Today, the Governor announced
the proposed elimination of 94 public protection oversight boards such
as the Medical Board, Board of Registered Nursing, Accountancy Board,
Racial Profiling Panel, the Brown vs. Board of Education Advisory
Committee and the Campus Sexual Assault Taskforce. In doing so the
governor would be eliminating public process and citizen oversight
boards subject to open meetings laws that have been developed over
decades. It’s a power grab befitting a king who wants to make all the
decisions in closed chambers, with the aristocrats at his side and the
serfs suffering the consequences.
For example, instead of a committee of doctors and members of the
public overseeing medical discipline through open meetings, the
Governor would have his political appointee, former Assembly member
Fred Aguiar (who took big money from doctors and insurers and voted
their way) overseeing the profession. This will make the
medical-insurance lobby jump for joy because they have Aguiar’s ear,
but it will quash prosecution of dangerous doctors who happen to be
politically connected. Similarly, hospitals will be given free reign to
save money by letting less skilled caregivers take over the jobs of
Registered Nurses if the Nursing Board disappears. All of this will
turn the clock back on consumer protection and medical safety, and
literally threaten patients’ lives.
The same threat to life and limb holds true for the elimination of the
Boards of Pharmacy, Building Standards, Dental Services, et al… To
"absorb" control of professional licensing into a political bureaucracy
where industry money talks is to forget the public and its safety. It
belies the arrogance of a ruler who thinks that he and his court make
up the only process that counts.
Arnold wants to send us back to the House of Hapsburg, the rulers of
much of Europe from 1218 to 1912. In those despotic days, the safety of
buildings, medicine and dentistry were a little different too.
In a related note: Arnold has not, interestingly, done away with the
California Film Commission. Seems that the movie star has a little
different view of what’s important.
