California’s Biggest Worry?
Hugh Hewitt > Blog
Saturday, August 22, 2026
While I was in California last week I wrote about how the average Californian lives in a constant state of resignation. Once the place of hopes and dreams it has become a place where another day through without disaster or unhappy complication is a win. They are resigned to a situation that while not awful, is far from wonderful. No one dreams anymore and those that dare, hope only to leave. But under the necessary coping skill that is that resignation lies worry. What disaster, poorly handled, will next beset them?
Worry one – untying the knot. The fire rebuild. Things are starting to sprout from the ground, but the pace is quite slow and the results are less than spectacular. Way back while the fires still burned I wrote about how incredibly complex the LA governmental system was and the various jurisdictional nightmares that exist in trying to deal with a situation like those fires. I am neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet, but read this article about the current state of the rebuild. The author is going out of his way to point out that the failures do not all lie on Karen Bass’ shoulders. They never did, but:
In the other much-reported big problem, homeowners who complete their rebuild find that the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power can’t get their utility connections done. Delays in reconnection are keeping people out of fully rebuilt homes.
Uh..LADWP belongs to the city Karen Bass runs, why is that not Karen Bass’ fault? Or this
Permitting is no longer the primary bottleneck; insurance funding and utility connections are.
Well, why is insurance a problem? California insurance regulation, that’s why. Not to mention California is so poorly run insurers were leaving the state before the fires. So maybe this does not lie on Bass’ shoulders, but it is a problem with California government generally – and that is the big worry. Who is in charge in California? No one, which means everybody blames everybody else and nothing ever gets fixed. The contrast with the Northridge quake when Governor Pete Wilson and Mayor Dick Reardon stuck their heads together and rebuilt in months is shocking.
“I can make some really big promises. But that doesn’t get us anywhere — it may get us elected, but I would prefer not to run on inflated promises that I can’t deliver on,” Becerra told POLITICO this week, subsequently telling reporters his caution was a product of hard-learned experience, like his time helping to lead the White House’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic: “When I was dealing with Covid, I could not say ‘I’m going to get you all the ventilators you need,’ because I didn’t want people to say — ‘you promised them, (and) because you didn’t bring them, these people died.”
Long time California observers that are not Democrats, or reliably in support of Democrats like Politico, know that Becerra is not a blank slate – he is a void. There is a difference. You can write something on a blank slate. A void is without any capabilities whatsoever. I have said all along that the other candidate, shockingly a Republican given the jungle primary system, Steve Hilton offers no hope even if elected because the legislature and the bureaucracy would stand solid against him. Nonetheless, such a stalemate would be preferable to Becerra as his utter absence of capability would allow those institutions to run completely amok, totally unchecked.
Worry Three – the Big One. New science indicates that the probability of a major quake in California is greater than previously thought and that it might be larger than anticipated. The inevitable Big One will be a disaster of such proportions as to dwarf the wildfires. That has always been the case. Life in California has always had that built into the formula. You accepted the risk, relying on the inherent resiliency of the state to rebuild and rebuild fast and most importantly rebuild better. But recall how I closed my commentary about the wildfire rebuild – lamenting how awful it is compared to the Northridge quake rebuild. It is doubtful that resiliency exists anymore. The now-more-probable Big One could just as easily be a death blow to the state as another chance to prove itself.
In other California news:
More regulation – making California more expensive to live in with every stroke of the pen.
But it doesn’t really matter because no one can do the math anyway.
The opportunities for voter fraud are immense.
Saddest of all, Karen Bass’ competition is worse – far worse.
