain any traction now that he's starting to spend money and do all the shows. Not this one, but he did show up on The Daily Show and others.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's an interesting strategy, right, campaign for governor of California in New York. I don't understand that.

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Speaker 1: I guess they figured it worked for that freak in Texas when he went on with Stephen Colbert and that turned into a big controversy, and they're hoping that the same thing will happen to them. But I don't know who's voting in California that's watching those East Coast shows.

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Speaker 2: Well, and he didn't just go on the Daily Show. Mayhn also went on Morning Joe, which I think, what comes on at three am over here?

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Speaker 1: Nobody's watching that. No, that is for the East Coast audience. And I don't understand why a candidate for office in California flies all the way to New York City to do a national show that's on at three am here and there. The state of California, the largest state in the Union, like we're a suburb of Guam.

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Speaker 2: We've been trying to get Mayhn on this show. He's come on in the past, and this is a statewide LA and San Francisco and Best Us in Fresno radio show. What are you going to do?

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Speaker 1: Eight hundred two two two five two two two? Is the telephone number one? Eight hundred two two two five two two two. Well, if you woke up this morning like I did, and you opened up your phone and you started looking at social media. You noticed a theme real fast. Caesar Chavez is a Chico molo.

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Speaker 2: There have been a lot of allegations in the last forty eight hours about the historic labor leader Caesar Chavez as we're going into celebrating Caesar Chavez Day, and those allegations just exploded a few hours ago with delor' A Squerta openly admitting that she was raped by Caesar Chavez and he fathered two of her children.

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Speaker 1: And she's just one of many on the list that they know of. Apparently there was a lot going on in those fields.

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Speaker 2: This is rocking the southern California area and the Bay area including San Jose, pretty much anywhere where there's a whole bunch of stuff named after Caesar Chavez. This story is from earlier this morning, so it does not have the Dolores Squerta allegations. But here is the reaction to some of the other things that are going on when it comes to everything that we are learning about Caesar Chavez. Here is ABC seven in the Bay.

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Speaker 3: In San Jose, where the family home of Cisar Chavez is a cultural landmark.

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Speaker 2: Many earth and that might be going away. Go buye Jock and paint.

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Speaker 3: Many are devastated by allegations about Chavez during his time as president of the United farm Workers Union.

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Speaker 4: He lived there for a couple of years, and this place is like a sacred site to me. He's one of my big time heroes. You know, these allegations are very serious, and I don't want that to be part of his story.

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Speaker 2: You know, I think it is now. Oh yeah, you know, people used to just say Harvey Weinstein was a great movie producer. You know, if this guy watches Nick Knight on a regular basis, nobody tell him what happened to Bill Cosby. Just let the man enjoy his television of.

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Speaker 4: Who he is.

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Speaker 3: UFW's statement references allegations it calls deeply troubling involving alleged abuse of young women or minors. UfW says it will not be taking part in any Cessar Chavez Day activities. That quote, we have not received any direct reports and we do not have any firsthand knowledge of these allegations. However, the allegations are serious enough that we feel compelled to take urgent steps.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it'd be really hard to be Mark on Caesar Chavez Day with everything that we're learning right now. Okay, I don't believe that for a second, because Dolores Wuerta certainly knew about it. Certainly all the other victims knew about it. Those victims talked to one another, and in the letter, Delores Wuerta said that she decided to deify this guy anyway, knowing that he was a monster, because she didn't want it to hurt the movement.

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Speaker 3: Larasa Historical Society founding board member Ramon J. Martinez says allegations have service in the past, including in a twenty fourteen biography titled The Crusades of Cesar Chavez by former La Times reporter Miriam Powell.

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Speaker 5: In twenty fourteens, she wrote about how Caesar's wife discovered some indiscreet letters to an eighteen year old and they had smirital difficulties.

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Speaker 2: Says ARCHI might be a little more than that. Yeah, no, no, cause.

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Speaker 3: Says our Chavez is honored and remembered throughout the city of San Jose. From the plaza that says our Chavez Park in downtown San Jose.

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Speaker 2: All right, what are we going to rename that as? Name it after down notts.

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Speaker 3: Plaza that says our Chavez Park in downtown San Jose to the Arch of Dignity here at San Jose State University, retired SGSU Mexican American Studies Professor doctor Gregorio Moritores says it's important to remember Chavis's work for the rights of farm workers while the troubling allegations are investigated.

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Speaker 1: KEITHA Of course, boy, they're still laying it on thick with this guy, aren't they.

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Speaker 2: Sure he may have been a monster, but he was an important monster.

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Speaker 3: Oh yeah, It's important to remember Chavis's work for the rights of farm workers while the troubling allegations are investigated.

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Speaker 2: Heitha thinner, like a lot of us are sinners. M most of us don't send that way. Yeah, how many people did he rape? Again? How many mulligans? Is is this guy willing to give him?

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Speaker 6: Well, we need to look at basically at what he did as a labor leader and as a person who really cared for farm workers more than anything.

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Speaker 2: It doesn't matter what he did while he was head of that movement to people that were in the movement, the fact that he started the movement is all that matters.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, who caresuly raped? He got them a four oh one K.

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Speaker 3: The Cessur Chavez Foundation said in a statement, we are deeply shocked and saddened by what we are hearing.

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Speaker 2: In point, what are they going to rename themselves as, Oh, that's going to be quite a debate.

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Speaker 3: In partnership with the UfW, we are establishing a safe and confidential process for those who wish to share their experience of historic harm and if they choose to participate in efforts towards repair and reconciliation.

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Speaker 2: So there you go. That's at least some of the reaction over the last forty eight hours. Again, that story was produced before the Dolores Huerta allegations, and at that point, I don't know how there's going to be a Caesar Chavez day going forward. Here's the thing.

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Speaker 1: Whenever they lay it on real thick with someone, you know there's an alternate reality. You know, there's an alternate story. You know they're overcompensating for something. And while most of us didn't know that he was accused of doing all of these things, it was obvious the guy was a thug. You find me a union organizer that's not a thug.

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Speaker 2: What are you talking about? N That's what you want, by the way, if you're in the union, you want a fighter. Yeah, you want someone.

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Speaker 1: Want someone blood, you know what, someone that's going to roll over to management.

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Speaker 2: You want someone that's going to kick them in the.

00:08:51
Speaker 1: Crotch as hard as they can, gouge them in the eyes, slash their tires, put.

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Speaker 2: Sugar in their guess take, and get you as.

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Speaker 1: Much money as possible. So what you want is the opposite of AFTRA pretty much. You think Jimmy Hoffel was a saint. How about that witch that runs the teachers You'ldgen Randy Winingarden. What do you think you'd find in her basement. That's who these people are now. The fact that they bent over backwards to make him christ like, and if you went to fourth grade in California, you know what I'm talking about. All they did was talk about how wonderful Caesar Chavez was and how important he is and what a great man he was, and how he cares for people. And the evil farmers in the Central Valley hate the people. But Caesar Chavez gave up his life for the farm workers because he cares about humanity so much.

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Speaker 2: That's what we were told.

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Speaker 1: And the entire time this guy was a monster behind the scenes, and they're renaming things, or they were probably not anymore now, but they were renaming things after Caesar Chavez. They were taking down schools, they were taking down street names, they were taking down I don't know, parks and monuments after people like the Founding Fathers, who they have under a microscope. From their point of view, the Founding Fathers can do nothing right. They created a country that's been around for what two hundred and fifty years whatever, and it's working out, and we are certainly more successful than anyone on the globe. Yet they hate those people and they want to take down everything that's named after them, and they want to rename it after people like Caesar Chavez.

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Speaker 2: There's a whole list on Wikipedia of all the things that are named after Caesar Chavez, and it.

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Speaker 1: Is long, oh, especially here in California. But with them, with the woke crowd, everything is Hitler versus Bambi. That's the way they see the world.

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Speaker 2: And either they don't know their history or they're wilfully ignorant. They wanted to name an aircraft carrier after Harvey Milk. I suggest they do some reading first, because Caesar isn't the.

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Speaker 1: Only one who likes him young, so did Harvey Milk. How about the Indians? Oh my god, that's the in crowd now. If only everyone could be like the Indians, if it weren't for Cortes, if it weren't for Columbus, everything would be working out just fine over here. And you hear them talk about the Indians back in the old days, and they have the idea that these Indians were just driving around in preuses, shopping at hull fodes and putting solar panels on their tepees. And they seem to really believe that. Well, how about the virgins that were sacrificed? What do you think about that? Have they just not read books as to what life was like when they were here?

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Speaker 2: I mean, these are California schools. There's not a lot of reading going on.

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Speaker 1: That's true, that's true, But oh boy, would they be surprised what they'd find out. I wish we could do a Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure sort of thing where we could take these fools that are taking the founder's names off all the buildings and put them in history whenever it was that. They think that everything was great and just let them get a little flavor, Let them get a little taste of that, because what they have in their mind is in no way related to reality. Frequently, and that's what happened with Caesar Chavez, and now that's coming back to bite them, and now they're all going to pretend to be surprised.

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Speaker 2: That's another part of this.

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Speaker 1: It's like when Joe Biden, they finally figured out that he was senile, if only there was some kind.

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Speaker 2: Of suggestion that something was off with him. That was the attitude that they had. But Delores Huerta in the note put out there that they kept quiet about it, or they kept it I guess within the organization because of the cause.

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Speaker 1: I know she's a victim, and I know she's going to get a pass, but that is an odd attitude to have.

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Speaker 2: To me, well, especially when we're talking about incidents like this, staying silent means that more people could be victimized. I mean not now, obviously he's long dead, but when he was in charge of the movement, by staying silent, other people could have been victimized or were victimized.

00:14:15
Speaker 1: But they knew he was a rapist when they were pushing for the holiday, and they all went out and celebrated. They put his name on everything, and they bullied all of these school districts, people who knew he was a rapist, bullied these school districts and bullied these cities and counties into taking names off buildings from people who did wonderful things to replace them with this criminal. It's just wild to me. It's wild to me how you could do that.

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Speaker 2: Now.

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Speaker 1: I get people cope with trauma in different ways, and certainly these are people who were involved in politics and involved in organization.

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Speaker 2: They care about it very deeply. But let me tell you.

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Speaker 1: If I were in that position, I don't think I would have done the same thing.

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Speaker 2: I don't think I would have.

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Speaker 1: I know the partisan poll is really strong, and certainly the pro union poll is really strong, But how could you show up to all these ribbon cutting ceremonies for a guy you know as a creep you have personal knowledge, and how could you create all of these organizations that are named after him when you know the guy was a predator. I don't get it, but I will predict this. There's going to be a lot of name changing going on in this date that I can promise you. It's the John Phillips Show. Eight hundred two two two five two two two is a telephone number.

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Speaker 2: Let's go to.

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Speaker 1: Dave and San Juan Capistrano. Dave, Hello, Hey guys.

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Speaker 7: Hey, I grew up in East LA.

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Speaker 2: Uh.

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Speaker 7: My dad cried when they changed Brooklyn Avenue to Caesar Savis because he thought he was a communist. And it's actually well known throughout the Latino community that he was always doing weird stuff. Everyone just kind of shut up. And on the side note, my wife's family owned farmland up in Bakersfield, and he specifically was targeting my wife's family farm and harassed my wife's mom when she was frightening with her and uh almost turned over the car. So yeah, people need to really really think about Caesar Savas as some.

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Speaker 3: Kind of hero.

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Speaker 1: I was talking to someone who's alumni for You See Davis, and he was telling me that you See Davis of course as a big agricultural school. It's in Sacramento, the Sacramento area. Certainly that's a dominant industry in that part of California, and so they spend a lot of time and energy and resources trying to create new inventions that will facilitate agriculture in California and beyond. And they said that he was always causing the university problems, that he didn't want them coming up with anything that would make it easier to pick the crops in the Central Valley because he thought it would get rid of jobs, and he put all kinds of pressure on the university to kill the research.

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Speaker 7: Yeah, of course, someone like what's happening now in the ports to try to give her to some of the ports jobs through innovation, and the unions are trying to stop that, which is understandable to trying to save jobs.

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Speaker 2: But oldest game in the book.

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Speaker 1: All right, we've eight hundred two two two five two two two. Is the telephone number one eight hundred two two two five two two two. If you'd like to email the show, you can do so at Johnny don't like show at gmail dot com. That's Johnny don't like at gmail dot com. And Randy, you're monitoring the mail bat.

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Speaker 2: Bob and Sandrafel writes in at Johnny don't like show at gmail dot com. Guys. When Army Street was renamed for Chavez by San Francisco Proclamation, all the merchants and residences had to change their addresses and business cards at their own expense to reflect the change. In San Francisco refuse to contribute funds. Will California pay for all the name changes or will it fall outside of Newsom's budget. Prisons could handle the workload if they would simply increase the prison population. Great show, guys, Yeah, that's a very good point.

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Speaker 1: It costs a fortune to reprint all of your materials when they change the name of the street, and now they're going to do it again. How about all the dozens of Caesar Chavez elementary schools. Well, maybe Newsom will name some of those streets after Charles Manson because his parole board let some of them out. MM and Randy, we're on Saturdays on KMJ in the Central Valley.

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Speaker 2: I know you're wondering why do they keep plugging this. I'll tell you why, because we're on in the Central Valley. It's on Saturdays at noon, but we're still on in the Central Valley and that is very exciting. So we give the Fresno and Bakersfield people a little taste of what you get fifteen hours a week of they get one hour. But we're trying to make that hour extra special. You can listen to it wherever you are by streaming it at kmjnow dot com. You can see if you can pick up the AM signal anywhere in California. It goes pretty far five eighty on the AM dial one a five point nine FMFM signals don't go that far. But check it out for yourself. Everyone's talking about it the Fixed California our replay on KMJ.

00:19:55
Speaker 1: In the meantime, what do you say we make a couple of listeners very happy.

00:19:58
Speaker 2: Let's do that right now. Seven nin KABC welcomes the Pussycat Dolls PCT Forever Tour at the Akrasier Arena on June fifth. Tickets are on sale Friday at ticketmaster dot com. But right now, caller number nine at one eighty eight seven ninety five two two two gets a pair of tickets to the show. Tickets furnished by Live Nation. Good luck, Darling. All right.

00:20:25
Speaker 1: We know that the insurance crisis in California is crippling many businesses and homeowners, and the California Insurance Commissioner, Ricardo Laura doesn't seem to have any interest in doing anything about it.

00:20:38
Speaker 8: Tail basing is rarely comfortable you.

00:20:41
Speaker 1: And neither does Governor Gavin Newsom. But there are members of the legislature who now believe they can contribute to making life easier for California business owners and homeowners.

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Speaker 2: For more on a package of legislation meant to address the insurance crisis. Here is ABC ten in Sacramento. With this record breaking heat wave in California and much of the West, weather related events are once again top of mind for state officials.

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Speaker 9: For California, this means droughts and wildfire season. ABC ten State Matters political reporter Jenny Hudd joins US Now to break down the proposals tackling those concerns.

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Speaker 8: Jenny Well, Republicans say the state is at a tipping point and that.

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Speaker 2: The lessons No, we tipped over already. Oh yeah, we're in the ocean.

00:21:33
Speaker 3: Well.

00:21:33
Speaker 8: Republicans say the state is at a tipping point and that the lessons learned from the historic Los Angeles wild wildfires entail more needs for wildfire prevention.

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Speaker 2: California has a problem.

00:21:45
Speaker 6: This is the luck of the Irish day where our luck.

00:21:47
Speaker 8: Is run out. Hackey, California Senate Republicans, Tuesday afternoon, and produce their wildfire risk Reduction and insurance Affordability package. You know, we'd like to work with our Democratic colleagues to condense combined but to bring real solutions to Californians. A big emphasis on wildfire prevention, especially by homeowners themselves. To create more defensible space, the buffer between a structure and the surrounding.

00:22:19
Speaker 10: Area that gives us the opportunity to get in and hopefully you control the fires and push them around the homes and not burn down for our residents.

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Speaker 2: Although I got to say, we have regulations like that in certain areas like Orange County, and it's actually becoming an incentive for insurers to drop you quicker. Uh oh, because they changed the regulation where you needed to be. You had to be a thousand feet away from a forest area to five hundred feet away, and no, it went from five hundred feet to one thousand feet and a whole bunch of homeowners started getting dropped. Uh oh.

00:22:53
Speaker 6: For our residents. Now is the time to act, clear defensible space, harden your homes.

00:22:59
Speaker 8: Several bills seeked incentivize homeowners to do just that. Senator Marie Albaradogill is proposing state income tax credits for those who make their homes more fire safe, like through fire resistant roofing, ember resistant events, and defensible space.

00:23:12
Speaker 6: Making it much more affordable to reduce ignition risk.

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Speaker 2: Which we're gonna make it affordable by making you pay through the nose to change the way your home is.

00:23:22
Speaker 1: Okay, here's the problem with this. And if people harden their home and they make it more resistant to fire, that's great. That will help protect you if there's a fire in your community. However, the problem is if State Farm goes to the insurance commissioner and says, the materials cost a fortune. I don't care if they've hardened their home. We want a rate hike. He's going to give it to him. And if he continues to give it to him, which he will, that means your premiums are going only go on one way up.

00:23:56
Speaker 2: We're not seeing anything in this package about making it so if you harden your home, the insurance companies have to give you a discount. You know, like you're a good driver and you don't get tickets, you have a lower rate on your car insurance. We're not talking about.

00:24:12
Speaker 6: That making it much more affordable to reduce ignition risk. Which are often coupled with insurance discounts.

00:24:20
Speaker 8: If a home is quote unquote hard end, they say that can help with insurance too, which has been a key concern as major insurers like State Farm pull out of California and even the Fair Plan, California's insurer of loss Resort is underwater and seeking major premium increases amid a surgeon demand.

00:24:37
Speaker 2: Let's not forget that. Ricardo Laura said his package to give all the insurers everything they've ever wanted, including expedited rate hikes, including State Farm after the whole debacle in southern California, was to get people off the Fair Plan. And now there's more people on the Fair Plan than ever before. I'm very kind of sketch.

00:24:56
Speaker 1: And here's the wild part. So now we have evidence that what he's doing is not working. In fact, it's pushing us in the wrong direction. They will not change what they're doing. They're just doubling and tripling down.

00:25:09
Speaker 2: Also helped to build household resilience. Okay, who gave her the bad microphone?

00:25:16
Speaker 1: I don't know, but she sounds like she's making a pa announcement on a cruise ship.

00:25:21
Speaker 2: I'm going to lower the volume just because this hurts.

00:25:23
Speaker 11: Also helped to build household resilience without relying solely on straight utility grids.

00:25:31
Speaker 2: Thanks for that.

00:25:33
Speaker 8: Alvarado Gill is also proposing tax credits for those that have backup power systems like a generator or solar battery, and for the California Department of Forestry and Fire.

00:25:42
Speaker 2: Wait a second, you're gonna get a tax credit if you have one of those backup batteries that when they all melted and the palisades led to all the toxic debris that was making it so much harder to clean up that area.

00:25:54
Speaker 1: Well, to be fair, everything that they own turned into toxic debris, including their electric cars.

00:26:00
Speaker 8: And for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection cal Fire to prioritize areas with high insurance costs due to higher wildfire risk.

00:26:09
Speaker 2: Okay, that one's pretty good. Clear the forests that are the most expensive. Yeah, that makes sense.

00:26:17
Speaker 3: I think if they know that there's going to be available robust, affordable insurance on the back end, that will create.

00:26:23
Speaker 2: That's not happening anytime soon, No, that will.

00:26:27
Speaker 3: Create a whole other incentive structure to encourage people to do that work and in hardening their home.

00:26:32
Speaker 8: Even this is bipartisan and there's just so many of the same topics being thrown around.

00:26:36
Speaker 2: We know we're in this together, we need to work together, and.

00:26:39
Speaker 8: So Democratic State Senator Ben Allen is behind two of the Republican bills, One that would give state income tax credits on payments to repair or rebuild homes, and one that would require state agencies to routinely identify regulations that can be suspended post disaster to expedite the rebuilding process.

00:26:56
Speaker 2: The family need. Okay, that's an interesting one. You could just get rid of those regulations all together, like I don't know, take the private right of action out of sequa. That would work.

00:27:09
Speaker 7: The family needs to be able to rebuild.

00:27:12
Speaker 8: We ask Governor Newsom about the Republican proposals and where by partisanship is possible. His office declined to comment on pending legislation, but said he's invested in wildfire risk reduction like forest management and how's work to stabilize.

00:27:26
Speaker 2: The Well, when are you going to start doing that?

00:27:29
Speaker 1: Here's the issue. Newsom will not move on this. He's not engaged in this. If he was actually here doing his job and maybe taking his meetings with these members of the legislature. Maybe they could come up with some sort of program. He is phoning it in, he is running for president, he's not here doing his job, and he doesn't care.

00:27:52
Speaker 8: And how's work to stabilize whole insurance? Though many still say with that increased wildfire risk, they no longer qualify for or can and ford that insurance.

00:28:01
Speaker 2: Chris Laura, Okay, Jenny, thank you. So there's the latest package of bills. Will they really address the insurance crisis? Maybe a little eight hundred two two two five two two two is a telephone number one eight hundred two two two five two two two. As I mentioned earlier this week, I was in Arizona over the weekend to watch the Angels play spring training baseball, and I noticed when I was there how much cheaper gasoline is than the state of California, which is why on my way back to California, I stopped at Courtzite to top it off, because why not, it's so much cheaper than what I would pay at home. Well, recently NBCLA did an investigation as to why gasoline is so much more expensive in California than in other states, and it's exactly what you think it is. For more, here's NBCLA is.

00:28:58
Speaker 11: Today across southern California. In Ellie County, the average price where a gallon of regular is five dollars and sixty three cents. In Orange County it's five dollars and sixty cents and five dollars fifty one cents in Riverside. Of course, those prices are much higher than the rest of the country. I'm sure you know that. I'm sure you've been talking to family members somewhere else in part because of the California gas tax. Now some lawmakers in Kennada.

00:29:23
Speaker 2: It's so weird. But I honestly, when I'm out of town, whether it's in Dallas or Santa Fe, I take a picture of the gas station.

00:29:31
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, when you see how cheap gas is in other places, you want to buy it and just, I don't know, fill up one of those kiddie pools with it and just.

00:29:43
Speaker 2: Sit in cheap gasoline. This is a true story. But when we were in Santa Fe in January, I think the gasoline at the allsops on Pasarea Peralta was two dollars and fifty cents a gallon, and my wife is driving around in my parents' car that stays at the house, and she's like, well, the tanks got three quarters full, but I just want to fill up to see what this is like.

00:30:14
Speaker 11: In part because of the California gas tax. Now some lawmakers and candidates for governor are trying to change that. Nbcfours Conan Nolan is in the newsroom to explain conin You know, I heard this proposal this morning and thought, wow, this would be so helpful right now.

00:30:29
Speaker 2: But it could. Yeah, but the Sacramento Legislature doesn't do things that help us never.

00:30:36
Speaker 11: But we see an impact, And what are the chances this actually goes through a.

00:30:42
Speaker 12: You would see an impact be the chances are not very likely. The California Legislature Democrats dominated, they're unlikely to change the rules when it comes to the gasoline tax. In the past, they've offered a refund for low income Californians, but the tax itself stays in place.

00:31:00
Speaker 13: It didn't take long for the surge at the pump to become an issue in the campaign for governor.

00:31:04
Speaker 7: Now I'm calling on our state leaders to temporarily suspend our gas tax and provide relief to those who need up.

00:31:11
Speaker 3: Mostly.

00:31:11
Speaker 2: Yep, there will never this will never happen. I'll tell you why. And we've had so many people not just now in the governor's race, but in the legislature on the Republican side tout for this. You can never temporarily get rid of the gas tax because when you bring it back, that's a seventy cent hike, so you just have to get rid of it entirely.

00:31:31
Speaker 1: Well, this is one of these issues we're Sacramento I think has us by the short hairs because Democratic voters don't seem to be upset with the cost of gasoline. We've had opportunities to repeal the gas tax they voted down. We certainly have cap and trade legislation that they support that makes gas more expensive. And if you're all worked up over global warming, then and forcing people out of their cars with things like high gasoline prices and road diets is something that will advance your agenda. Unless and until Democratic voters in California are offended at the cost of gasoline, nothing's going to change.

00:32:17
Speaker 13: Democratic gubernatorial candidate Matt Mayhan, the mayor of San Jose, and fellow candidate Antonio Viragosa, the former mayor of Los Angeles calling on the California legislature to cut gas prices by for the time being, at least eliminating the state excise tax.

00:32:34
Speaker 3: We have the.

00:32:34
Speaker 10: Highest gas prices in the United States of America, and with this.

00:32:38
Speaker 2: Even mister Peanut wants to get rid of the gas tax.

00:32:42
Speaker 1: But you notice it's all the candidates who are at the bottom of the polls. You don't hear Eric Swallwell saying that you don't hear America's Sweetheart, Katie Porter saying that you don't hear Tom Steyer saying that.

00:32:54
Speaker 2: Well, if the gas stations had croissants, maybe she'd have something to say about it. I'm pulling in to the bakery. She sounds so angry, saying that too.

00:33:06
Speaker 10: We have the highest gas prices in the United States of America, and with this decision to go to war in Iran, gas prices are going up.

00:33:15
Speaker 13: Economists Severn Bornstein of the Energy Institute at the Hoss Business School says gas sold in California is normally at least a dollar and a half more expensive than the rest of the nation.

00:33:26
Speaker 14: About a dollar of that is due to the higher taxes we have the environmental fees we have, and the fact that we use a cleaner burning gasoline, which has helped clean up air quality quite a bit in California.

00:33:40
Speaker 2: Here's what I don't understand about the cleaner burning fuel, which is one of the reasons we can't import gasoline from I don't know Texas. Texas doesn't use that, and Texas's air is cleaner than Californias.

00:33:52
Speaker 1: They call it the summer blend, like it's some sort of seasonal Starbucks variety.

00:33:58
Speaker 2: And also, I always feel I need to point this out because when I learned the number, it just doesn't seem like it really is that big of a deal. Here, the gas tax raises only eight billion dollars a year, and it goes down every year because more and more people are getting fuel efficient vehicles or electric cars. Eight billion is a pretty small fraction of the three hundred and fifty billion dollar budget. You could wipe that thing out, find plenty of ways with the existing money that we have to pave the roads that we're not paving, and everyone would be happy. So why wouldn't we do that? Because California Going to California.

00:34:37
Speaker 14: And the fact that we use a cleaner burning gasoline, which has helped clean up air quality quite a bit in California due.

00:34:43
Speaker 13: To the disruption of oil markets as a result of the war with Iran, the average price in the state as a Monday is an eye popping five point fifty two per gallon. Of that, approximately sixty one cents is the state excise or gas tax.

00:34:58
Speaker 2: Which, by the way, if you're wondering how it got that high, it's because when the gas tax was passed in the Jerry Brown days, it was tied to inflation, which is interesting because it also causes inflation. But it goes up every single July.

00:35:14
Speaker 1: And we have had opportunities to repeal the gas tax and we voted down consistently.

00:35:19
Speaker 2: Well. If you remember when the repeal the gas tax was on the ballot in i want to say twenty eighteen, it was titled the Defund Roads and Bridges.

00:35:30
Speaker 13: Act, which is used for road repair and Caltrans projects. Most of the legislature opposed the gas tax suspension, as they see it as robbing the state of needed revenue, and a statement Governor Gavin Newsom's office referred to gas taxes as fixed costs that do not fluctuate with the market.

00:35:51
Speaker 2: It's not a fixed cost. It goes up every year. Does he even know what that word means?

00:35:57
Speaker 13: And have nothing to do?

00:35:58
Speaker 2: Kevin also usually his line for this, because he gets asked about this every year, is there's no guarantee the oil companies will pass that savings on to you. He also thinks they're kaluting against one state.

00:36:11
Speaker 13: And have nothing to do with the price spikes that Americans are experiencing. But with no end in sight for the war and continued crisis in the world's most consequential oil transit choke hold the Strait of Hormuz, pressure for the state to do something may only increase thirteen.

00:36:27
Speaker 7: Gallons eighty eight dollars. I don't know how California's can afford.

00:36:31
Speaker 2: Boy, am I glad I don't have to deal with that. You're saving so much money.