Los Angeles Times reporter Nancy Vogel has a roundup of nanny-state bills pending in the California legislature:
Enjoy fast food? Like to light up while you watch the waves? Forget to sock away money for your kids' education? Some California lawmakers want to change your ways. They've planted a crop of proposals this year — "nanny" bills, as they're called — that would:
•  Restrict the use of artery-clogging trans fat, common in fried and baked foods and linked to heart disease, in restaurants and school cafeterias. •  Bar smoking at state parks and beaches, and in cars carrying children. •  Open a savings account, seeded with $500, for every newborn Californian to use at 18 for college, a first home purchase or an investment for retirement. •  Fine dog and cat owners who don't spay or neuter their pets by 4 months of age. •  Require chain restaurants to list calorie, saturated fat and sodium content on menus. •  Phase out the sale of incandescent light bulbs, which are less energy-efficient than compact fluorescent bulbs.
The debate has commenced in the Capitol: How far should government go? Vogel notes that all these proposals come from Democrats and that
Republicans, who say the sponsors are trying to parent the whole state, are having none of it. "Could you imagine the founding fathers dealing with — I don't know — wearing a helmet when you're in the buggy?" said the Assembly's Republican leader, Mike Villines of Clovis. "We all know you can't mandate behavior; it just does not work," he said. "It creates criminals of people for things that are not criminal behavior…. You can't legislate for stupidity."
Of course, Republicans are no slouches in the nanny-state department. From New York mayor Michael Bloomberg's jihad against smoking to Arkansas governor Michael Huckabee's war on obesity to President Bush's grab-bag of Clintonesque hand-outs and religious-right prohibitions, Republicans have proved themselves equally adept at hectoring, monitoring, nudging, and punishing recalcitrant citizens. As I wrote last year at Cato Unbound:
Republicans used to accuse Democrats of setting up a nanny state, one that would regulate every nook and cranny of our lives. They took control of Congress in 1994 by declaring that Democrats had given us "government that is too big, too intrusive, and too easy with the public's money." After 10 years in power, however, the Republicans have seen the Democrats' intrusiveness and raised them. So from the Republicans we get federal money for churches; and congressional investigations into textbook pricing, the college football bowl system, the firing of Terrell Owens, video games, the television rating system, you name it; and huge new fines for indecency on television; and crackdowns on medical marijuana and steroids and ephedra; and federal intervention in the sad case of Terri Schiavo; and the No Child Left Behind Act; and federal subsidies for marriage; and (for less favored constituencies) a constitutional amendment to override the marriage laws of the 50 states.
As far as California's Democratic nannying goes, let me just say this: Governor Schwarzenegger, only a girlie-man would be afraid to veto these bills that treat adult Californians like children.