California is like a beautiful woman who always falls for losers.  In just the past 13 years, voters put on the governor’s throne Gray Davis, who was so bad he was dumped from power in the state’s historic 2003 recall.  He was replaced by Arnold Schwarzenegger, who promised to “terminate” California’s problems, especially its endemic $20 billion yearly budget deficits, but treated his campaign promises with the same contempt as he did his wedding vows.

In 2010, voters figured they would go with experience and turned to Jerry Brown, who previously served two terms as governor (1975-83).  In 1976, columnist and inveterate California mocker Mike Royko, then at the old Chicago Daily News, wrote that Brown appealed to “the moonbeam vote.”  Royko later disavowed the moniker, but it stuck.

In Brown’s first days in office in 2011, I had a minuscule hope that he might have a “Nixon goes to China” moment on the state budget.  In 1979, during his first go-around as governor, Brown endorsed, and voters passed, the Gann Limit, which prevented state spending from increasing faster than the rise in population plus inflation.  It worked well until 1990, when voters, duped into thinking they were voting for road construction, passed an initiative that repealed Gann, sparking two decades of budget chaos.

So Brown knew the score and could have worked to bring back Gann.  Also, in his 1992 race for the Democratic nomination for president, Brown proposed an excellent flat-tax idea.  He could have fought for one for California.

But in 2011, whatever innovative ideas he might have had were dumped in the junkyard inside the trunk of the 1974 Plymouth Satellite sedan he drove back in the 1970’s to advertise his Zen-Hip-Jesuit frugality.

Brown’s main push for 2011 was to put on the ballot a continuation of Schwarzenegger’s expiring $13 billion tax increase.  But Brown was unable to do so.  The Austrian Oaf had bribed, with political appointments, enough fellow Republicans to join the majority Democrats in backing his increase.  But in 2011, for once, the GOP in the state legislature stood solidly with taxpayers.  Fuming, Brown implemented long-overdue budget cuts.  And he began plans for putting a tax increase on the 2012 ballot.

Then there was the choo-choo boondoggle called the California High-Speed Rail Authority.  In 2008, Schwarzenegger helped trick voters into passing a $9.9 billion bond measure for a high-speed train running from Sacramento to San Diego.  He and other supporters lied in saying the train’s full cost would be a mere $34 billion.

In November 2011, the rail authority revised its business plan upward to $99 billion—almost triple the announced cost.  As I reported, it was clear that the objective now was to blow the $9.9 billion bond, plus $3 billion in federal funds.  (Thank you, taxpayers of Peoria, Charleston, and Rockford.)  The train would never be built.  Governor Moonbeam continued supporting it anyway.

Then there was Senate Bill 48, introduced by state Sen. Mark Leon (D-San Francisco).  The legislation “would require instruction in social sciences to include a study of the role and contributions of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans, persons with disabilities, and members of other cultural groups, to the development of California and the United States.”  Brown signed it into law.

It’s mandatory.  No opt-out by parents.  What if your family’s religion still says sodomy is a sin?  Shut up.  Governor Moonbeam knows better.  Freedom of religion is so passé.  SB 48 has sparked two initiative drives: one to repeal it entirely, the second to let parents pull their children from classes with such indoctrination.

A final horror was Assembly Bill 131, by Assemblyman Gil Cedillo (D-Los Angeles).  Called the “California Dream Act,” it granted in-state tuition for state colleges and universities to anyone who has graduated from a state high school after attending it for three years.  That means “undocumented immigrants” (illegal aliens) will pay in-state tuition, while citizen-students from Peoria, Charleston, and Rockford will pay out-of-state tuition, which is more than twice as high.  Brown signed it into law.  A repeal initiative is circulating.

The problem is not academic.  It affects only students at the lower rung of achievement who shouldn’t be going to college anyway.  The problem is that the bill rewards illegal aliens while discriminating against citizens, as well as foreign students who are here legally.

The legislation is polarizing the state.  A USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll released on November 19 found it was backed by 79 percent of Latinos, while 70 percent of whites opposed it.  Racial tensions, already rising because of the Great Recession, have been set ablaze.

The Return of Moonbeam, like the Dream Act, turns out to be a nightmare.