ZadekpediaOn the show
2 appearances, 2018–2020.
- 2018-02-04 · Let’s Talk About California’s “High-Speed” Rail · 52:07 — California High-Speed Rail and Proposition 1A.
- 2020-09-04 · What Kamala Harris Hopes We Will Forget · 40:29 — California high-speed rail failures and political ethics.
Overview
Quentin Kopp is a California politician and jurist who served as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, a member of the California State Senate, and a California State Court judge. He was the principal sponsor of the California High-Speed Rail Authority and of the ballot measure that funded it. What Kamala Harris Hopes We Will Forget (2020) In 1979, he narrowly lost a mayoral race in San Francisco to Dianne Feinstein. What Kamala Harris Hopes We Will Forget (2020)
Kopp first encountered high-speed rail in France, traveling from Lyon to Paris in 1984 or 1985. He was impressed by a system of rail service that had begun in Japan in 1964, in preparation for that summer’s Olympic Games in Tokyo. Let’s Talk About California’s “High-Speed” Rail (2018)
Legislative origins (1992–1996)
In 1992, as a member of the California State Senate, Kopp introduced legislation to create the California High-Speed Rail Commission. Both houses of the legislature approved the bill, but Governor Pete Wilson vetoed it on the theory that California had enough governmental agencies. In 1994 Kopp introduced a bill establishing a committee to evaluate the desirability and feasibility of high-speed rail in California; that bill passed and the governor signed it, because he appointed all the committee’s members. Let’s Talk About California’s “High-Speed” Rail (2018)
The committee reported to the legislature and governor a year and a half later, concluding that high-speed rail was both desirable and feasible. Kopp characterizes the study as bona fide from an intellectual standpoint and says nobody criticized it at the time on the genuineness or honesty of its conclusions. In 1996 he introduced a bill establishing the California High-Speed Rail Authority, which passed both houses and was signed by the governor. The governor appointed five of the nine members; the State Senate and the Assembly appointed two each. Let’s Talk About California’s “High-Speed” Rail (2018)
Kopp was appointed to the Authority board in 2005 by the State Senate as one of its two appointees, after retiring from the San Mateo County Superior Court, where he had become a judge on January 1, 1999. At the next meeting he was elected president of the board, and he served in that role until after the November 2008 bond issue was approved. Let’s Talk About California’s “High-Speed” Rail (2018)
Proposition 1A and taxpayer protections
The general obligation bond measure was in the total amount of $9 billion 950 million and was originally intended for the November 2004 ballot. A state bond requires only majority approval, while local bonds require two-thirds approval. Let’s Talk About California’s “High-Speed” Rail (2018) It was postponed to 2006 because the 2004 ballot carried a recall of the incumbent governor and the election of a new governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger; in 2006 Schwarzenegger asked the legislature to postpone it to 2008 because he had a bond on another subject he wanted to present. Let’s Talk About California’s “High-Speed” Rail (2018) It appeared on the November 2008 ballot and was approved by California voters on a 52 percent to 48 percent vote. Let’s Talk About California’s “High-Speed” Rail (2018)
Kopp describes the measure as different from any other bond measure he can recall because it contained many specific provisions designed to protect taxpayers. Among them are mandatory speeds: San Francisco to Los Angeles in two hours and 40 minutes, and Fresno to San Jose in 65 minutes. It also barred commencement of construction of any segment unless all the money needed to complete it was guaranteed, and prohibited any taxpayer money or subsidy for the cost of operation. Let’s Talk About California’s “High-Speed” Rail (2018)
Two design principles Kopp calls essential: high-speed rail is an electrified system, not diesel, with operational speeds up to 220 miles per hour; and it must have track dedicated only to high-speed rail, not shared with commuter or freight rail. Bob Zadek framed the proposition as a template for good government spending, a bond measure any thoughtful voter could support. Let’s Talk About California’s “High-Speed” Rail (2018)
The route and political interference
The first phase, San Francisco to Los Angeles, was chosen to run south to San Jose, then over the San Luis Pass to Merced in the Central Valley, then following Highway 99 as closely as possible into Fresno, on to Bakersfield, through Palmdale, and into downtown Los Angeles with a stop at Bob Hope Airport in Burbank. Kopp says the route was destined to produce enough money from riders to cover expenses, in contrast to a route down Interstate 5, where there are no cities. Let’s Talk About California’s “High-Speed” Rail (2018)
Kopp identifies what went wrong as political interference on the San Francisco Peninsula. Expensive communities in San Mateo County and Santa Clara County — Atherton, Palo Alto, Menlo Park — did not want to be disturbed, and their politicians moved to prevent the taking of additional right-of-way for a separate high-speed rail corridor. He names the member of Congress Anna Eshoo of Atherton, then-state senator Joe Simitian, now on the Santa Clara Board of Supervisors, and then-assemblyman Richard Gordon of Redwood City, saying the three sponsored legislation and took every action they could to strip the Authority of the legal ability to buy land for its own right-of-way. The existing commuter system on that route, Caltrain, is operated by Santa Clara, San Mateo and San Francisco counties and remains subsidized to about 50 percent of its cost by taxpayers. Let’s Talk About California’s “High-Speed” Rail (2018)
Zadek argued that because the project was found feasible and destined to make money, the private sector should have undertaken it, with government involved if at all only for eminent domain. Kopp explained that private investors generally will not commit money until a system is at least 50 percent built, sometimes not until 60 or 75 percent, and that the financing plan contemplated the $9 billion bond as the foundation, alongside federal funds and regional funds, with private investment amounting to perhaps 25 percent. He noted federal legislation from the 1980s, authored by Lynn Schenk of San Diego, laying out seven high-speed rail routes in the United States, and that Congress eventually appropriated money in 2009 in the stimulus bill after Obama became president. Let’s Talk About California’s “High-Speed” Rail (2018)
Later criticism and the Ethics Commission
By the time of the later episode, Kopp himself was quoted calling the project full of deceit, desperation, and broken promises, saying it should not have been started, even as he was earlier quoted as saying California could not afford not to build high-speed rail. Let’s Talk About California’s “High-Speed” Rail (2018) Zadek introduced him as a public official whose career had been independent of political influence and free of hidden agendas, and noted that Kopp resigned from the San Francisco Ethics Commission after it failed to properly investigate political figures such as Willie Brown. What Kamala Harris Hopes We Will Forget (2020)
Across episodes: the rail project
The 2018 and 2020 episodes both revisit the high-speed rail project, the earlier one at length on its legislative origins, guarantees and route, the later one using it as background to Kopp’s account of Kamala Harris’s early political career and of his resignation from the San Francisco Ethics Commission.