Quentin Kopp is a California jurist and former legislator who sponsored the legislation creating the California High-Speed Rail Authority and later sponsored Proposition 1A, the 2008 general obligation bond measure that provided initial funding for the state’s high-speed rail system. He appeared twice on The Bob Zadek Show to discuss the project’s origins and its subsequent deviations from the promises made to voters. Bob Zadek introduced him as a politician who had spent his career serving California and the San Francisco Bay Area, and who was “fighting to end” the very project he had once sponsored Let’s Talk About California’s “High-Speed” Rail (2018).
Legislative origins
Kopp traced the project’s beginnings to 1992, when, as a member of the California State Senate, he introduced legislation to create the California High-Speed Rail Commission. He had first experienced high-speed rail in France, traveling from Lyon to Paris in 1984 or 1985, and was impressed by a system that had begun in Japan in 1964 in preparation for the Tokyo Olympic Games. That bill passed both houses of the California legislature but was vetoed by Governor Pete Wilson on the theory that California had enough governmental agencies. In 1994 Kopp introduced a bill to establish a committee to evaluate the desirability and feasibility of high-speed rail in California; that bill passed and was signed because the governor appointed all committee members. The committee reported a year and a half later that high-speed rail was both desirable and feasible. In 1996 Kopp introduced a bill establishing the California High-Speed Rail Authority, which passed both houses and was signed by the governor. It allowed the governor to appoint five of the nine members, with the State Senate and Assembly appointing two each Let’s Talk About California’s “High-Speed” Rail (2018).
Kopp emphasized that he had not abandoned the idea of high-speed rail itself, noting that it operates globally in about twelve countries in Asia and Europe. Asked by Zadek whether the feasibility study was political cover or a sincere study, Kopp said it was a bona fide study from an intellectual standpoint and from the standpoint of the integrity of its findings and recommendations. He became a Superior Court judge in San Mateo County on January 1, 1999, and was not a participant in the study itself, but said nobody criticized it from an intellectual standpoint or from the genuineness and honesty of its conclusions Let’s Talk About California’s “High-Speed” Rail (2018).
Proposition 1A and taxpayer protections
The Authority appointed an executive director and had a small staff of about five people. It recommended initial financing and an approximate estimated cost for a system in two segments: first San Francisco to Los Angeles, then to Anaheim in Orange County, about thirty miles from downtown Los Angeles; and a second section extending from Los Angeles to San Diego on the south and from Merced in the Central Valley to Sacramento in the north. A state senator then initiated a general obligation bond issue. In California, a general obligation bond must be approved by voters. The bond totaled $9 billion 950 million and was originally intended for the November 2004 ballot. It was postponed to 2006 because the 2004 ballot included a recall of the incumbent governor and the election of Arnold Schwarzenegger. In 2006 Schwarzenegger asked the legislature to postpone it to 2008 because he had a general obligation bond on a different subject. It appeared on the November 2008 ballot and was approved by California voters on a 52% to 48% vote, providing seed money for the Authority to begin implementing the first part of the plan Let’s Talk About California’s “High-Speed” Rail (2018).
Kopp described the bond measure as different from any other he could recall because it contained many specific provisions designed to protect taxpayers and to implement the promised system. It included mandatory speeds: San Francisco to Los Angeles in two hours and forty minutes, and Fresno to San Jose in sixty-five minutes. It also prevented the commencement of construction of any segment unless all the money needed to complete it was guaranteed. Kopp identified two essential principles of high-speed rail: it must be 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. The ballot measure also prohibited using any taxpayer money or subsidy for the cost of operation. Kopp noted that almost every transit system in California—rail, bus, or ferry—requires taxpayer subsidy, with the exception of the rail system from San Diego to San Ysidro on the Mexican border and the BART system to San Francisco International Airport Let’s Talk About California’s “High-Speed” Rail (2018).
Zadek characterized Proposition 1A as a bond measure that any libertarian or thoughtful voter could support, calling it virtually a template for good government spending. He asked why the private sector did not undertake the project without the bond measure. Kopp explained that the custom and practice in the twelve or so systems worldwide is that private investors will not commit money until a system is at least 50% built, and sometimes not until it is 60% or 75% built. The financing plan contemplated that the bond issue would be the foundation, with federal funds, regional funds, and finally private investment amounting to perhaps 25%. He noted that in the 1980s Congress passed legislation, 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 as part of the stimulus bill after Obama became president Let’s Talk About California’s “High-Speed” Rail (2018).
Political interference and route changes
Kopp described how the route of the first phase from San Francisco to Los Angeles was chosen to go south to San Jose, then over the San Luis Pass to Merced in the Central Valley, then down Merced following Highway 99 as closely as possible into Fresno, from Fresno to Bakersfield, Bakersfield to the Los Angeles Basin through Palmdale, and then to downtown Los Angeles with a stop at Burbank Airport. He said this route was destined to produce enough money from riders to cover expenses, and explained that the alternative of going down Interstate 5 was rejected because there are no cities on that route. Fresno had a population of over 500,000, and the plan was to accumulate ridership from Merced to Fresno to Bakersfield, an active area in Kern County Let’s Talk About California’s “High-Speed” Rail (2018).
However, Kopp said, there are expensive communities on the San Francisco Peninsula in San Mateo County and Santa Clara County, including Atherton, Palo Alto, and Menlo Park. He said residents of these communities did not want to be disturbed and 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 commuter system from San Francisco to San Jose called Caltrain, operated by Santa Clara, San Mateo, and San Francisco counties, which has been increasing in ridership but is still subsidized to the extent of about 50% of its cost by taxpayers. Kopp named a member of Congress, Anna Eshoo, from Atherton, who he said now lives in Palo Alto; a then-state senator, Joe Simitian, now on the Santa Clara Board of Supervisors; and a then-assemblyman, Richard Gordon of Redwood City in San Mateo County. He said the three of them sponsored legislation and took every action they could to make sure there would be no legal ability of the High-Speed Rail Authority to buy land for its own right-of-way. He noted that about fifty feet is needed for a right-of-way Let’s Talk About California’s “High-Speed” Rail (2018).
The shift under later governors
Kopp was appointed to the High-Speed Rail Authority board in 2005 by the State Senate as one of its two appointees after he retired from the San Mateo County Superior Court. At the next meeting he was elected president of the board and served until after the bond issue was approved in November 2008. His term expired in 2010. Governor Edmund G. Brown was elected governor in November 2010. Kopp said that contrary to popular impression, Brown at least asked questions about the viability and progress of the project. Brown had been a devotee of high-speed rail during his first eight years as governor in the 1970s to 1982, but seemed careful about wanting to be assured that it was feasible. Brown appointed his own people to vacancies as they occurred, including his own successor to the chairman of the Authority, who had been with him as a junior assistant in the 1970s and who Kopp described as now the most vocal champion of high-speed rail among public officials Let’s Talk About California’s “High-Speed” Rail (2018).
In the 2020 interview, Zadek reintroduced Kopp by recounting his career: he had been a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, a member of the California State Senate, and a California State Court Judge. Zadek said Kopp had just missed beating then-mayoral candidate Dianne Feinstein for the mayoral post in San Francisco in 1979. Zadek also said Kopp was the principal sponsor for the California High-Speed Rail Authority and had been on the show before to discuss what had happened to the project. Zadek described the high-speed rail proposal Kopp first put before voters as one he could support, and said it had been corrupted What Kamala Harris Hopes We Will Forget (2020).
Across episodes
Both episodes touch on California’s high-speed rail project and Kopp’s role in it. The 2018 episode provides the detailed legislative history, the provisions of Proposition 1A, and Kopp’s account of political interference with the route. The 2020 episode revisits the project as context for a broader discussion of Kamala Harris’s political career and Kopp’s resignation from the San Francisco Ethics Commission. The excerpts show no development in Kopp’s position between the two appearances; in both, he is critical of what became of the project he sponsored.
What the sources do not cover
The excerpts do not state the outcome of any litigation over the project, the specific contents of the 2020 discussion of Kamala Harris or the San Francisco Ethics Commission, or the details of Kopp’s resignation from that commission. They do not provide the ending of Kopp’s sentence about Governor Brown’s appointee as chairman of the Authority, which breaks off mid-thought. They also do not state the current status of the high-speed rail project or any final cost figures beyond the $9 billion 950 million bond measure.
Episodes
1 appearance, 2020–2020.
- What Kamala Harris Hopes We Will Forget (2020) — California high-speed rail failures and political ethics. Former California State Senator and Judge