California becomes first state in the nation to ban plastic bags, but it could be headed to the ballot
by Brian Leubitz
Early next year, California will become the first state in the nation to bag plastic bags. Maybe:
California Gov. Jerry Brown signed the nation’s first statewide ban on the use of plastic bags in grocery stores and other businesses on Tuesday.
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An industry group representing plastic-bag makers, called the American Progressive Bag Alliance, said Tuesday they plan to put a referendum on the ballot in 2016 to repeal the California ban.(WSJ)
If the bag companies are able to referendum the bill, it would mean that the ban wouldn’t go into effect until after the 2016 election. Given that the companies seem willing to pile money into a campaign, it seems something of a foregone conclusion that we will see an election on this one.
In other big legislation news, tech mogul Vinod Khosla was dealt a blow in his attempt to close the road to Martins Beach, a surfer favorite. Khosla has been fighting for a couple of years to close the road, in courts and against the legislation that Gov. Brown signed on Tuesday. Basically the law requires negotiation with Khosla for a year, and then authorizes eminent domain of the road if the negotiations are fruitless.
In other news, the LGBT community got a big victory with the Governor signing a bill that bans the use of the “gay panic” and “trans panic” defenses.
Simply put, gay panic is the notion that acts of violence are partly justifiable when a person’s all-consuming hatred for LGBT people causes them to go berserk or act with “diminished capacity.” It’s a heinous defense tactic that banks on a judge or jury’s own homophobia, apportioning some blame onto victims in order to get a murder charge downgraded to manslaughter. Leaning on a “heat of passion” line of thinking deliberately turns a trial into something out of a pulp novel. Gay panic benefits from anti-LGBT bias, and adds to it as well, by dredging up ancient stereotypes of gays as sexual predators who can’t be trusted not to curb their appetites.
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But it’s no longer a justifiable defense in Golden State courtrooms, since Assemblymember Susan Bonilla (an East Bay Democrat) has pushed a bill banning both gay panic and transgender panic as legal defenses through the legislature. Gov. Jerry Brown signed AB 2501 into law over the weekend, continuing to put the state at the forefront of LGBT rights. (SF Weekly)
It is easy to overlook this bill, or think this is some historical relic. But this is real, and really offensive every time it is used. It is a big step forward for civil rights in California and across the country.