The Folly of Proposition 71's "Fools Gold Rush"

California is once again sinking into the quicksand of red ink. Latest estimates show that the state must cut its budget by $10 billion! This will come out of the hides of university students, poor people needing health care, and other areas of urgent state concern.

But "the scientists" will still reap their $300 million a year in borrowed money to pursue human cloning research! For as I pointed out back in 2004 during the campaign, under the wording of Proposition 71, which is now embedded in the state constitution:

Biotech companies and researchers must to be paid an average of $295 million per year no matter how bad the California economy becomes. The CSCRCA is a constitutional amendment that would require funds to "be continuously appropriated without regard to fiscal year, be available only for the purposes provided herein, and shall not be subject to appropriation or transfer by the Legislature or the Governor for any other purpose." In other words, the measure explicitly removes funding decisions from the California legislature. This means that even if Los Angeles falls into the Pacific, biotech researchers must receive their $295 million in research grants every year.

This was just one reason why Investor's Business Daily once called Proposition 71 a "fools gold rush." Indeed. Don't the New Jersey voters who turned down their own version of Proposition 71 look prescient now?

Trouble in Prop. 71-Land

The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine is again having trouble. It's president and chief scientific officer, Zach Hall, has resigned for health reasons, while at the same time, its head consultant on funding construction projects has also quit. Beyond these personnel issues, there is apparently some ongoing turmoil behind the scenes and all is not sweetness and light in Human Cloning Land. From the story in the San Francisco Chronicle, byline Carl T. Hall:

The surprise departures raise new questions about the ability of the Prop. 71 program to move forward with a $3 billion research effort authorized by California voters in the November 2004 election. The latest dispute centers on the pace of awarding grants to expand laboratory facilities, which stem cell officials say are badly needed to carry out Prop. 71-backed research...

Jeff Sheehy, a member of the stem cell board as well as the real estate advisory panel, said that health and retirement plans aside, Hall also got fed up attempting to placate warring factions. Recent disputes have pitted leaders of UC campuses and scientists, who tend to favor rapid expansion of research capabilities [Me: Are we surprised?], against patient advocates who are urging more time to study how construction projects would dovetail with taxpayer interests and research priorities. "Zach identified a cultural divide that existed between the scientist members and the patient advocates, and he didn't want to straddle it anymore," Sheehy said.

John Simpson, who has been monitoring the stem cell program on behalf of a Santa Monica nonprofit called the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights, said the two resignations made public Tuesday clearly signaled problems in one of the most critical aspects of the stem cell program. "I'm troubled by the way all this seems to have exploded," he said.

Perhaps it is just all that money floating around, but I have long believed that the human cloning project will somehow generate more confusion than elucidation, more heat than light. Time will tell whether I am right.