Bankrupt San Bernardino Shows The Rest Of California The Way

“Doctor, it hurts when I do this.”

“Then don’t do that anymore.”

Residents of bankrupt San Bernardino, California on Tuesday voted to complete a rout of the city’s pro-union old guard, electing business-friendly pragmatists who have pledged to try to reduce pension costs and take on vested interests.

As San Bernardino enters into a fourth month of mediation with its creditors, the biggest of which is Calpers, California’s giant retirement system, voters on Tuesday elected Carey Davis as the crisis-hit city’s new mayor.

Davis, a businessman and political novice, ran in part on a campaign to reduce the city’s pension obligations.

When Big Labor is strangling the economy (at any level), electing officials who are in the pocket of the unions just tightens the grip on the throat. Seems simple enough to understand, doesn’t it?

Sad, voters in Detroit couldn’t make the connection. Perhaps the voters of California will before the unions achieve what once seemed utterly impossible: completely destroying California’s economy.

More than half of the municipal and county elected office-holders in the state are Republican, so there is at least a bench from which to draw. The California GOP (don’t get me started) needs to become semi-functional and figure out a way to get these people to the next level.