Irvine Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, who claims to have coined and popularized the term “Nanny-State,” saw his proposal to issue temporary disblility plackards to pregnant women die in the Assembly Transportation Committee yesterday.
DeVore failed to notice that pregnant women can receive disabled placards if their doctors diagnose major mobility problems.
DeVore told the Sacramento Bee that his bill would assist women who are not necessarily disabled but are havig a particularly painful day, or have swollen feet, or have given birth and find themselves struggling to switch their newborn from a car seat to a stroller in a parking lot with cars jetting by.
By Chuck’s logic, then any mother of twins, or for that matter any number of children, should have a handicapped placard. God knows, managing a couple kids at one time has to be a “struggle.”
This of course from a guy who would probably oppose legislation requiring more handicapped spaces in parking lots and increasing the fines for people who park in them without placards.
I think we can take the fact that Chuck hasn’t responded to this post as a sign that he won’t venture to the left anymore. We have him on record as saying water boarding isn’t torture, nuclear waste is safe, and for helping to popularize a phrase coined while he was in short pants. I have to gues Chuck will blog and respond from safe Republican territory least he give his political opponents fodder for future brochures.
Where is Claudio with a snappy comeback when you need him?
All the best,
Dan
Thanks for the sarcasm, Dan. I didn’t reply right away because I was presenting on three bills yesterday, participating in a hearing, on a talk radio show, getting the legislator of the year award from the California Veterans of Foreign Wars, participating in a few meetings and then flying home to be with my wife who wasn’t feeling well, then flying back up this morning. Geez, cut me some slack here.
By the way, two of my three bills got out of committee, my ALAN Alert system bill, to institute a freeway sign alert system, similar to the AMBER Alert, for fleeing homicide suspects and an amended version of a bill to give free state college tuition to National Guard members for $3 million per year (we’re the only state that doesn’t do that). Sadly, my bill, AB 1992, which would have put tighter controls on spending in campaigns by the League of Cities died without one Democrat vote (in 2006, the League of Cities spent almost $4 million to defeat Prop. 90 and we have no idea where that money came from).
Lastly, as for popularizing “Nanny State†go ahead and look at the achieved references. You’ll see it in common use in the U.K. in the 1990s but not in America until very recently. We started using it in Sacramento and the California press began to pick up on it, although it took a while and some explanation to get them to use it.
Got to run to catch my plane.
All the best,
Chuck DeVore
California State Assemblyman, 70th District
http://www.ChuckDeVore.com
Yeah Chuck; I’m busy too. But you haven’t posted here in weeks, so I thought we had scared you off.
Don’t defend the Nanny State comment; you said you “helped coin it and popularize it.” Three words: read Noam Chomsky. He uses the phrase often. I will credit you for coining and popularizing the phrase “effing” though. That’s all you.
Wow, you are really busy in Sacramento; too busy to meet with IUSD superintendent Gwen Gross during her trip there. Tell you what; why don’t you let me know the next time you’ll be in a town for a few days so that I, and several, dozens, hundreds (thousands) of IUSD parents can have a meet and greet on the $16 million in education we’re facing. Bring along every other assemblyman or state senator that touches IUSD. Once you give me a date, it’ll take a day or so to get a place.