California Democrats prattle endlessly about helping the working poor, but their latest vote against a bill that would tangibly help financially struggling people shows that Democratic leaders are more interested in serving their real constituencies: state bureaucracies, public-sector unions and the interest groups that want to keep out the competition.
The latest example involves occupational-licensing reform. It’s one of those rare issues that should have widespread bipartisan support. Think tanks on the left and right agree that burdensome and costly rules for getting a license to perform certain jobs (barbers, makeup artists, locksmiths, speech pathologists, funeral directors, etc.) make it inordinately difficult to enter the job market, especially for people of modest means.
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