California Democrats' law to kill Uber and Lyft may be contributing to the port bottleneck

The Democrat party totally controls California, as it has for the last 50 years.  The state's legislature has a "veto-proof Democrat supermajority," and with a Dem governor any insane, destructive "law" the Dems want becomes reality.

Example: Two years ago the abysmally corrupt governor of Cali, Gavin Newsom, signed the Democrat-ruled legislature's Assembly Bill 5 into law.  

Did you hear anything about AB-5?  If you're not from Cali you've probably never heard of it. Yet it's part of the huge inflation we're just beginning to see.  Let me explain:

AB-5 made it illegal for Cali residents to be "independent contractors"--and ALSO made it illegal for companies doing business there to USE independent contractors.  Of course you're not an "independent contractor" so why should that concern you, right?  Wrong, as I'll explain.

Most outrageously, AB-5 made it illegal for companies doing business in Cali to use independent contractors in ANY state.  

You may well wonder how they have the power to do that.  After all, laws passed in one state normally can't bind a company in a different state.  But the Democrats who rule California don't give a damn about whether one of the laws violates the Constitution.  Their ghastly law will fine any company that hires contractors anywhere in the U.S., and no CEO wants to go to the huge expense of suing the thuggish Democrats who run California--since state Dems get to use taxpayer dollars to pay attorneys to prosecute companies.

AB-5 is a huge economic bombshell because most companies use "contract labor" when they need extra output in a hurry (as in, just got a new order), or to fill staff shortages.

Wait, aren't realtors considered independent contractors?  After all, the companies they work for don't pay 'em a salary--they only earn from commissions.  And the companies don't set the realtor's hours.  No medical or retirement.  Sounds independent to me.

So the powerful realtors' lobby used their huge donation clout to ensure that realtors were exempt from the destructive law.  Attorneys managed to do the same.  But oddly, two *very* profitable companies that used ALL independent contractors--companies that should have had enough cash to be able to bribe legislators to ensure that AB-5 would NOT apply to them--had no such luck.  Can you guess the identity of those two companies?

Uber and Lyft.  The success of those companies had cost taxi drivers--and their employers!--LOTs of money.  Since companies don't have to provide contract employees with medical insurance, nor pay overtime, Uber and Lyft could provide rides at lower cost than taxi companies.  So the taxi companies saw AB-5 as an easy way to kill off the competition.

The Democrat legislature bleated that AB-5 was simply about "fairness."  Cuz who doesn't like "fairness," eh?  But what it REALLY was was an effort by the taxi-drivers' union to kill Uber and Lyft, by forcing those companies to treat all their freelance drivers as employees.

Clever, eh?

Another planned effect of AB-5 was that as soon as the new law forced drivers for Uber and Lyft to be classified as employees, the taxi-drivers' union would essentially force them to join!  Clever again, eh?

But the union's (and taxi owners') cunning bribe of the Dem legislature had some effects that the cunning Democrats may not have anticipated: their bill also outlawed contract *truck drivers.*

[Average low-info Democrat:  "Why is that a problem?  That doesn't sound like a problem to me.  'Everybody knows' that trucks belong to, um...'trucking companies,' right?  So truck drivers must already BE employees.  Surely there can't be more than a few dozen contract drivers, right?  Cuz if that wasn't true, the brilliant Dem lawmakers who control passing laws in California would have recognized that and exempted truckers from AB-5, right?"]

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Democrat-world, where all info comes from CNN, and independent thought is considered an insurrection against our elites.

At last report there were about 380,000 independent truckers in the U.S.  Many own their own rigs, while others drive for trucking companies when they have free time.  AB-5 outlawed both in California.  Cali Leftists have even sued Cali trucking companies for hiring contract drivers in *other* states!

By making it illegal for companies to use contract drivers, AB-5 has cut all those drivers out of the picture--yet you haven't heard a single word about it.  The Mainstream Media has ignored it, because it was rammed through by Democrats, and the Media never criticize anything Dems do.