Congressman Kevin Kiley (R), who toured Downieville in July, took to social media this past week to express his disdain for two laws Governor Gavin Newsom signed over the weekend.

First, a bill prohibiting the suspension of middle and high school students for “willful defiance.” Kiley explained, “Students are now free to talk back, disobey instructions, and otherwise cause chaos in the classroom. This will make it harder to recruit teachers and further erode the quality of education in California.”

The bill’s author, Senator Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley), explained in July, “Instead of kicking them out of school, we owe it to students to figure out what’s causing them to act out and help them fix it.” While Skinner’s heart may be in the right place, the outcome of this new bill may prove disastrous, as it disables one of the few resources an educator has left in their arsenal to maintain a peaceful classroom environment.

According to the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing (CTC), there were more than 10,000 teacher vacancies across California during the 2021–22 school year. A nationwide survey found that just 20% of teachers are “very satisfied” with their jobs, with one in three teachers saying they are likely to quit in the next two years.

Kiley’s second point of contention concerns water restrictions. Beginning Jan 1, 2027, public agencies, restaurants, corporate campuses, industrial parks, and certain other property owners will be prohibited from watering “nonfunctional turf” using potable water. The law does not apply to residential lawns, apartment complexes, sports fields, or cemeteries. Californians are continually being stripped of water rights, and water usage rules are ever-changing. It’s a tough pill to swallow because, as Kiley put it, “Earlier this year, 20,000 cubic feet of water was released into the ocean per second because there’s no place to store it. Water policy in California is as backwards as it gets.”