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Senator backs legislation to regulate AIerview:
Pleasanton-based senator pushes AI bills in Sacrameto
State Sen. Jerry McNerney surprised some people, yours truly included, when he stepped out of congressional retirement to run successfully for the state Senate. He held a town hall meeting earlier this month in Dublin.
McNerney was a relatively unknown Pleasanton resident when he took on seven-term incumbent Richard Pombo of Tracy for the second time in 2006. Buttressed by more than $1 million from the Sierra Club and other environmental groups eager to defeat Pombo, he won by a 53-47 margin.
He won re-election seven times before retiring before the 2022 campaign. He then tossed his hat into the local ring and won the state Senate seat that included most of the Livermore Valley as well as his former San Joaquin County district.
Among the more telling and misguided comments he made to attendees about Artificial Intelligence this month, as reported in the Livermore Independent, “One of my biggest concerns is the possibility of it displacing jobs and leading to unemployment. These AI bills will set a standard for regulation across the nation.”
Really. It’s guaranteed that AI will replace jobs. Look at the tech layoffs that have proliferated in the last couple of years as companies realign their work forces and rush to invest in AI. Remember, many, many software programmers could not find work in 2000 after companies discovered skilled programmers in India and elsewhere. Earlier this summer, I recall the HR director for TopCon global positioning systems in Livermore saying how they had to get their staff out of their Moscow office when Russia invaded Ukraine. It was similar for other tech companies who had staff working in Ukraine, a center for quality tech programmers.
I am not sure about unfettered AI, but I am more concerned about government trying to regulate it. Have you seen how few charging stations are operational despite the absurd $7.5 billion former President Joe Biden and the Democrats allocated. Try 384 as of April 2025 according to AOL.
I had similar thoughts about the labor-backed bill being pushed in Sacramento by state Sen. Lola Smallwood-Cuevas that would require retailers to station at least one employee by the self-checkout stands. Most of the retailers I patronize already do this, but this is yet another attempt by Democrats to preserve union jobs (many retailers, particularly in the grocery sector, are heavily unionized). There’s some potential that lawmakers could mandate how many employees per how many checkout stations.
If you want to know how government mandates are working in this state, look at the proliferation of ordering kiosks in fast food and fast casual restaurants to replace employees that must be paid a wage determined by a state commission. So much for preserving jobs.
If you missed purchasing the 400-page book on Pleasanton in the 1950s, “Cruising Down Memory Lane,” you can now get it on Amazon author Donna McMillion wrote me in an email. She interviewed 38 people who grew up in that season when Christensen’s Western Wear was operating on Main Street with its tie stands for horses and Fisher’s Drive-in was down the street.
Donna wrote that six of the 38 storytellers have passed on since she interviewed them. That includes: Mary Allender Chaboya, Bob Philcox, Gayle Cairo Lund, Jacki Fiorio Del Ducco, Rich Guasco, and Susan Hanifen Mahler.
She wrote that she put it up on Amazon because people have contacted her about getting a copy and were disappointed to learn that it’s no longer available locally.
Proceeds, as they have from the start, will go to the Amador Valley journalism department through the Three Valleys Foundation.
New retail, dining options coming to Stoneridge Shopping Center later this yearApril 19, 2026 9:24 pm
