Let’s Talk About California’s “High-Speed” Rail
2018-02-04 · Guest: Judge Quentin Kopp (Former California State Senator) · 52:07
California High-Speed Rail and Proposition 1A
Bob Zadek interviews Judge Quentin Kopp, the original sponsor of California’s high-speed rail legislation, about the project’s evolution from a promising transportation solution to a controversial and legally questionable endeavor. They discuss the specific protections for taxpayers in Proposition 1A and how political interference and shifting plans have compromised the project’s original goals.
Topics: High-Speed Rail, Proposition 1A, California Politics, Rule of Law, Infrastructure, Public Spending, Transportation Policy
Speakers: Bob Zadek, Judge Quentin Kopp
Introduction [00:18]
Bob Zadek: Hello everyone, welcome to the Bob Zadek Show, the only live libertarian talk radio show on the air all weekend. I am, as always, your host, Bob Zadek. We are always and faithfully the show of ideas, never the show of attitude. Thanks so much for listening this morning and join the conversation at any time: 424-BOB-SHOW.
This morning is maybe a groundbreaking show in all of radio. I will be delighted to introduce you to a politician, a man who has spent his entire life serving the citizens of California and the San Francisco Bay Area, Judge Quentin Kopp. And there are lots of things that are quite special about Judge Kopp, but the specialist of the special and the subject of the show this morning is that Judge Kopp, about a decade ago, had a concept, a big spending concept at the time to make California even a more livable state than it is now—as if that is possible. And 10 years later, that very same politician, Judge Kopp, is fighting to end it. How many politicians in America have abandoned an idea that they at one time sponsored? It’s an interesting story with lots of lessons for politicians all around the country as well as in California, and there’s no one better to tell the story than Judge Kopp. Judge, welcome to the show this morning.
Judge Quentin Kopp: Thank you, Bob. Good morning.
The Origins of High-Speed Rail in California [01:40]
Bob Zadek: Now, Judge, about a decade ago, you became the sponsor of California’s Proposition 1A. Tell us what the plan was, tell us what Proposition 1A promised the voters of California. And just for our out-of-state listeners, a proposition is a ballot measure put on the ballot in California. In effect, it enables the voters to become legislators and vote for and enact legislation with the same force and effect as if it was done by the legislature itself. So it’s a very participatory system and subject to abuse sometimes, but it works. So that’s what a proposition is. Now, Judge, tell us about Proposition 1A. What was your plan? What was the goal? And what did Proposition 1A promise those who supported it?
Judge Quentin Kopp: Well, let’s begin with the actual time when this began, Bob. It’s more than a decade ago. It’s going on 27 years. In 1992, I was a member of the California State Senate and I introduced legislation to create the California High-Speed Rail Commission. I had first experienced high-speed rail in France, traveling from Lyon to Paris in 1985 or ‘84, and I was impressed with a new system of rail service that had begun in 1964 in Japan in preparation and for purposes of the Olympic Games in the summer of 1964 in Tokyo. That bill was approved by both the Senate and the Assembly, both houses of the California legislature, but vetoed by the then-governor Pete Wilson on the theory that California had enough governmental agencies. I thereupon in 1994 introduced a bill to establish a committee to evaluate the desirability of high-speed rail in California and the feasibility of building high-speed rail in California. That bill passed and the governor signed it because he appointed all the members of the committee. The committee rendered a report to the legislature a year and a half or so later and to the governor, concluding that high-speed rail was both desirable and feasible in California. And thereupon in 1996, I introduced a bill establishing the California High-Speed Rail Authority, which passed both houses of the legislature and was signed by the governor. It allowed the governor to appoint five of the nine members, the State Senate two, and the Assembly two, and it began its responsibilities. And I haven’t abandoned the idea, Bob. I want to make that clear. High-speed rail operates globally in about 12 different countries in both Asia and in Europe, and it is terrific as a system of transportation. But I will desist for the next question.
Bob Zadek: Well, my question was, when the committee concluded that high-speed rail was desirable in California, was it a situation where “let’s have a trial so we can hang them,” or was it a thoughtful, high-integrity study where one could not have predicted the outcome? Was it just to give political cover to the concept or was it a sincere study?
Judge Quentin Kopp: It wasn’t political cover. It was a bona fide study from an intellectual standpoint and from a standpoint of the integrity of the findings and recommendations. I became a Superior Court judge in San Mateo County in 1999, January 1st, and I was not a participant in the study itself, but when the study was completed, nobody criticized it from an intellectual standpoint or from the genuineness and honesty of its conclusions.
Proposition 1A and the Promises to Voters [04:43]
Bob Zadek: So what was the next step after the study? After the High-Speed Rail Commission is adopted, now we have a commission whose job it is to get it done. And what was the next step in the process and where does Proposition 1A fit into all of this?
Judge Quentin Kopp: Yeah, the word “commission” was changed to “authority” and it then appointed an executive director. It had a very small staff of about five people and it recommended the initial financing and the initial approximate estimated cost of a system. And to simplify it, it would be in two segments. The first segment would be San Francisco to Los Angeles, then to Anaheim in Orange County, which is about 30 miles from downtown Los Angeles. And a second section which would extend from Los Angeles to San Diego on the south and from Merced in the Central Valley to Sacramento in the northern part of California’s great Central Valley. A state senator then initiated a general obligation bond issue, which is the ballot proposition you mentioned at the beginning of the show. In California, a general obligation bond must be approved by voters. And a bond is the borrowing of money. And that bond was in the total amount of $9 billion 950 million. And it was supposed to be on the 2004 November ballot in California. A state bond requires only a majority approval; local bonds, cities or counties for example, require a two-thirds approval. It was postponed to 2006 because on the 2004 ballot there was a recall of the then-incumbent governor and the election of a new governor. That turned out to be Arnold Schwarzenegger. And in 2006, he asked the legislature to postpone it to 2008 because he had a general obligation bond he wanted to present to voters on a different subject entirely. And that was done in 2008. It was on the ballot in November and it was approved by California voters on a 52% to 48% “no,” 52% “yes” vote. And that provided the seed money for the authority then to begin to implement the first part of the plan, San Francisco to Los Angeles.
Bob Zadek: Now, the very important—the most important question perhaps of the hour or point for our listeners to bear in mind: what were the promises that Proposition 1A made? And the promises were in the proposition itself. So when the voters voted “yes,” what did they think they were getting and what promises were made to them for their “yes” vote?
Judge Quentin Kopp: The bond measure ballot proposition presented was different than any other bond measure I can recall because it had many specific provisions designed to protect taxpayers and to implement the promised system. For example, it has a series of speeds which are mandatory. One example is San Francisco to Los Angeles in two hours and 40 minutes. Another example is Fresno to San Jose in 65 minutes. It also has a provision which prevents the commencement of construction of any segment of the system unless all the money needed to complete it is guaranteed. And there are a couple of principles of high-speed rail which are essential. And if you don’t mind, Bob, let me just explain those as fast as I can.
Technical Requirements and Profitability [08:43]
Judge Quentin Kopp: One is that high-speed rail is an electrified system. It doesn’t operate as a diesel system. As an electrified system now throughout the world—Japan, Germany, France, Spain, South Korea, China, etc.—those speeds operationally are up to 220 miles per hour. That’s how you get from San Francisco to Los Angeles in two hours and 40 minutes. And the second essential is it must have track dedicated only to high-speed rail. It can’t share and shouldn’t share track with a commute rail system or with a freight rail system. Those are two essentials. More than those which do not of the systems existing in the world make money. They throw off profit. And that has to be certainly an essential and that was an essential in the ballot measure, which contained also a prohibition against using any taxpayer money, any subsidy by taxpayers for the cost of operation. And as you know, almost every system of transit—rail or bus or ferry boat—in California has to be subsidized by taxpayers. The only exception to that is that rail system that goes from San Diego down to San Ysidro right on the Mexican border and the BART system to the airport, to San Francisco International Airport. And that’s a serious promise to voters.
Bob Zadek: Now the promise, Judge, the promise about performance goals and all of these specifications—the promises were very strong, weren’t they? I.e., the state could not spend money until these promises could be met.
Judge Quentin Kopp: Yes. And these promises can be met. That’s why, for example, you go to Tokyo to Kyoto in Japan, you’ll see trains running between 7:00 and 10:00 in the morning, 4:00 and 7:00 in the afternoon every five minutes. And that’s why those trains produce ridership which produces money at the farebox that enables you to cover all your expenses.
Political Interference and Route Changes [11:10]
Judge Quentin Kopp: But here’s where it went wrong. The route of the first phase from San Francisco to Los Angeles was chosen to go south to San Jose. San Jose, as you know, has over a million population and is growing. Silicon Valley has generated tremendous growth both economically and in terms of population. And then from San Jose over the San Luis Pass to Merced in the Central Valley, and then down Merced following Highway 99 as closely as possible into Fresno, from Fresno to Bakersfield, Bakersfield to the Los Angeles Basin through Palmdale, which is the site of Los Angeles County’s second airport after LAX, and then to downtown Los Angeles with a stop at the Burbank Airport, Bob Hope Airport as well. And that is a route that is destined to produce enough money from riders to cover your expenses. People would say, “Well, why don’t you go down I-5, Interstate Highway 5?” The reason is because there aren’t cities on Interstate 5. Fresno has a population now of over 500,000 people and we figured to accumulate ridership from Merced to Fresno to Bakersfield, which is a very active area in Kern County and etc.
But there are some expensive communities on the San Francisco Peninsula in San Mateo County and Santa Clara County among them are Atherton—when I say expensive communities, that’s where rich people live, where they have big houses. They don’t want to be disturbed. Atherton and Palo Alto, Menlo Park. And they got their politicians to prevent the taking of any more right-of-way to create a separate right-of-way for high-speed rail. There is a commute system from San Francisco to San Jose. It’s called Caltrain. It’s operated by the three counties—Santa Clara, San Mateo, San Francisco—on the route. And that system has been increasing in ridership. It struggled for several years back in the early 1990s, but it’s been increasing its ridership. It’s still subsidized to the extent of about 50% of its cost by taxpayers. And the politicians, led by a member of Congress—her name is Anna Eshoo, she is from Atherton, although I think she now lives in Palo Alto, part of the district she represents—it was a then-state senator who’s now on the Santa Clara Board of Supervisors, can’t stay out of elected political office, Joe Simitian. There was another then-assemblyman by the name of Richard Gordon from Redwood City in San Mateo County. And the three of them sponsored legislation and took every action they could to make sure there’d be no legal ability of the High-Speed Rail Authority to buy land for its own right-of-way. You need about 50 feet for a right-of-way. And God forbid that you interfere with some rich people’s houses in Menlo Park.
Private Enterprise and Government Risk [13:40]
Bob Zadek: So that was the death knell, wasn’t it? Wouldn’t that—shouldn’t that have ended the process? And by the way, before you answer, Judge, just one comment. The bill itself, Proposition 1A, is, as you recite the provisions and the protection of taxpayer dollars, that is a bond measure that any libertarian, any thoughtful voter could support. We voters were protected. And the bill itself is virtually a template for good government spending of money. I just have one question. Since the project was destined to make money and since it was found to be feasible, why didn’t the private sector just undertake it without the bond measure and without government having anything to say about it, except maybe eminent domain where necessary?
Judge Quentin Kopp: My understanding, and this is based on the three years I was a member of the Authority governing board, which I’m sure we’ll get to in due course, is the custom and practice in all of these 12 systems or so throughout the world—even to an extent in China, which is a communist country—is that the private investors aren’t going to commit money and to actually provide money until a system is at least 50% built, and sometimes not until it’s 60% or 75% built. The financing plan contemplated that that $9 billion bond issue approved by voters would be the predicate, the foundation, that there would be federal funds available. And that was based on legislation nobody remembers, but I’ll explain in another second. There would be some regional funds also used as part of it because high-speed rail stations produce economic activity. I mentioned Kyoto, Japan; that’s as good an example as you’ll see of what is developed economically as both a commercial and an entertainment center around the station. And that finally, the private investment would amount to maybe 25%, maybe a little more, maybe a little less. In the Congress in the 1980s, there had been legislation passed by both houses of Congress—nobody pays attention to it. The author was a woman by the name of Lynn Schenk from San Diego, who is still a member of the California High-Speed Rail Authority Board of Directors, I think, which laid out seven different high-speed rail routes in the United States. California, of course, Texas, Florida, Illinois (Chicago to St. Louis), and of course in the East Coast, the most widely used Amtrak line, which is from Washington, D.C. all the way to Boston, Massachusetts. So high-speed rail was recognized nationally by the Congress, which indicated the Congress would appropriate money for it. And eventually it did in 2009 as part of the so-called stimulus bill after Obama became president.
Bob Zadek: So what we have is—what’s interesting is your explanation as to why private enterprise does not undertake the whole project is they want government to make the riskiest part of the expenditure. The initial expenditure is the most risky. As the project gets built, the risk goes down. So it’s quite interesting that private business was unwilling to take the risk, although quite willing to accept the rewards once the risk is proven to be satisfactory.
Judge Quentin Kopp: Yeah, I think, or at least most of the risk has been shouldered by taxpayers who are borrowing money to do it.
Bob Zadek: Judge, I just would like to—we’re going to go to break for about one minute. And just for our audience, this is Bob Zadek and I’m speaking with Judge Quentin Kopp. Judge is here to recite the story of a great idea which has been captured and somewhat destroyed by the political class. We will learn what happened when we come back from our one-minute break. The first half of our show was purely good intentions, good politics, sound government, propositions working the way they were supposed to. The second half of this show gets really ugly when we learn what went wrong. We’ll be back in one short minute with Judge Quentin Kopp. Please stay tuned.
[Break]
The Project’s Current Failures and Deceit [16:30]
Bob Zadek: Welcome back to the Bob Zadek Show with Judge Quentin Kopp. Judge Kopp was the sponsor, was the driving force towards California’s entry into the world of high-speed rail when he sponsored Proposition 1A way back in 2008. At the time, Judge Kopp was quoted as saying, quote, “We cannot afford not to build high-speed rail,” close quote. That same Judge Kopp who was the sponsor of a magnificent Proposition 1A, which was government working as it should, now is quoted as saying high-speed rail in California—at least this project—is full of, quote, “deceit,” quote, “desperation,” and quote, “broken promises,” and quote, “shouldn’t have been started,” close quote. So we have a politician who from birth to perhaps death—perhaps not—has been involved in an important political and economically important legislation. During the first half of our show, Judge Kopp explained how it all started. Now, Judge, I would ask you to help us understand the ugly second half of the story as to what happened to a well-drafted proposition, a well-intentioned goal carefully undertaken to protect taxpayers. Why are taxpayers in California look like we’re getting a hosing? And by the way, to our smug listeners in Denver, Portland, and Seattle, high-speed rail could be coming to you if not high-speed rail. So do not sit back and say this would never happen in your state. Judge Kopp, what went wrong?
Judge Quentin Kopp: I was appointed to the High-Speed Rail Authority board in 2005 by the State Senate as one of its two appointees after I retired from the San Mateo County Superior Court. And at the next meeting, I was elected president of the board and I served as president until after the bond issue in November 2008 was approved by the voters of California. My term expired—I was originally appointed to an unexpired term of somebody who resigned from the board and then I was reappointed to a full four-year term and that expired in 2010. Governor Edmund G. Brown was elected governor of California in November 2010. And contrary to popular impression, he at least asked questions about the viability and the progress of the high-speed rail project itself. He asked me questions about it. He asked the then-chairman. He’d been a devotee of the notion of high-speed rail during his first eight years as governor in the 1970s and to 1982. But he seemed to be careful about wanting to be assured that it was feasible. And he was. He appointed his own people to vacancies as they occurred. He appointed his own successor to the chairman of the Authority who had been with him as a junior assistant in the 1970s. And he is now the most vocal champion of high-speed rail among public elected officials in the state of California.
Central Valley Issues [18:38]
Judge Quentin Kopp: What happened was that the politicians I mentioned before from the San Francisco Peninsula succeeded in prohibiting the taking of any land for high-speed’s own right-of-way. In fact, there is state legislation which now prohibits it. It was passed and carried on by one of the successors, Jerry Hill, a state senator from San Mateo, so that high-speed rail can never have its own right-of-way on the San Francisco Peninsula between San Francisco and San Jose. So there’s one impossibility which has been created. And instead of building an electrified system, the first part of the system starts in the Central Valley. It’s not electrified; it’s a diesel system from a small city of Madera to the small city of Wasco in Kern County. It doesn’t even go to Bakersfield. You get out at Wasco under this projected scenario and you get a bus. They give you a shuttle bus 30 miles or so into Bakersfield. I don’t know how many people are going to want to take a diesel train from Madera to Wasco—and I’m being a little bit flippant here when I say to you, do you know anybody who wants to do that? Especially when you have Amtrak service down the San Joaquin Valley.
Bob Zadek: Judge, the important question that has to come to mind is, under your initial legislation or Proposition 1A, not a penny could be spent until performance and profitability was assured. Not one penny could be spent. So us taxpayers—we taxpayers—were protected. But in point of fact, buckets of money have been spent and feasibility is in great doubt. How could that have happened? Doesn’t that violate the very words of the proposition which voters supported?
Constitutional Violations [21:00]
Judge Quentin Kopp: Well, let me go back a little bit. The estimated cost that was broadcasted to the public, the legislature, and interested parties of that Madera to Wasco was about $6.5 billion. It’s 119 miles. And in the Stimulus Act of Congress in 2009, about $3.1 billion was set aside for California High-Speed Rail. And then a couple of other states—Illinois is one that comes to mind, Florida is another—rejected stimulus money for high-speed rail in those states and so the Federal Department of Transportation transferred that money to California. So the California High-Speed Rail Authority, at least on paper, had the money, $6.5 billion or so, to build this 119 miles. But the problem is that the cost, the estimated cost, has increased. Most recently, about a month ago, it was revealed that the cost is, I think, $10.7 billion now. Where is the money coming from? The answer to that: it’s coming from Governor Brown’s cap-and-trade legislation and the money accumulated in there. I think about $600 million a year has been delivered to high-speed rail from the cap-and-trade revenue which the state takes in under that particular program. I don’t know if that means that high-speed rail now has all of the—what is it, $10 billion 700 million—now the estimate. Go back to the November 2008 bond issue. Use $9 billion as the figure approved because there was $950 million approved for connecting high-speed rail to other rail systems, commute systems, Capitol Corridor system in the valley for example, the San Joaquins, BART in San Francisco Bay Area, the Metro in the Los Angeles Basin. But of the $9 billion, I think it’s been spent down to about $7 billion. Don’t forget, now you’ve got a staff of I don’t know how many people, there are at least 30 people in that office, and you’re paying Parsons Brinckerhoff and these other consulting firms. And then you’ve had to buy right-of-way. That’s all part of the cost. Well, this section from Madera to Wasco was started even before all the right-of-way was acquired. And as we talk today, not all of the right-of-way has been acquired as needed and there’s been considerable litigation. I don’t even want to try to start that because you can expect litigation under the California Environmental Quality Act, but there’s other litigation as well. I will comment on one pending lawsuit of which I’m a part if there’s time to do that and I will subside.
Bob Zadek: So now what we have is you were the original sponsor of Proposition 1A, probably still support the concept of Proposition 1A high-speed rail. However, you have now—and this is the perfect time, Judge—you have now not only abandoned what is happening, not the proposition, and you have become the sponsor, perhaps the plaintiff, of litigation to drive a stake in the heart of the project. So what has happened for you, the father of high-speed rail in California—I hope you don’t mind that label, which is mine—the father of high-speed rail in California, here you are driving a stake into its heart in your litigation.
Judge Quentin Kopp: Well, Bob, it won’t drive a—if we win, and we should win, I think we will, it won’t drive a stake into the heart. I’ll explain why in a minute. This gets to be lawyer and judge talk, but it’s an important principle of government. But the reason I agreed to participate in the lawsuit, not only is because the legislature and Governor Brown have violated the California Constitution, but because this isn’t high-speed rail anymore. It’s not electrified and it doesn’t have its own track available from San Francisco down to San Jose. And the same thing is true theoretically if you ever got to the Los Angeles Basin; it doesn’t have its own right-of-way. The point of this lawsuit, which is the subject of a hearing next week in Sacramento County Superior Court, is because the commute system I mentioned a couple of minutes ago on the San Francisco Peninsula from San Jose to San Francisco, the Caltrain system, wants to be electrified. And it should. It can’t run at 220 miles per hour like systems worldwide, but it can run at 120 miles per hour, which would double its speed and get people from San Jose to San Francisco in 30 minutes. The estimated cost a year ago of electrification, which should be done and which I support, was about $2 billion. And when all the money available was added, it found itself about $710 million short. A bill was introduced by a feckless assembly member from San Mateo County that would take that $715 million from the California High-Speed Rail Authority and give it to the three counties of San Mateo, San Francisco, and Santa Clara. That passed, notwithstanding its unconstitutionality, and the governor signed it, notwithstanding its unconstitutionality. The reason it’s unconstitutional is because there is no authority for that in the 2008 $9 billion bond issue which I’ve mentioned several times and you’ve mentioned on this program. Changes in what was passed in November 2008 can only be made by the voters of California, not the California legislature. And I’m reasonably confident we’re going to prevail in that. There’s a footnote to it. I’m now informed that the electrification cost is close to $3 billion, not $2 billion. Our success won’t drive a stake into high-speed rail, which isn’t high-speed anymore, but our success isn’t going to solve the financial problem high-speed rail has because there’s no money available. The House of Representatives twice since 2010 has passed legislation prohibiting any federal funds for California High-Speed Rail.
Lessons for Voters and Legislators [23:00]
Bob Zadek: Now, Judge, our listeners are about the function of government, limiting the power of government over our lives. This whole story that you have recounted for us, I think, has lots of important lessons both for California and for the country. So if you could, since you are perhaps uniquely qualified because of your extensive experience in all branches of government, your lifetime of commitment to good government—you ran as an independent when you ran for the legislature—so you have a unique and lifetime of perspective. What are the headline lessons as to what went wrong, what went right, and what voters who seek to be informed and do the right thing when they go to the ballot box—what are the lessons you think this experience should have taught voters and indeed may have even taught you, if I may?
Judge Quentin Kopp: Sure. You always learn and it certainly did teach me. As I mentioned at the beginning of the program, this bond issue in November 2008 was different than any bond issue I can remember because it had specific protections for taxpayers. You’re borrowing money, you’re taking on a loan of $9 billion, almost $10 billion. So you want to protect taxpayers. That’s one lesson. That should be a part of every bond issue. Secondly, the margin of passage was not as much as I would like to see; 52% to 48% was a struggle. And when you run campaigns, you need money and we didn’t have much money, relatively speaking. And some of the opponents, Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association and there were a couple of other outfits which opposed it and had money to spend. I’d like to see a higher affirmative vote on measures like this or any endeavors like this by government. And we were carried by the vote for Obama in the opinion of the fellow now dead who handled the campaign on a statewide basis. In other words, you had a lot of people who voted for Barack Obama for president with all his promises who turned out and that was the margin. And then secondly, what we need—how do you change human behavior? But we need legislators who believe in the rule of law, who simply aren’t going to embark upon actions consistent with what someone like Jerry Brown wants so that they break the law. That’s what we need. And this pending lawsuit I mentioned where there’s a pretrial motion next week that will be informative with respect to its result is not the only such lawsuit. I’m co-plaintiff with the same Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association in a lawsuit which we won in December in Sacramento Superior Court on the same legal point: something was done which violates what the voters approved. So what I’ve learned is that somehow we’ve got to educate Californians and Americans generally and certainly people in the legislature that the rule of law is important. And even though you’d like to do something you think is great for people, you do it with the consent of people if it involves borrowing money which can only be paid with taxpayer dollars.
Bob Zadek: Now there’s another dynamic which we’re running out of time, but I wonder if you would speak to it. There is a political dynamic that occurs all around the country all of the time, which is when politicians fall in love with a project and they are concerned about losing voter support, they try to spend as much money as they can real quickly so that they can argue we’ve spent so much money, it’s a waste for us to stop. In other words, there’s a critical mass. If you spend enough, then it becomes stupid to stop. I think that dynamic was operating perfectly for the politicians in high-speed rail. I wonder if you would comment on that.
Judge Quentin Kopp: Yeah, I think that’s true. But that’s not new, Bob. I mean, that’s always been the case in my lifetime that you spend money and spend money and you get to a point where you argue that it would be worse to stop than it would be spending more money than you told people you’d have to spend in order to complete a project. And that’s probably what they’re doing—when I say “they,” I mean the High-Speed Rail Board and the governor’s office or whoever else is engaged in it. And that’s human nature. There’s not much you can do about it. But I think one lesson to learn even at my advanced age is this: the original estimate that was predicated upon the work of Parsons Brinckerhoff primarily, which was the manager of the project hired—the Department of California Department of Transportation, Caltrans, was not the manager—was inaccurate. The original estimate of construction for San Francisco to LA was something like $33 billion. The estimate now is somewhere around $69 billion. The lesson to learn from that is that you’ve got to be accurate. And of course what you’re afraid of, what people are afraid of, is if you’re accurate it’ll scare voters who have to approve, who have to vote to approve bond issues in California. Federal government, the Congress, can vote to approve spending money and run deficits. State of California can’t run a deficit, nor can any city or county or a special district in California. That’s in the state constitution of California. So that’s the pull and the push. But I conclude that it’s better to overestimate than it is to underestimate. And then you make those arguments in a forthright manner to the voters when you present a bond like we did in November of 2008.
Bob Zadek: My only comment to all that you have said is I go back to an exchange we had earlier in the show when you pointed out in response to my question about why it wasn’t left purely to private enterprise. You said in effect business doesn’t want to spend the high-risk money; they want government to do that first. And I say risks have rewards. And if the spending of the money is too risky for the reward, then maybe that’s the marketplace sending out a message that maybe it’s a bad idea. So perhaps where you and I may differ in the margins is on that issue.
Judge Quentin Kopp: Well, Bob, since I’ve been involved with high-speed rail, which goes back to 1992, there have been private enterprise projects contemplated and planned. For years, one was contemplated from Los Angeles to Las Vegas because Las Vegas, the state of Nevada, wanted to get Californians over there to lose their money in the gambling casinos. And as recently—I say as recently as seven, eight years ago—such an endeavor was still in progress. The same thing is true now in the state of Texas. There’s a plan to build privately high-speed rail, I think it’s from Dallas to Austin. It hasn’t happened. But in any event, can’t argue with the observation.
Bob Zadek: Judge, I want to—we have only 30 seconds left. It would take me much more than that to sincerely thank you for your lifetime of service to the citizens of California and specifically for spending an hour with us this morning. We very much appreciate you giving us the time and your insights. It’s been a real privilege and a pleasure to speak to you this morning.
Judge Quentin Kopp: Thank you for inviting me, Bob. I enjoyed it.
Bob Zadek: Thanks, Judge. Bye.