Four state consumer boards could die next year after state lawmakers neglected to pass a crucial bill during a frantic September final night in which both legislative houses raced to adjourn amid rancorous politics.

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As a result, consumers could see fewer public protections in services such as barbering and cosmetology, vocational nursing, dentistry and audiology. Workers in those industries, as well as court reporters, may experience licensing inconveniences as their boards transform into smaller bureaus run strictly by the Schwarzenegger administration.

Consumer boards have built-in sunset provisions, and their renewal is usually an automatic thing. But not this time.

Now scheduled to ride into the sunset next June 30 (“Lawmakers cannot approve emergency legislation next year in regular session that allows the existing boards to continue because of a state constitutional prohibition on doing so”, the Bee notes) thanks to the legislature’s unintentional neglect : Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology Board, the Board of Vocational Nursing and Psychiatric Technicians, Court Reporters Board and the state Board of Barbering and Cosmetology.

“There have been a few examples of boards deliberately sunsetting,” Robert Fellmeth, executive director of the Center for Public Interest Law at the University of San Diego, told the Bee, “but this is the first time we’ve had large numbers of agencies terminated out of sheer incompetence.”

One more consumer board is facing a sunset death at the end of June– the Dental Board of California. The Dental Board isn’t dying of neglect though, it was killed by a veto. Governor Schwarzenegger killed the bill that would have extended the life of the oversight board, because it contained new regulations for dental hygienists. The governor prefers a more freewheeling approach to tooth-scaling, and letting the free market decide when a patient should rinse-and-spit.

Or perhaps he’s in the pocket of Big Dental Floss. Probably not… though as another story in the Bee (Sacramento’s leading insect-themed newspaper) makes clear, the governor is still very comfortable in the presence of deep pockets.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s closest Hollywood friends held a fundraising roast for him Wednesday at the Beverly Hilton hotel in Beverly Hills, just three days after the state’s bill-signing period ended.
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The Republican governor signed and vetoed the last of the 964 bills on his desk Sunday. His fundraising event raised approximately $800,000.

The shocking part of the story isn’t the money-grubbing. Almost as soon as Arnold announced during his first campaign that as an incredibly wealthy man, he didn’t need anyone else’s money, he’s sucked up dollars from interested parties at a rate that makes Gray Davis look like a monk. No, the shocking part of the story is who the Bee lists as Arnold’s “closest Hollywood friends”.

It’s a list of low-wattage luminaries like Tom Arnold and David Spade. Has it come to this? Back during the heady days of the recall, Arnold glowed with true Hollywood glamor. Star-struck politicians like Utah Senator Orrin Hatch, and giddy political pundits across country, talked about amending the Constitution so Arnold could run for president. Now the biggest Hollywood star the governor can get to headline a fundraiser is Tom Arnold? That’s just one notch above a late night infomercial in terms of glamor. No wonder nobody is talking about amending the Constitution for Arnold anymore.

Tags: CA legislature, consumer boards, fundraising, money grubbing, Schwarzenegger