The Importance of Political Literacy

“Politics ought to be the part-time profession of every citizen who would protect the rights and privileges of free people and who would preserve what is good and fruitful in our national heritage,” thus spoke President Dwight D. Eisenhower on Jan. 28, 1954, for the Republican Lincoln Day dinner across our country.

As Independence Day nears, I’m reminded of a historical observation, to wit; “Isn’t it remarkable how our pioneering ancestors built up a great nation without asking Congress for help?” As an example, I report my longtime friend and former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi voted last month against a resolution (H. Res. 488) condemning an illegal Egyptian alien for his antisemitic terrorist attack in Boulder, Colorado against Americans marching peacefully in support of the release of Israeli hostages held captive by Hamas in Palestine. The illegal alien, Mohammed Sabry Soliman, attacked peaceful demonstrators with home-made Molotov cocktails, wounding at least 14 people who suffered burns and other injuries. Soliman traveled to the U.S.A. on a tourist visa and was admitted to our nation at Los Angeles on Aug. 27, 2022, but within one month filed an asylum application and remained illegally in our country. Colorado law enforcement officials have encountered Soliman multiple times since his Aug. 27, 2022, arrival. A New Jersey congressman, Jeff Van Drew (D) from Northfield, N.J., was the resolution’s author. He urged every member to support the condemnation of antisemitism and “Politically Motivated Violence,” yet his former leader refused to do so. The resolution was approved 280 to 113, with 29 “heroes” like Little Jimmy Costa, a Democrat from Fresno not voting, plus “no” voters Kevin Mullin of South City who represents the southern part of San Francisco not covered by Pelosi, Brad Sherman of Los Angeles, who is Jewish, Zoe Lofgren of San Jose and another friend of mine, Mike Thompson of Napa. Another six simply took a hike by answering “present.” Only 75 Democrats supported the resolution; 113 voted “no.” So much for abhorring antisemitism!

Meanwhile, that frequent taxpayer-bedeviler, Recology, Inc., will fleece property owners and renters again, this time with a nearly 30% increase over three years. Recology sought a base-service increase to $62.03 per month for homes, $234.88 for apartments. A Refuse Rate Board hearing was held June 25 in Room 400, City Hall. And the member board of City Hall employees gave the monopoly almost all it wanted. Our Board of Supervisors and mayor refuse to require competitive bidding for garbage collection rates, so we confront the highest in California. Not a single supervisor or the mayor has denounced such increase as we go to press. These garbage monopolists have dictated to taxpayers for more than 90 years. Our $160,000 per year supervisors couldn’t care less.

Science has captured attention nationally with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., ex-Santa Monica mayor, as U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services. What a nut! I was his great uncle John Kennedy’s “get-out-the-vote” chairman for Marin, San Francisco and San Mateo counties in 1960 and his father Robert Kennedy’s Northern California Lawyers’ Committee chairman before his 1968 assassination, but I’m not happy to learn that a new survey last year found Republicans are 22% less likely than Democrats to have “a great deal” or “a fair amount” of trust in science. Meanwhile, 80% of Democrats think research scientists are honest, but only 54% of Republicans do. Please Lord, stop any new U.S. pandemic.

Meanwhile, we must rebuild our armed forces under Secretary Pete Hegseth, who seems encouraged in doing so. He stresses basics like physical fitness, a single qualification standard for all men and women and lethality of military forces. A 2022 statistic indicated 46% of soldiers are Black, Latino or from other minority groups. More than 15% are women. Hegseth’s accurate in my opinion, in declaring that if recruits “… wanted to get a woke indoctrination, they just go to college” as he told a congressional hearing last month. “Instead, they’re joining the military.” As a Korean War Air Force veteran (we commemorated the 75th anniversary of the invasion of South Korea on June 25 at the Korean War Memorial in the Presidio last month), I’m pleased by Hegseth’s breakdown and hope it’s accurate.

As of June 20, California state government expects general funding spending on health care for illegal immigrants to be $10 billion in fiscal year 2025-2026 which began July 1. That’s higher by almost 50% from Gov. Gavin Newsom’s original budget presented last spring and pays for about 1.7 million illegal aliens. State legislature Democrats want radical new taxes on legal inhabitants of California to pay for the illegal aliens’ medical bills! Aren’t we lucky? But then, those aliens are illegal. The “mainstream” media claims they’re just “undocumented” so show me your legal alien documents next week, pal!”

Do you remember when guardians of local and regional government were always concerned with the farebox recovery ratio in running Bay Area public transit agencies like Muni? As state Senate author of legislation establishing the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC), I believe such method of measuring a system’s effectiveness constitutes the best indication of taxpayer consideration. A prime example was BART’s extension into San Francisco International Airport (SFO) which required San Francisco voter approval of a hard-fought ballot measure in the 1990s to achieve against outspending by taxicab companies, their union and the airlines and their unions during a campaign caused by SFO’s general manager who didn’t want another government entity within his “sacred” borders. That line (which ended at BART’s Millbrae station) generated the most passengers in the system and a farebox recovery from those travelers of almost 70% of BART expenses. That efficiency no longer occurs and MTC hasn’t measured farebox recovery since 2023 with BART boasting only 24% farebox recovery in the entire system and the SFO extension now unavailable too often to travelers. Caltrain has the best at 25%, Muni recovered 9% (!), Sam Trans a surprisingly low 6% and San Jose’s Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) in a city with over one million people only 6%. AC Transit remains one of the worst at 8%, but SF Bay Ferry raised 24% from fares and even the Golden Gate Bridge received 16% from its wealthy Marin ferry boat passengers.

Meanwhile, tax-and-spenders like State Sen. Scott Weiner are busy driving up taxes for public transit riders. His Senate Bill 63 imposes a new half-cent sales tax for every Bay Area transit system (see above) and could be double for San Francisco. It has passed the State Senate and awaits a hearing in the Assembly Transportation Committee next month. As my friend David Crane pointed out in SF Standard last April, BART, another champion tax-eater, in 2015 spent $409 million on employees while hosting 135 million rides, a $3 per ride employee cost. By last year, BART spent $734 million on employees but hosted only 55 million rides, an employee cost of $13 per ride. Its workforce also increased 28% to 4,292 employees. If 2024 boardings were the same as 2015, employee cost would have been “only” $5 per ride. Thus, BART increases its employees while losing 59% in boardings. Five labor unions among BART employees make the campaign donations which keep the governing board members in office and raising fares so ridership declines with higher fares. You like it? I don’t!

I will celebrate Independence on Sunday at the Holy Cypress Lutheran Church in Pacifica where I will remind attendees of Gen. Norman Schwartzkopf (1934-2012) who declared: “You can have the best equipment in the world, you can have the largest numbers in the world, but if you’re not dedicated to your cause, if you don’t have the will to fight, then you are not going to have a very good army. It doesn’t take a hero to order men into battle. It takes a hero to be one of those men who go into battle. True courage is being afraid and going ahead and doing your job.”

Quentin Kopp is a former San Francisco supervisor, state senator, SF Ethics Commission member, president of the California High Speed Rail Authority governing board and retired Superior Court judge.