Leland Yee's Bribery Charges Bring Questions About Passage Of His Fake "Violent" Video Game Law
The March 27th arrest of California state senator Leland Yee on charges of weapons trafficking and bribery really shows how a moral crusader has less morals than the things they rail against. Over pretty much his entire tenure in the California state legislature(first as an assemblyman, then as a state senator), he whined about fake "violent" video games to the point of filing legislation regulating sales of them to minors, which passed and eventually went before the US Supreme Court before being ruled unconstitutional by a 7-2 vote with a majority opinion that wipes out any attempt at regulating fake "violent" content in any entertainment media, and also pushed gun control legislation.
It's hilarious that Yee claimed in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook shootings in Newtown, CT that people who play video games had no credibility to discuss the issue of the alleged effect of them on people, yet it turns out that he himself had no credibility to discuss that issue or to discuss guns, for that matter.
The people and groups that supported Yee's anti-fake "violent" video game bill and his fight taking it to the US Supreme Court(for example, Common Sense Media and its founder/president James Steyer and the Parents Television Council) should start being concerned as they're now associated with a politician that has alleged ties to the Chinese mafia, which damages whatever credibility they had, and throws question on how far those ties to organized crime went:
-How long has Yee been involved with the Chinese mafia?
-Did he use those ties to curry favor with fellow state legislators?
-Did he use those ties to force legislation through the legislature?
It also throws question on everything he's done in his legislative career, in particular, his anti-fake "violent" video game bill, the lynchpin of his celebrity.
I've always questioned how Yee got his anti-fake "violent" video game bill passed to begin with. When the bill was first introduced as AB 450 in April 2005, it initially failed to pass the committee that it was assigned to(the California State Assembly Committee on Arts, Entertainment, Sports, Tourism, and Internet Media), coming up one vote short in a group of 10(5 for, 4 against, with 1 abstaining), but everybody in the committee voted to reconsider the bill later. 2 days later, the assemblyman that abstained from voting(Jerome Horton) was conviently absent from voting and another assemblyman who was never assigned to the committee begin with(Dave Jones) was somehow allowed to cast the sixth vote needed to pass the bill out of committee. The bill ended up being tabled and pulled from the Assembly floor in early June 2005 when it appeared to Yee that he didn't have enough votes to get the bill passed.
Then the Hot Coffee shitstorm(some sex scenes in GTA:San Andreas that had been blocked by code by Rockstar Games ended up unblocked by the modding community and the game ended up getting re-rated from M to Adults Only(AO) because Rockstar never told anybody about the scenes in question, keeping knowledge about the scenes in-house) happens, and Yee brings the anti-fake "violent" video game bill back in September 2005 as AB 1179(the original AB 1179 had to do with community care facilities and would have allowed trained providers to administer injections for diabetes and anaphylactic shock to foster children), replacing the language of the bill with the language of AB 450(AB 450 ended up as a disaster preparedness bill requiring the Office of Emergency Services to take people with pets, livestock, and service animals into account following a major disaster/emergency). The bill had already passed the state Assembly in the original form and was in the state Senate, so it needed to pass the Assembly again. The bill passes the full legislature a week later, and then-governor Arnold Schwartzenegger signed the bill into law a month later.
With Yee's alleged ties to organized crime and being accused of bribery, it makes one wonder:
-Did Yee give a bribe to Jerome Horton to not show up for the 2nd vote on AB 450? Threaten Horton with bodily harm?
-Did Yee give a bribe to Ed Chavez, the chairman of the Assembly Committee on Arts, Entertainment, Sports, Tourism, and Internet Media, or to vice chair Audra Strickland to allow Dave Jones to substitute for Horton?(Which would be weird since both Chavez & Strickland voted against the bill in both votes)
-Did Yee bribe Jones to vote in favor of AB 450 to get it out of committee?
-Did Yee give a bribe to Arnold Schwarzenegger for Arnold to sign AB 1179 into law?
-Did Yee give bribes to then-California Attorney General Jerry Brown to keep appealing the federal courts' rulings that AB 1179 was unconstitutional all the way to the US Supreme Court?
If evidence the FBI took out of Yee's home and offices indicate in any way that Yee gave bribes to various California politicians to get his anti-fake "violent" video game bill passed instead of letting it pass on its own merits(even though there was no merit to that bill) and/or to keep appealing federal court decisions that blocked his unconstitutional law from taking effect, it would also negatively affect and irreparably damage the credibility of the whole argument against fake "violent" video games/movies/TV/etc.
Anybody that supported Yee in his fight against fake "violent" video games should be watching this story very closely, because if it breaks that Yee got AB 1179 passed by bribing his fellow legislators or even that Yee donated money received from his alleged ties to the Chinese mafia to those groups that supported him, it negatively affects those groups as it makes it look like they support illegal activity to help benefit their causes. Perception is reality.
Links
Initial committee vote: http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/05-06/bill/asm/ab_0401-0450/ab_450_vote_20050503_000002_asm_comm.html
GamePolitics story on AB 450 Advancing to Assembly Floor: http://gamepolitics.livejournal.com/17325.html
It's hilarious that Yee claimed in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook shootings in Newtown, CT that people who play video games had no credibility to discuss the issue of the alleged effect of them on people, yet it turns out that he himself had no credibility to discuss that issue or to discuss guns, for that matter.
The people and groups that supported Yee's anti-fake "violent" video game bill and his fight taking it to the US Supreme Court(for example, Common Sense Media and its founder/president James Steyer and the Parents Television Council) should start being concerned as they're now associated with a politician that has alleged ties to the Chinese mafia, which damages whatever credibility they had, and throws question on how far those ties to organized crime went:
-How long has Yee been involved with the Chinese mafia?
-Did he use those ties to curry favor with fellow state legislators?
-Did he use those ties to force legislation through the legislature?
It also throws question on everything he's done in his legislative career, in particular, his anti-fake "violent" video game bill, the lynchpin of his celebrity.
I've always questioned how Yee got his anti-fake "violent" video game bill passed to begin with. When the bill was first introduced as AB 450 in April 2005, it initially failed to pass the committee that it was assigned to(the California State Assembly Committee on Arts, Entertainment, Sports, Tourism, and Internet Media), coming up one vote short in a group of 10(5 for, 4 against, with 1 abstaining), but everybody in the committee voted to reconsider the bill later. 2 days later, the assemblyman that abstained from voting(Jerome Horton) was conviently absent from voting and another assemblyman who was never assigned to the committee begin with(Dave Jones) was somehow allowed to cast the sixth vote needed to pass the bill out of committee. The bill ended up being tabled and pulled from the Assembly floor in early June 2005 when it appeared to Yee that he didn't have enough votes to get the bill passed.
Then the Hot Coffee shitstorm(some sex scenes in GTA:San Andreas that had been blocked by code by Rockstar Games ended up unblocked by the modding community and the game ended up getting re-rated from M to Adults Only(AO) because Rockstar never told anybody about the scenes in question, keeping knowledge about the scenes in-house) happens, and Yee brings the anti-fake "violent" video game bill back in September 2005 as AB 1179(the original AB 1179 had to do with community care facilities and would have allowed trained providers to administer injections for diabetes and anaphylactic shock to foster children), replacing the language of the bill with the language of AB 450(AB 450 ended up as a disaster preparedness bill requiring the Office of Emergency Services to take people with pets, livestock, and service animals into account following a major disaster/emergency). The bill had already passed the state Assembly in the original form and was in the state Senate, so it needed to pass the Assembly again. The bill passes the full legislature a week later, and then-governor Arnold Schwartzenegger signed the bill into law a month later.
With Yee's alleged ties to organized crime and being accused of bribery, it makes one wonder:
-Did Yee give a bribe to Jerome Horton to not show up for the 2nd vote on AB 450? Threaten Horton with bodily harm?
-Did Yee give a bribe to Ed Chavez, the chairman of the Assembly Committee on Arts, Entertainment, Sports, Tourism, and Internet Media, or to vice chair Audra Strickland to allow Dave Jones to substitute for Horton?(Which would be weird since both Chavez & Strickland voted against the bill in both votes)
-Did Yee bribe Jones to vote in favor of AB 450 to get it out of committee?
-Did Yee give a bribe to Arnold Schwarzenegger for Arnold to sign AB 1179 into law?
-Did Yee give bribes to then-California Attorney General Jerry Brown to keep appealing the federal courts' rulings that AB 1179 was unconstitutional all the way to the US Supreme Court?
If evidence the FBI took out of Yee's home and offices indicate in any way that Yee gave bribes to various California politicians to get his anti-fake "violent" video game bill passed instead of letting it pass on its own merits(even though there was no merit to that bill) and/or to keep appealing federal court decisions that blocked his unconstitutional law from taking effect, it would also negatively affect and irreparably damage the credibility of the whole argument against fake "violent" video games/movies/TV/etc.
Anybody that supported Yee in his fight against fake "violent" video games should be watching this story very closely, because if it breaks that Yee got AB 1179 passed by bribing his fellow legislators or even that Yee donated money received from his alleged ties to the Chinese mafia to those groups that supported him, it negatively affects those groups as it makes it look like they support illegal activity to help benefit their causes. Perception is reality.
Links
Initial committee vote: http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/05-06/bill/asm/ab_0401-0450/ab_450_vote_20050503_000002_asm_comm.html
GamePolitics story on AB 450 Advancing to Assembly Floor: http://gamepolitics.livejournal.com/17325.html