The Remedy to a Misinformed Populace Is to Inform Them

Commentary During an otherwise quiet September morning some years ago, I received a curious call from then-California Gov. Jerry Brown’s legislative team. We had just finished the legislative session, and this junior staffer was deciding on whether to recommend the governor sign or veto a bill sitting on his desk. I knew the drill after working in Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Department of Finance and having written several recommendations myself. The staffer called me in my capacity as a policy consultant for the Senate Republican Caucus, since I provided analyses for them on all legislation passing through the Senate Environmental Quality Committee. It was my responsibility to make rational arguments buttressing a free-market approach to environmental problems and push back on increasingly obtrusive and ineffective command and control solutions....