CG Interview: California Rep. Tom McClintock Talks Turkey

“If your country is going to hell, you stay and fight. If your state is going to hell, you flee to freer states.”

U.S. Representative Tom McClintock (R-CA) has never shied away from the professional pursuit of representing the interest of the people – of his district, as well as the interests of the people of the United States. His constituents love him and continue to reelect him, but not everyone in California are as appreciative.

McClintock has warned the California State Water Control Board that he and other members of Congress would intervene should the Board continue its priority of fish over humans in violation of federal operations, and water quality standards.

McClintock has done battle with the Sacramento Bee editorial board and various opinion columnists for many years.

McClintock, whose Northern California district includes the Yosemite Valley and the Tahoe National Forest, told me in an interview in 2018 about the California wildfires that the U.S. Forest Service 40 years ago departed from well-established and time-tested forest management practices. “For decades, traditional forest management was scientific and successful—that is until ideological, preservationist zealots wormed their way into government and began the overhaul of sound federal forest management through abuse of the Endangered Species Act and the ‘re-wilding, no-use movement,” McClintock said in an August 2018 interview.

“There are two things I always hear when talking to people in my District,” Congressman Tom McClintock (R-CA) said during an interview Monday in his District office in Roseville, CA. “One is, ‘I’ve lived here all of my life, love you Congressman McClintock, but am so upset that I am actually thinking of leaving the state;’ and the other is, ‘I just moved to this district from the San Francisco Bay area and I disagree with you, and everything you’re doing is wrong.'”

It turns out these statements are emblematic of the conflict within the State of California.

Rep. McClintock and I discussed the 150,000 Californians leaving the once-Golden State every year for 30 years, as well as recent emigres. “Last year, 700,000 were naturalized in California,” McClintock said, pointing out that the current emigres are not keeping up with the outbound migration of more than 4.5 million.

“We are nearing the tipping point in California,” McClintock said. “The Democrat always had a large, disengaged constituency, and not all voted. But now, with ballot harvesting, they are automatically registered, and then the Democrats go out and collect the votes.” Ballot harvesting is the collecting and submitting of absentee and/or mail-in voter ballots by volunteers and campaign workers.

As for the people leaving California in droves, “If your country is going to hell, you stay and fight,” McClintock said. “If your state is going to hell, you flee to freer states.”

California’s Homeless Epidemic

Rep. McClintock discussed the horrific, medieval conditions in California cities including Los Angeles because of the epidemic of hundreds of thousands of homeless, mentally ill and drug addicts living on the streets. He mentioned Dr. Drew Pinsky’s warnings to the country of the immediate potential of a Bubonic Plague epidemic, which could kill thousands of people. I have been a frequent guest on Dr. Drew’s radio show on KABC in Los Angeles, most recently July 18, discussing this very issue, and the many California Globe articles chronicling the homeless epidemic in California, created by government officials.

McClintock, who served in the California Legislature for 22 years prior to running for U.S. House of Representatives in 2008, said there were always strong anti-vagrant laws in California, which vagrants and officials honored. But cities have more recently acquiesced to transients and vagrants since the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in a 2017 case brought by homeless plaintiffs in Boise, Idaho, that cities cannot punish homeless people for sleeping outside if no shelter beds are available to them.

Many readers have questioned why the federal government does not intervene in California before a deadly outbreak of some previously eradicated disease strikes, while others are concerned with any federal intervention because of states rights.

“States don’t have rights, people do,” McClintock said. The Constitution does give Congress responsibility over federal elections, “which does guarantee a small (r) form of government,” McClintock said. “Californians are being disenfranchised through election fraud,” suggesting that there is a place for federal intervention because of Democrats’ use of ballot harvesting, disenfranchising California voters.

Cloture in Congress

Since McClintock has served in Congress since 2008, he remembers during the Obama administration the Republican-dominated House sent many good bills to the Senate only to watch them die. “Now we are sending many bad bills to the Senate only to watch them die.”

However, McClintock said he is very worried for the country if Democrats take the Senate and White House in 2020. And he is concerned about the abuse of cloture – the Senate rule that requires 60 votes before a bill can be considered. Originally designed to protect the minority’s right to debate, it has degenerated into a very effective way for the minority to prevent any debate. The U.S. Senate explains: Cloture is “the only procedure by which the Senate can vote to place a time limit on consideration of a bill or other matter, and thereby overcome a filibuster. Under the cloture rule (Rule XXII), the Senate may limit consideration of a pending matter to 30 additional hours, but only by vote of three-fifths of the full Senate, normally 60 votes.”

“Cloture is the fault of Sen. Mitch McConnell,” McClintock said. McClintock said in 2016, the American people voted at a pivotal moment in the life of our country to “make America great again.” He said President Donald Trump has fulfilled his campaign promises to revive the economy, balance the budget, secure our borders, and rescue our healthcare system. “To accomplish these goals, voters provided Republicans all the necessary tools: majorities in both houses of Congress and the presidency.”

But that is not what happened. If the Republican Congress had proven worthy of this trust, history would have looked back Trump’s first two years as the turning point when America reclaimed its greatness and entered a new era of prosperity, solvency and security. The 116th Congress would be taking office with a clear mandate to build on that success. Instead, cloture happened.

“House Republicans sent the Republican Senate over 1,300 bills during the last two years, fulfilling every promise made to the American people,” McClintock said. The Senate acted on fewer than 300, and never took them up for even a moment of deliberation – all for lack of cloture.”

That’s not the fault of Senate Democrats, who radically abused this rule as part of “the Resistance,” McClintock said. “It is the fault of the Senate Republicans who let them do so by stubbornly refusing to reform the rules.”

Part II next: More cloture, A House Divided, Koshure Law