LOS ANGELES—Joining an ever-growing list of opposition from area newspapers to business groups and citing government overreach and need to focus on real issues, the Los Angeles County Federation of Republican Women, representing 35 local chapters with over 3,000 members today announced its opposition to Measure B, the so-called “Safer Sex” initiative on the Nov. 6 ballot, said the No on Government Waste Committee.
“We are gratified to have the support of so many women who joined in the effort to defeat this poorly-conceived, badly-drafted and useless ballot measure that will do nothing to improve public health, but grow government and cost taxpayers,” said James Lee, communications director for the No on Government Waste Committee. “The Federation of Republican Women recognized, as we have long said, that Measure B is a classic example of government overreach and wrongly focuses attention away from the very real problems facing the County.”
The Los Angeles County Federation of Republican Women joins the Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Daily News and four other local newspapers, 23 local area chambers of commerce and the Valley Industry and Commerce Association, the largest business group in the San Fernando Valley, in announcing their opposition to Measure B.
“Not even the adult entertainment industry is safe from the over-reaching arm of government pilfering. Measure B is a pathetic attempt by a desperate county government to extort money from taxpayers to fund a laughable regulatory branch of county government,” said Claudia J. Morgan-Andrade, president of the San Fernando Valley Federation of Republican Women. “Measure B means more government employee wages and pensions to police a mandate that will result in yet another industry seeking fiscal reprieve in a region less punitive to business. Los Angeles County will lose yet another tax base while increasing our debt to government employee salary and pensions.”
Measure B, funded and placed on the ballot by the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, would require the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health to license and permit adult movie productions in the county and require performers to wear condoms and create an unworkable system of on-set inspections and enforcement by county personnel. The county estimates initial start-up costs for the program to be in excess of $300,000, but acknowledges that regardless of the level of compliance by the adult film industry, there would be significant cost to the Department of Public Health.
“This is the same county who’s Children & Family Service Division, with an annual budget of $1.8 billion, where 72 children have died in the last four years, 80 percent of emancipating youth do not have a high school diploma or GED, 40 percent of those ends up homeless and government workers retire with 80 percent of their salary. This is why the Republican Women Federated says ‘No to Measure B’,” Morgan-Andrade added.
According to the California Department of Public Health, from June 30, 2008 to June 30, 2011, there were 6,447 new cases of HIV reported in Los Angeles County, but only two were adult performers who did not contract the disease on-set. Since 2004, there have been no documented cases of HIV transmission on an adult entertainment set. In fact, with the industry’s strict testing protocols—requiring testing at least every 28 days for HIV, chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis—adult performers are the most tested workforce in the nation.
All models were at least 18 years old at the time of their performance. 18 U.S.C. 2257 Record-Keeping Requirements Compliance Statement.
