Americas_Criminologist_09_23_25_Guest Assistant Tim Anaya

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Col steals wait just as fate.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Shadows secret.

Speaker 1 (00:17):
To this Griminologist sells Inlosyri frak and jag brus Frame.

Speaker 3 (00:35):
And here's America's Criminologists, Doctor Curry.

Speaker 4 (00:40):
Myers, How Do?

Speaker 5 (00:43):
How Do?

Speaker 4 (00:43):
Friends, Patriots and defenders of the order? Welcome to another
hour of America's Criminologist. I'm your host, Doctor Curry Myers,
retired sheriff, criminologist, educator, and an apologetic federalist. This is
a show where we deep dive into the intersection of crime,
cold in public policy. We're broadcasting live from San Bernardino, California,

(01:05):
on KMET and we're ready to shine bright on the
darkest plaguing modern governance and criminal justice issues. Today. This
segment of America's Criminologists is brought to you by Howard Wagoo.
Premium beef from the enriched plains of Kansas, Beautifully raised
on Kansas grasslands, incredibly marbled and tailored to your doorstep.

(01:26):
Visit Howardwagoo dot com to order today. Taste the tradition.
It's so tender you can cut it with a fork. California, California,
once the ground jewel of the American West, has become
a symbol of policy failure, moral erosion, and public disorder.

(01:48):
The so called California Dream has devolved into a nightmare
of high taxes, rising crime, failing schools, regulatory insanity. This
didn't happen over It was the slow, deliberate product of
leadership detached from virtue and ideologies, obsessed with control over freedom.

(02:09):
This is more than a political issue. It's a crimeogenic
issue as well. When a society suppresses faith, undermines the family,
and abandons the formative institutions that instill virtue and discipline,
you create fertile ground for chaos and the rise of
feral man. That's why I wrote the book The Advent
of Feral Man. My guest tonight, Tim and Aya of

(02:32):
a Pacific Research Institute, has seen it all from inside
California policy machine. He's here to explain the Golden State
lost its shine and what we must do to keep
it from rotting further. Tim is the vice president of
Marketing and Communications at the Pacific Research Institute, with over
twenty five years of firsthand experience inside California's political world.

(02:55):
Tim is the co author of the California Left Coast
Survivor's Guide. I love this title, best selling handbook warning
America about the consequences of California style governance. He also
is the co host of PRI's Next Round podcast. It's
a good one. You ought to look it up. The
editor of Right by the Bay and a veteran communications

(03:18):
advisor who worked with former Assembly Republican leader Connie Conway
and US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, two big wigs played
an important role in the success of California and the
success of our country. Tim, It's always a pleasure to
have you on Curry.

Speaker 2 (03:36):
It's great to be here.

Speaker 4 (03:37):
Did I pronounce your last name? Okay?

Speaker 2 (03:39):
By the way, you got it right. I always tell
people the easiest way to remember it's kind of funny,
and I have it on the back of my bowling shirt.
It's always remember Annihilator is the easiest way to remember
how to say an I am I.

Speaker 4 (03:52):
I love it. I love it. Let's start with the obvious,
my friend, why did California need a Survivor's Guide? By
the way, I was for writing the book Number one,
it's a great one, suggested everybody read it, but it's
the title is about as perfect as you can get
for what we're dealing with today.

Speaker 2 (04:10):
We were kind of looking at, you know, all the
things that those of us who I think those of
us who are blessed to live in California, and we
are blessed to live here despite all the public policy mistakes.
You know, if you believe in freedom and free markets
and free people, well you kind of feel like you're
in a policy wilderness here in California. And so we

(04:34):
started thinking back of, well, if you live in the wilderness,
how do you get out of the wilderness? And we
thought back to, you know, our time as kids. You know,
if you were in the Boy Scouts or the Girls Scouts,
what's the first thing they gave you, right, was the
Wilderness Manual. So we thought, what a great way to
kind of share our story of what we're doing, and

(04:55):
really not only with Californians, you know, and we have
so many wonderful things going on here in life. You know,
we don't blame people for not wanting to follow everything
that's going on in Sacramento or at city Hall. Not
only educate them, but people who don't live in California
because the Sierra Nevadas are not big enough to contain
all the bad ideas so it's really a guy. That's

(05:17):
seventeen chapters. It's there's lots of beautiful pictures. Our graphic
designer does amazing work and she did all the pictures
with AI, which amazes me how she was able to
do that. And it really boils forty six years of
work here at PRI into what you need to know.
It's a lot of fun. It's tongue in cheek. My

(05:39):
friend said, Tim, if you were going to write a book,
we would imagine it would be something snarky like this.
But the most important thing. There's lots of fun little vignettes.
But the most important thing is it gives you all
the little bullet points, the little vignettes of all of
the work that we do, all the analysis we do
of these bad policies, the ideas, everything from you know,

(06:02):
energy to crime, to education to entrepreneurship to everything in between,
and it gives you what you need to know so
that when these ideas come up in your community, you
have the intellectual firepower to say, no, these ideas don't work,
we don't want them here in our community.

Speaker 4 (06:23):
You know. One of the reasons that I think the
the book is going to be successful is something that
you hit on the fact that it's a little snarky
and it's got humor in it, and we've lost You
see a lot of stuff written today that is either
is overly academic number one, or it's me and there
isn't a There isn't an in between sometimes, and I

(06:44):
think the especially for people that are more conservative, we
most of us have actually a pretty good sense of humor,
and we don't mind making fun of ourselves, and we
certainly don't mind mind making fun of kind of everything.
That's the reason I'm glad to see that you have
taken it from that point of view, because number one,

(07:05):
humor can kind of that shows a little bit of empathy,
but at the same time, it kind of cuts to
the chase in a way that most people have forgotten about.
So I appreciate your writing that particular way. Have you
found that, you know, you've spent a lifetime in communication,
really have you found that that really is the best

(07:26):
way to communicate with people?

Speaker 2 (07:28):
I think? So, I mean, it's we live the life, right,
especially those who live in California. We live through all
of these challenges, most of which your policy created challenges.
So the last thing you want to do at night,
right is get a book and read through it and
kind of, you know, be frustrated even more. I think

(07:49):
a lot in when you're engaged in public policy, too
much of it and necessarily so. Right as it's complaint
you're talking about the problem. Uh, those of us on
the free market, freedom loving side, we're complaining about how
things are. But I think we have to be you know,

(08:11):
think back to high school government class, right, they would
talk about people who were happy warriors, And we can't
just be complain, complain, complaint. You have to relate to
people and what's going on, but you also have to
have something positive to put forward, and positive in the
vision you present, positive in the you know, you're not

(08:33):
just complaining. You have ideas to advance for how to
make it better, for how to build the California that
we want to see. And I think kind of under
an underlying point of this book, right, is that we
love this state of California. It's the greatest place in
the world, and we're not going to let bad policy
ruin our quality of life and chase people away. We're

(08:55):
prepared to stay and fight for the ideas and the
visions and the California that once was and what can
be again. So I think with positivity, with humor, you
really can connect with people. And you know, we also
know you and I both work in the policy world.
Public policy can be very dense. So if we can
have a little fun with it, if we can break

(09:17):
it down, you're going to remember it. It's going to
be more usable when you're having your conversations with friends
and neighbors and others in the community.

Speaker 4 (09:27):
Ronald Reagan was an absolute personal hero of mine. I
was a freshman in college at Kansas State University and
he came out on the series speaker series to Kansas State,
and I was pretty I really wasn't engaged in politics.
Other presidents coming, so we'll go listen to the president

(09:51):
talk about the great communicator. The guy had the incredible
ability to relate to everybody that was setting there, and
it had a major impact on my life and and
what my political beliefs ended up being. The question became.
He was two time governor of California, extremely successful. What

(10:15):
the heck happened that we can go to somebody like
Ronald Reagan and over time get somebody like we're at today,
and it's probably going to get worse in the future.
Maybe not. Maybe this is the maybe people are going
to finally be fed up and say, wait a minute,
we got to take another direction. But how can we
go from Ronald Reagan to the people that we have today.

Speaker 2 (10:38):
I think some of it is just kind of what
we were talking about, right, is that? Okay? And a
given night tonight, You've got you know how many baseball
games you could watch. You've got beautiful weather, you can
go to the beach, great rest, the greatest restaurants in
the world, you can go sit outside and have a
wonderful meal, all of those things. Right, There's so many

(10:59):
wonderful things to do here. We forgive people for not,
you know, paying attention to everything that's going on in
the policy world every day. So I think that's some
of it.

Speaker 4 (11:11):
Some of it is.

Speaker 2 (11:12):
And no question we have an outmigration problem in California.
It's pure numbers. And so our parents, grandparents, people of
that generation, many people that I know, you know, they've
found they've voted with their feet and they decided, you know,

(11:34):
we're going to try life in Texas, Tennessee, all those
other places. There are issues living there. Those aren't perfect places.
A lot of Californians. I hear they get all frustrated
even when they're moving. There's not as great as they
thought it might be. But they were willing to try.
They were willing to take the chance because we had
made creating a business, raising your kids, all of the things.

(11:57):
Just driving down the highway so frustrating, right, So I
and we had and it's a great embarrassment for our state.
For the first time ever, from twenty twenty to twenty
twenty three, three years in a row, we had more
out migration than in migration to the state. We lost people.
That's as great scandal, and if you're elected officials, you

(12:20):
should take that as a wake up call. But they didn't.
And while we've stabilized a little bit, you know, we're
going to lose potentially, you know, multiple seats in Congress
in the next census. So I think that peer numbers,
that's part of it. And then you go to huge
policy mistakes that we're going to talk about a lot,
you know in this hour right, things like the three

(12:44):
criminal justice epic policy mistakes AB one oh nine, Prop
forty seven, Prop fifty seven direct connection to so many
issues really related to the decay of our urban communities
and quality of life. And then I think another one
that you're listeners may not know about, and it's kind
of an insidery thing. It's when we went to you

(13:06):
now could pass the budget with the majority vote of
the legislature, so you didn't have to used to be
a two thirds vote, so you didn't have to have
consensus in passing a budget anymore. And it's kind of
put us down to this path of record spending, reckless
budget priorities. And you know, now we're even going back
to old bad habits that got us into terrible fiscal trouble.

(13:30):
So I think a little bit of all of these
things combined have got us to where we are today.

Speaker 4 (13:36):
You know, one thing that has increased in California is
criminal vagrancy. Homelessness and criminal vagrancy. That's not a good thing,
but it seems to me that California, it used to
be criminal vagrancy was against the law and you could
actually arrest people for criminal vagrancy, get them to the
sheriff's office, in which they do a classification to determine

(13:59):
what the cause. You know, whether you're a criminal, whether
you have mental illness issues, whether you have drug issues,
you could get mandatory prior to Proposition forty seven, you
could get mandatory jail, drug treatment, or mental health or
a combination thereof. And Prop forty seven absolutely blew that up,

(14:22):
took away those things from the judges to be able
to do, and that by almost seventy percent of the vote,
the California voters said, we're tired of that. Let's go
Prop thirty six and give back the pro to the
judiciary the tools, among other things, but the tools of
potentially jail, mental health treatment, or drug treatment. And yet

(14:46):
the governor's office has still failed to implement and fund
these issues. You described California as a movie with a
bad director, and that director is Gavin Newsom. There's many
issues in which he's failed, There's no question about it,
from water to taxes, to preparation to law enforcement. Which

(15:09):
one has had the most significant impact on the people
of California if you can even quantify.

Speaker 2 (15:16):
It right, well, I would say probably the if you
look at those criminal justice policy mistakes, which not all
of them were on his watch, to be fair, but
he certainly has made it worse. He's accelerated it, he's
been implementing it because it's connected to so many different things.

(15:40):
So when you talk about AB one oh nine, which
was for our listeners who may not remember, was and
it was using our budget crisis as the reason for it,
was we're going to shift thousands of serious and repeat
felons into local communities that didn't have a train enough,
trained personnel. They didn't have the facilities that got youa

(16:03):
de facto early release. Right then you had Prop forty seven,
which was taking a whole bunch of felonies and making
them misdemeanors. That's how we got this crazy issue of
you know, it's not a felony to steal until you
have nine hundred and fifty dollars. Then you had Prop
fifty seven, which was going back uh and those who

(16:24):
when we were of the era of California, remember was
the leader in truth and sentencing laws, tough on crime laws,
ten twenty life three strikes. They were known for that,
they were known for that. Right for this, we had
the safest state. You know, many of the top ten
safest cities in America. I think Seami Valley was always
the safest city in America. You know, we Prop fifty

(16:47):
seven went away from that reduced those sentences. So now
you have all of these things together, and how does
that How is that the worst thing? We did a
at Perri, we do a lot of work on urban renewal,
and we did a video tour and a conversation with

(17:07):
Jim Palmer at the time was the president of the
Orange County Rescue Mission, and they're you know, they're an
organization that they require sobriety, They require that you're working
towards something, and of course government in California is against that.
You know, you were just we think if we give

(17:28):
you a house, that's a way to go. And he said,
you know, for all the issues that we're dealing with
of the decay in urban California, the fentanyl crisis, human trafficking,
all of these things, he traces it back to Prop
forty seven and the retail theft issue because he said,
now you had a guaranteed funding source for all of

(17:50):
these illicit activities that really contributed to the decay of
urban and a lot of suburban California. And so you know,
it all starts right from safe communities. If you don't
feel safe at home, all these other things that are
big problems don't really matter. And I think his point

(18:13):
it really when you sit back and think of that,
it really does all come back to that. And we
didn't see those things happening until those things, until those
laws were on the book. A lot of people in
academia in government will say, well, there's no connection. You

(18:34):
can't say that. Well, the only connection you need are
your two eyes.

Speaker 4 (18:38):
No no, no question, no question. As a as a
college professor, I often refer to Maslow's hierarchy of needs,
which the baseline is food and water. That's the foundational
issue for people. The very closest second one is safety
and security. So after you find some food and water,

(18:59):
you've got to have shelter in a safe place to
go so you don't get killed. That's right.

Speaker 2 (19:05):
And we don't do very good on food and water
in California, So.

Speaker 4 (19:10):
You got a double thing going on because there might
be some good food you know that you might be
able to find naturally, but you guys have done in credit.
When you guys, I mean the California politicians, what can
you go into the water issue? I mean, not only
to the fact that we couldn't put out fires like
we should be able to from a safety point of view,

(19:33):
we're not providing water for agriculture. It used to be
California was the one of the top agricultural states in
the in the country. We used to be able to
actually take care of mountains and have proper management forest
management that occurred to keep fires down. All of those
things have blown up as well.

Speaker 2 (19:51):
Well. It's an issue I worked on when I was
in the legislature. Connie Conway, who was my boss at
the time. It was some of your Republican leaders. Later
a member of Congress. She actually some of your listeners
may remember her. She represented a little bit of San
Bernardino County in her district and she would always say
from her neck of the woods. She's lived in Ti

(20:12):
Larry in the Central Valley. They have a saying which
is agua es vida. Water is life. And it's an
issue of course, of growing the food to feed the world,
not just us in California, but to feed the world.
But it's an international trade issue, it's an economic issue,
it's a jobs issue, it's a public health issue. It's

(20:35):
all the things, and for years politicians would talk about it.

Speaker 4 (20:39):
Right.

Speaker 2 (20:39):
The solution to it, again, this is another politician created crisis.
The solution to it is easy. You need to build.
You need to do it all. You need to build
more above groundwater storage, you need to build more conveyance
from the wetter parts of the state in the north
to the drier parts in the south. You need to
have better groundwater storage, right because that's how a lot

(21:01):
of southern California, that's where you store the water in
the aquifers under everything. That's how you know farmers in
you know Ventura County, in Santa Barbara, that's how they
have the water to grow their crops. And it's just
a simple issue of priorities. And for too long it
wasn't a priority. They either didn't understand it or they
didn't care. And we had all the big fights over

(21:24):
the peripheral canal. Now it's called the Delta Tunnels. But
the issue is this, and it's a one of simple
voter trust. In twenty fourteen, we got the will together
after six or seven years of debating this issue and
nothing happened, and the legislature came together on a bipartisan

(21:46):
vote and the voters approved about eight billion dollars for
above groundwater storage, and we had the exact amount of
money needed to build two big above ground water storage
projects in the northern California and the Central and voters
have proved it and made clear here's what we wanted
the money to go to. And you don't need to

(22:07):
be a water expert to answer this question. Have we
built those in the years since? And the answer is no,
because the priorities of most politicians are in other things,
and when they see a pot of money, they want
to take that money for other things when they can.
Maybe one of these projects might be built in the
next four or five years. Maybe it's on track about

(22:29):
as good as can be. But when you see the
Palisades fires, one of the things that made it worse
was that simple, simple competence of government that we weren't following.
Did the infrastructure work? And if it wasn't working, why
didn't we make it a priority to do that? And

(22:50):
it's an attitude shift. It wasn't a priority to do
and so sadly all the issues related to water, it
really is a matter of priority.

Speaker 4 (23:01):
And as a result of the fire and the aftermath
and the rebuilt, where all of a sudden, now people
are facing this heavily burdened regulations that actually President Trump
tried to convince them to go into quick mode. And
it's amazing that the federal government is in quick mode
on regulation regulatory issues when it comes to rebuilding in California.

(23:24):
But the city and the state have completely made it
almost impossible to rebuild. And I just I read the
other day where they were actually going to introduce low
income housing to some of the most beautiful areas that
were taken in the fire.

Speaker 2 (23:42):
What's interesting on that is, you know, it's funny, you see,
and it's a very gaven uwsome thing right. And I
will say he has done some good things here. I
will give him credit. He has signed some executive orders
to alleviate some of the state red tape. But when
you have Karen Bass come out and I always say,
I know Bass a little from my time working Assembly.

(24:02):
Is a very nice person. But you just have to
ask her many times, what were you thinking during her
wildfire response GANA that trip not notwithstanding, so she made
a big to do, We're going to have a one
stop rebuilding center and have all the agencies here, right. Well,
that's great, But what happens when you go to the

(24:23):
one stop center. You still have over a dozen state
and local agencies that you have to deal with to
get all the permits and approvals you need to rebuild.
And if you look at the tracker, they have permit
trackers and building trackers both the county and the city.
It's still just handfuls of projects that have been approved

(24:44):
and these and those that are approved are ones that
are basically they just happen to have the building plans
from when they built their house in the first place,
so they could, you know, just agree to rebuild the
exact same thing they had its basic com potence. And
it's an attitude and all of these issues you really
see in the La Fire rebuild.

Speaker 4 (25:08):
Let's talk for a minute about the role of the
loss of faith and family in California culture and civic breakdown.
How much has that attributed to the chaos that's going
on in the state.

Speaker 2 (25:22):
I think it's a lot of it. I mean it
under it's an underpinning thing and everything right that in.
You know, if you don't have a two parent home,
you know, the numbers show you know this, it's a
lot harder to get to graduate high school, to get

(25:44):
to you know, the strong foundation to succeed in everything
we in anything you want to do. You know, the
all the issues with crime, right, A lot of that
is there isn't a father at home, right, you know.
And some of it also too, is the quality of
life we have here. You have to have both parents working,

(26:06):
maybe multiple jobs, right. In a single parent home, parent
likely has to have multiple jobs, you know, an education, right.
We need parents involved in what's going on in our schools.
And only in COVID did you finally see what was

(26:28):
going on. So I think all of these issues, all
of these quality of life issues, you know, lack of
the two parent home really is a strong reason for
all the challenges we're facing today.

Speaker 4 (26:42):
The COVID experience was a awakening unlike anything I've ever seen,
where people finally went, wait a minute, what is going on?
The government has way too much authority. We saw many
abuses were occurring during that time period, to include governors

(27:03):
and mayors actually using law enforcement to enforce edicchs in
this country. I know we're going to come back after
the station break and get into this a little bit more,
but do you have anything before we go to this
first segment commercial about that about the awakening that's occurred.

Speaker 2 (27:23):
Well, I think when you saw zoom Class with your
own eyes, the rise in homeschooling that we saw as
a result of that, it's largely kept up in the
years since COVID. You know we're now four to five
years later. That says something.

Speaker 4 (27:42):
Wow, you're listening to America's criminologists with doctor Curry Myers.
Stay with us. We'll be right back after this brief message.

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Speaker 4 (30:32):
Hi, folks, doctor Curry Myers here to let you know
that my new show, it's called America's Criminologist with doctor
Curry Myers every Tuesday at one pm between the Dave
Ramsey Show and the Kevin mccolla Show. Is a former
State Trooper special agent share for a major county. I
will offer sharp insights into the pressing issues shaping American
society today. I'll have guests, news and my insights as

(30:53):
an applied criminologist throughout the one hour show. So criminals
and the progressive politicians that allow them to fester beware
because this show is directed at you. America's Criminologist every
Tuesday at one pm on k M E T and
we're back. Hey. Are you looking for a deeper conversation
on faith family information. Well, in my book The Event

(31:16):
and ferraal Man, in a chapter, I talked about the
importance of faith, family information and the breakdowns of society.
And that's why I started the Saint Michael's Group podcast.
It's a weekly podcast where I examine the root causes
of cultural and criminal decay and I write about it
and talk about it. So you can subscribe now at
Saint michael'sgroup dot substack dot com. Truth needs a voice,

(31:39):
Let it be yours and feel free to look at
that information. And it's also on Spotify, so you can
check it out on Spotify. We're back with Tim and
Aya with the Pacific Research Institute, co author of the
California Left Coast Survivor's Guide. We're now shifting from policy

(32:02):
to crime. Make no mistake, bad governance creates lawlessness. Before
we answer get into those questions, though, let's have some
feedback about your nationally about your book that's gone nationwide.
What's been some of the feedback, you know.

Speaker 2 (32:19):
It's been interesting. I never I never expected to ever
write a book, so I don't know what people would
think about it. Certainly, you know, you hope that people
like it. But the feedback has been great. It was
a number one new release on Amazon dot com and
two categories wow. And I've been doing a lot of
speaking across the state and even outside California on the book.

(32:41):
I did a half hour on my book on c
Span Book TV. So it's been it's been great to see,
you know, all the emails that I get and the
feedback that I get. There's something different when everybody. You know,
everybody picks on their thing. That's there experience that I
write about in the book. But it's very interesting to

(33:04):
see the reaction and the head nodding when I give
speeches and you know that people are really reading it
and taking it to heart.

Speaker 4 (33:14):
How can people get a hold of your book?

Speaker 2 (33:17):
So it's at Amazon or Barnes and Noble or any
of your favorite online booksellers. Great, So wherever you like
to buy books should be there.

Speaker 4 (33:28):
I want to talk briefly about progressive das that have
been weaponizing ideology against public safety. There has been some
that's voted out. There are fifty eight counties, it's my understanding,
fifty eight counties in California, each with a sheriff and
a district attorney. You had fifty six of the fifty

(33:49):
eight in support of Proposition thirty six, which is an
incredible number. It's amazing to me how Sacramento didn't listen
to the very public, the elected public safety professionals. Just
as a result of that, I've had Jeff Reesie on
my show a couple of times, who is Yellow County's

(34:09):
district attorney, and he's pretty fed up with Sacramento and
the things that are occurring there, and certainly is one
of those das that's doing what he can on his
end to enforce the law the way it should be.
What's your read on the continuation of potential progressive das.

Speaker 2 (34:29):
Well, There's no question, you know, and I think this
is one of those things where you know, we fret
about how things are here, and there's no question there's
a lot of bad policies going on. But my theory,
both in this book and a lot of the work
that I do, is that kind of common sense, free
market ideas form the nucleus for more political balance to

(34:54):
change have the pendulum swing the other way. And I
think this issue of Prop. Thirty six, of the decay
of our quality of life, I think that's one where
you're seeing the voters they're happy to take matters into
their own hands, despite how Sacramento is very disapproving of

(35:14):
These efforts have actually made it as hard as possible
in recent years for citizens to avail themselves of the
initiative process. But when you see Prop thirty six pass
in literally every county in California, most counties overwhelmingly, and
when you see a chase of budan A Pamela Price

(35:36):
in Alameda County, George Gascone in Los Angeles. You know
when they come in and they're radically changing the orientation
of their offices, where you know before prosecutors were always
on the side of the victims and they had an
actual orientation in their offices right that, no, we're really
on the side of criminals and criminal groups and activists

(35:59):
they really beat came prosecutors in name only. You know
that they weren't really prosecuting crimes period. And I think that,
you know, it's one of those things where you know,
you had people they may be more ideologically aligned the
voters of San Francisco or Alameda County or LA with

(36:23):
these types of prosecutors, but when you don't feel safe,
when literally your community's crumbling behind you, they're going to
stand up and say, no, that's enough for me. And
I think that's why all of those prosecutors have lost
their office. I think now what you're seeing is in
the implementation of Prop. Thirty six, one of the things

(36:45):
that made it hard for any public official to deal
with the homeless issue is we had Supreme Court rulings
that basically tied one hand behind local officials backs and
said it was the famous case, a Boise versus Martin
case that's said, you know, you have to have a

(37:05):
bed for every homeless person in your jurisdiction before you
can start to clear encampments and before you can start
to move people along. Well, Supreme Court reverse that, and
now prosecutors and local officials have the ability to take action.
So you're seeing district attorneys like Tien Ho here in
Sacramento County who are actually now you know, you could

(37:30):
argue whether this is a good idea or not, but
he's taking his elected officials to court and holding them
accountable for not acting. And you're seeing, yeah, local officials
are acting because prosecutors are putting pressure on them. So
I think, you know, are there always going to be
some counties that have a more left of center prosecutor

(37:54):
isn't doing the types of things that we want to see? Sure,
but I think that the elections the last couple of years,
and you have shown and the voter's attention is on this.
They're following what's going on. They're holding their elected fields
as accountable, and even in places like San Francisco and
Oakland and Los Angeles. They want things to change, and

(38:16):
I think prosecutors and local officials are listening.

Speaker 4 (38:20):
I just read the other day where the district attorney
in Hennepin County, which is Minneapolis, has indicated sent out
an email to all of her chiefs and the sheriff
without previous communication or talking with them, and basically have said,
we are not going to charge any crimes if discovered

(38:40):
through a traffic citation. So if someone writes a traffic citation,
if law enforcement discovers any other crimes as a result,
that's fruit of the poisonous tree, and we're not going
to enforce any of the crimes that you have found.
So it used to be that, regardless of your political affiliation,

(39:08):
if you were DA or sheriff, you at least enforced
the law in the statute that was on the books
in the state that you were in. The in the
in the legislation at that time followed was aligned generally
with the Constitution, and wasn't, you know, an abridgment to
the Constitution like we're seeing today. I think you hit
on something very important, tim is the fact that it's

(39:31):
not just progressive prosecutors, but in many ways when you
have a place like California and Minnesota, for instance, where
there isn't any checks and balances legislatively, then all of
a sudden you can go back, you know what, crazy
and start being start actually passing laws which are an

(39:52):
abridgment to the United States Constitution and in many ways
these states constitution. That's right.

Speaker 2 (40:00):
I mean, look at all the debates we're having right
on the in the wake of the la Ice riots.
And you know, California, you know, is a leader in
many things in a bad way, and the sanctuary policies
are a leader in a bad way. Now, you know,
we kind of think of that, and especially on the
academic side of things, and you think, didn't we figure out,

(40:20):
you know, nullification of federal laws is not a right thing,
didn't you know South Carolina eighteen sixty, didn't we.

Speaker 4 (40:27):
Kind of kneel?

Speaker 2 (40:28):
This is a long time ago with those sorts of things, right,
and they you know, until the Supreme Court says no,
you have to enforce all federal laws in your jurisdiction,
it's not going to change. And that's what's needed. You know,
you need to find the test cases to take these

(40:50):
things up. But it's you know, part of it is
it's an agenda, a bad agenda. It's so we want
you to live how we want you to live others,
you know, so what. But also it's all of these
folks fight are auditioning for the camera. They're looking for
their next their road to Congress, they're looking for so
you see the kind of court this is part of

(41:13):
I think that kind of coarseness and ugliness in our
politics where you see the four letter words, you know,
being used in legislative debate, and the shouting and the
we're going to tell you know, the president this and that,
and yeah, there's checks and balances at every level of government,
but when you don't have more political balance, you know,

(41:34):
you see that they feel they can get away with
these kind of policies. That is their dream, it's how
they want life to be. But there's real lack of
understanding of you have to follow the constitution, and until
you know you have the Supreme Court slap them down
and say yeah, you really do have to follow the

(41:55):
constitution and enforce all laws, you're not going to see
much change on that front. And it's really I think
an embarrassment for California, and it's one of those bad
ideas that I talk about that's spreading across the country.

Speaker 4 (42:10):
Do you think the Roberts Court has been too law's
effair when it comes to judicial oversight? Or are they
or is the Supreme Court actually set up that they
can only look at the individual cases that come before them,
and they're hamstrung in those areas.

Speaker 2 (42:27):
Right, For the most part, I think the rulings they've
handed down, you know, because they understand remember Supreme Court
justices or politicians too, and so there's a fine line
you walk in these cases. I think for the most
part they've handled it pretty well and with responsibility. I'm

(42:49):
very interested to see where I would argue it it's
an overreach of executive power? Are the tariff cases? And
we chatted with former wressmen brilliant man had so many
great positions government Tom Campbell about this issue. And you know,
I think the you know what the lower courts have ruled,

(43:11):
in my view of reading the law, is that's correct.
I wouldn't be surprised if they rule along those lines
in a case like that. I think the other thing too,
where they've done a pretty good job is they recognize
that these are hot issues happening now in real time,

(43:32):
and they're stepping in and acting, and I think that's
been a good thing. That too far, you know, in
the past, right you would see courts wouldn't accept the cases.
And you know, as much as a Supreme Court justice
or a court Appellate Court justice, you know, they might
want to stay out of some of these cases. These

(43:55):
are really big and very interesting constitutional questions that they
need to kind of decide. So I think there are
many legal textbooks that can be written from this last
couple of years of the Supreme Court. But from my
vantage point in how they have been ruling in the
cases they've been accepting, I think they've done just about right.

(44:19):
I can't think of one example of one where you know,
they went too far, it didn't go far enough.

Speaker 4 (44:26):
Yeah. It's interesting though, how the nullification that continued nullification
project that's going on in many states, however, how that
can be rectified? Because if if a governor or mayor
is personally not enforcing federal law, then what tools can

(44:49):
be done other than potentially doing what Lincoln did and
basically go arrest people.

Speaker 2 (44:54):
That's right, that's right.

Speaker 4 (44:56):
Where do we go with that? I mean, how do
we prevent that kind of nullification in the future.

Speaker 2 (45:02):
Well, and I think that's why. And I'm sure you
know you always need the test case. We really need
that adjudicated at the highest level. We need a very
clear ruling on this issue, and that's one thing we
just haven't had yet. There are cases working their way
through the lower courts. There have been certainly injunctions from

(45:23):
lower courts and what they think is overreached by Trump
administration executive authority, and you know, some of those things
right at the federal level, they probably are things where
the president doesn't have the executive authority in Congress needs
to pass a law in these areas. So that will
be an interesting Roberts Court dynamic to see how they

(45:45):
rule in those areas. But I'm with you, I don't
see how they have been legally able to get away
with this for so long. And I think and I
would expect that a major statement on this is going
to be coming in the months ahead, because well why

(46:06):
would we, You know, it's not how it works. You
can't enforce the law that you own, only the ones
that you like. You know, your job is to support
and defend and uphold the laws of the Constitution of
the United States. We all in public service take an
oath to that, and if you don't like the law,

(46:26):
go change the law. You have the power to do so,
but you don't get to pick and choose which laws
you enforce.

Speaker 4 (46:33):
And nullification begets more nullification. I had a police chief
on the show recently from Colorado and he had a
He had many complaints that he was dealing with the
state of Colorado because there's somewhere to California in a
lot of things that they do from a criminal justice

(46:53):
point of view, But he actually has had court orders
from a judge is who have said this person needs
to actually have mandatory mental health. So the judge is
doing the right thing. The police department goes pick them up,
takes them to a state center, and the state center

(47:15):
has refused to abide by the court's order. And that's
going on in America more than most people know that
people are nullifying what used to be the legal process.
Either we're ignoring law or ignoring orders for valid orders

(47:35):
from the court. And talk about chaos that can occur
in the country if you have these kinds of situations.
Is do you see that some in California as well,
where you actually have the executive branch, whether it be

(47:56):
a mayor or governors and the people that work for
them that are basically saying, ah, we're not going to
follow that court order.

Speaker 2 (48:03):
Well, I think certainly, you know, there's a lot there
in the immigration enforcement arena we've seen this year. But
you know, I think I'm kind of old school on
that when a judge orders you to do something, you
do it. I think we've seen enough movies where you know,
you have a lawyer who didn't do what they were

(48:25):
supposed to do and they're held with contempt of court,
and you know, maybe it speaks to our judicial system
really is overly burdened. We don't have enough. You know,
sometimes we don't want more judges, but really we really
do need more judges, more ability. That's why these cases
drag on in many cases. Right. It's a huge issue

(48:48):
at the federal and state level. And if you don't
have enough judges, enough court rooms to hear these cases, right,
you can't ensure that justice is served and served swiftly.
And so that's I think some of the problem here too,
is that the judicial systems overwhelmed in the state and

(49:09):
they don't have the manpower to keep tabs on these things.
Only when you have a prison receiver, like we had
a prison receiver or a court receiver. We had a
prison receiver. So a lot of these issues with overcrowding
and prisons, you had a judge who was actually requiring
updates and issuing decisions that were really policymaking by bench.

(49:32):
You're seeing it now in LA over homeless spending, or
there's a judge in LA who's not happy with how
homeless spending is going, and we're on the verge of
there may be a receiver in that. In those cases, yeah,
you're before a judge at a regular interval, and you
better do or have an answer for that judge or
there are going to be consequences. And remember judges in

(49:54):
those cases they can order spending, they can order consequences,
they can open and close things. So you're seeing some
of that certainly, But I'm with you. I mean, it's
I don't see how they've been allowed to get away
with it for so long. And it's a fundamental principle

(50:14):
of checks and balances and how our system operates.

Speaker 4 (50:19):
What are the impact of the public school systems in California.
They're certainly not institutions of formation. They're probably more institutionism
and doctrination. Quite frankly, more and more people are doing homeschooling,
more and more people are sending them to private or

(50:40):
Christian or Catholic schools. What's the future of public school
in California?

Speaker 2 (50:47):
I'd say public education is kind of Gavin Newsom in
a nutshell also right that he'll get up and he'll
brag about we spend one hundred and twenty four or
so billion dollars in the latest budget from all sorts
of fundation on education. We spent about twenty four thousand
dollars per student from all sources of funding. Yet reading
scores or in the low thirties. Math scores are in

(51:10):
the low thirties, which means like thirty five percent of
kids can read. And it's been that way for a while.
COVID was the best thing on a lot of these issues,
especially for education, and parents saw how ineffective it was.
You know, all the issues we talk about the curriculum
and all of those things. Yes, of course, but it

(51:31):
all comes down to can your kids read, can they
do basic math? Are they going to be prepared for
whatever they want to do in life, and the answers
know and so, and then you see the reaction in Sacramento,
right is we want to take away school choice opportunities,

(51:51):
make it as hard as possible for school choice. The
hottest issue this end of legislative session was a bill
to make it harder for they call it non classroom
based home charter schools, which is homeschoolers to have access
to resources and be able to raise to educate their
kids as they wish. So people are waking up. It's

(52:14):
another one of those issues. They're voting with their feet
by withdrawing their kids and putting them in all of
these alternative educational options. I'm encouraged to on the basics
because we had a bill this year that you know, yes,
progressive ideology is permeates education, including teaching things like reading.

(52:36):
And we've been using ineffective teaching methods for a long time,
and you know, everything's got to be data driven. Data
driven is you use phonics that works. And so we've
had a by partisan movement in Sacramento and other states
to say we want they call it the science of reading.
We want teachers taught how to teach our kids properly

(53:00):
in reading, and we're getting results. There was a huge
bipartisan bill that was passed this year. Assembly Member Blanco Rubio,
a Democrat from La carried it, championed, it passed overwhelmingly,
and we got money in the state budget to teach
teachers how to properly educate our kids and how to read.

(53:22):
So I see some encouragement there. But you're right, that's
why we need school choice, so you can put your
kids in the school that you, as a parent know
we'll best educate your kids.

Speaker 4 (53:35):
Yeah, school choice is the answer, not only in California
but every state in the Union. That's the future. I've
absolutely loved having you on the show, Tim. How can
we follow your work, the work of your organization and
find out again about the book?

Speaker 2 (53:52):
So you can follow me at Tim and Iyah on X.
You can follow PRII at Pacific Research or you can
go to Pacificresearch dot org. You can sign up for
updates and get them in your inbox every week and
go to Amazon or any of your online booksellers to
get a copy of my book.

Speaker 4 (54:09):
My friends follow p r I. They do a great
work there, especially for California. You can look at their
and their They're constantly writing updates and UH and working
on different case projects, so I encourage you all to
check them out. Tim, It's been a fantastic conversation. UH again,
thanks for everything that you do and best luck to you.

Speaker 2 (54:32):
Thank you so much, it's been great to be here.

Speaker 4 (54:34):
You bet well. That's it for today's folks, the episode
of America's Criminologists. A big thank you to Tim and
the team of Pacific Research Institute. Remember, crime doesn't start
in the streets. It starts in the hearts and minds
of broken institutions. So let's rebuild them together, starting with faith,
family and formation. And don't forget. I'll be guest hosting
the Leu Desmond and Company show later right right here

(54:56):
on km ET. Our guest will be Assistant Chief Area
Schmidts of the Lex Lenexa Police Department. We're gonna be
talking officer wellness, which is extremely important. Till then, stay safe,
stay educated, and stay free.

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