The Bad Samaritan

Yesterday the Legislature voted against my amendment to end Gavin Newsom’s monstrous school closures. I have never been more disgusted with our Legislature, which is saying something. You can watch my speech here and read it below.

In some parts of our state, occasionally kids will get a day off from school for a snow day. When the storm passes and the snow melts, we don’t sit around and negotiate about whether to open the school back up. It just opens. That’s what it’s there for.

This virus has not disappeared. But what vanished long ago is any pretense that the operation of schools plays a meaningful role in transmission and any doubt that the closure of schools does searing harm.

That harm is established not just by the unimpeachable findings of study after study but by the tragic lived experience of family after family.

It is decisions by people in this building, and one person in particular, that is bringing devastation, depression, loss, and death to kids throughout California.

We are killing our kids for nothing.

We are killing our kids for no good reason.

Gavin Newsom’s monstrous school closures are among the greatest government crimes of the 21st Century. And this Legislature has been complicit, surrendering to the same special interest as the Governor.

Parents of young kids have gone from having to explain what a virus is to having to explain what corruption is.

There is no escaping the fact that we have the power to end this madness and are refusing to do so. 

We are the bad Samaritan of parable – walking by a swimming pool, seeing a child drowning, and going on with our day.

I’m not asking anyone here to be a hero. I’m not asking you to dive in headfirst and ruffle up your suit. I’m just asking that we throw in a life preserver. That we find a dash of human decency in a Capitol where decency has never been in shorter supply.   

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