Antonin Scalia is right about California
Let’s stipulate that U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was wrong to dissent in last week’s ruling legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide.
Scalia made his point via a swipe at his colleagues for being unrepresentative of the U.S. population (and thus wrong to impose their views on the entire country).
After noting that all nine justices attended Harvard or Yale law schools and that only one grew up in the Midwest, he wrote that the court has “not a single Southwesterner or even, to tell the truth, a genuine Westerner.”
California is singular among Western U.S. states in how it was settled so early and grew so quickly.
Yes, we’re the only state to break ground on high-speed rail.
More California high school graduates, facing higher tuition at home, head to public universities in neighboring states.
All three now have In-N-Out Burger outlets, as does Texas, another big destination for exiting Californians.
In previous generations, California was populated by people from Asia, Latin America, and the American Midwest and South.
Last year, we finally regulated groundwater, as other Western states have been doing for years.