EDITORIAL: The hits just keep coming in progressive paradise

H.L. Mencken wrote that “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and they deserve to get it good and hard.” Having turned California into a one-party leftist state, the voters and politicians there seem intent on proving Mr. Mencken’s satire as prescient.

This week, Golden State officials asked residents to not charge electric vehicles during the late afternoon and early evening as a conservation measure during an anticipated heat wave.

Forecasts indicate that the Labor Day weekend will be a scorcher throughout much of the Golden State, and officials fear the stress on the energy grid could lead to blackouts.

This comes just one week after preening state regulators announced an outright ban on sales of new gasoline-powered vehicles in the state by 2035. Limits on such transactions will be phased in over the next dozen years. At this point, about 12 percent of California vehicles are plug-ins, but the grid can’t even handle that small amount. It will get only worse.

“Toddlers could run a state more competently than Democrats,” a Republican congressional candidate commented on Twitter.

And the hits just keep coming.

On Monday, California lawmakers — acting at the behest of union interests — passed legislation mandating that fast-food restaurants pay up to $22 an hour and that wages be set by a 10-member state committee appointed by various political interests and accountable to no one. Smaller restaurants will be exempted, but the bill will cover scores of chains, including Starbucks and McDonald’s.

It’s doubtful a more harebrained scheme could be concocted outside of Caracas or Pyongyang. How this proposal is even legal remains a mystery. The plan will all but eliminate jobs for teenagers or those on the low end of the ladder, discourage business investment, hamper small-business owners looking to expand and drive up costs for consumers. An analysis by UC Riverside’s Center For Economic Forecast and Development estimated that prices at fast-food establishments could jump 20 percent.

“We can expect a very sharp increase in food costs from the affected restaurants,” researchers noted, “and that could push these families to the breaking point, given the financial pressures working families already feel from rising rents, gas and other necessities.”

Gov. Gavin Newsom has yet to indicate whether he’ll sign the bill, which passed with less than a veto-proof majority. Apparently even some legislative Democrats recognize colossal overreach when they see it. If the governor goes along, it will only hasten the exodus of entrepreneurs and established businesses fleeing the state. But at this point, that seems to be the objective of California’s progressive political class.