On three separate occasions, I’ve written about the determined struggle of one man in the face of appalling political correctness, anti-Americanism, and bureaucratic senselessness. In Orcutt, California, about an hour north of the Reagan Ranch on the beautiful Central Coast, Steve LeBard has been fighting for years to build a privately funded veterans' monument, which would encircle an American flag and be located just off the exit from the highway coming from nearby Vandenberg Air Force Base. At every turn, however, the California Department of Transportation (CalTrans) has blocked LeBard's efforts. Among other things, CalTrans has ruled that displaying an American flag is an impermissible act of "public expression."
Now LeBard, a Marine veteran, has announced he is running for the California State Assembly. He is making his fight with CalTrans the centerpiece of his campaign, and he is vowing to spearhead the passage of legislation that would undo CalTrans's actions, to the benefit of those across the state. He effectively announced his candidacy through a letter to CalTrans director Malcolm Dougherty, writing,
"Dear Mr. Dougherty,
"I am pleased to inform you that I am a candidate for the California Assembly District 35. My goals are to win the election, be sworn into office in Sacramento, and introduce two Caltrans related Bills immediately. I have lost all trust in my government because of the actions and inactions of the California Department of Transportation. Should the good people of District 35 call me to duty, I will serve with fervor."
Throughout his presidency, Barack Obama has taken direct aim at the private civil associations that Alexis de Tocqueville thought were the lifeblood of America, and one could certainly view LeBard's campaign as a battle for Tocquevillian (and American founding) ideals against the progressive worldview. Tocqueville vividly described the despotism that results when power is consolidated in the hands of a centralized administrative state:
"[A]fter taking each individual by turns in its powerful hands and kneading him as it likes, the sovereign extends its arms over society as a whole; it covers its surface with a network of small, complicated, painstaking, uniform rules through which the most original minds and the most vigorous souls cannot clear a way to surpass the crowd; it does not break wills, but it softens them, bends them, and directs them; it rarely forces one to act, but it constantly opposes itself to one's acting; it does not destroy, it prevents things from being born; it does not tyrannize, it hinders, compromises, enervates, extinguishes, dazes, and finally reduces each nation to being nothing more than a herd of timid and industrious animals of which the government is the shepherd."
Or as LeBard has put it, "How many people have good ideas that would benefit the community, and they run into so many roadblocks, keep getting beaten down by the bureaucracy, that they just give up?"
Thankfully LeBard, whom I met in the course of his battles with CalTrans and am now pleased to call a friend, hasn't given up. But a lesser man would have.
Five years ago, CalTrans rejected the request by LeBard, then head of a civil association called the Old Town Orcutt Revitalization Association (OTORA), for permission to build a privately funded veterans memorial around a flagpole displaying an American flag at the entrance of Old Town Orcutt. CalTrans explained that if it were to allow the hanging of the American flag, it would have to allow the hanging of all flags—whether the Jolly Roger, the British flag, or the Nazi flag—as well as "expressive banners" of every sort. CalTrans wrote that "we would be placed in a position of having to permit all forms of expression…if we were to allow yours."
As I observed back then, "We certainly live in interesting times: The claim is made that American citizens can be compelled to buy federally approved health insurance under penalty of law, while simultaneously being prohibited—at least in California—from hanging an American flag at the entrance to their town."
But LeBard didn't give up easily. He did some digging and found that longstanding California law declares, "The Flag of the United States of America and the Flag of the State of California may be displayed on a sidewalk located in or abutting on a state highway situated within a city."
So CalTrans begrudgingly relented—sort of—and at 9:00 a.m. on the 4th of July, 2011, an American flag was raised at the entrance to charming Old Town Orcutt. CalTrans, however, had made clear to OTORA that it could not place the flagpole ten feet off of the sidewalk, leaving space for the armed forces memorial; could not expand the sidewalk enough to accommodate the memorial; and could not build a new, short sidewalk off of the main sidewalk, with the new sidewalk leading to the flagpole and memorial. CalTrans told OTORA that it must, however, expand the sidewalk slightly—to accommodate the Americans with Disabilities Act.
In the meantime, LeBard managed to get the California Senate to introduce a bill to allow the veterans memorial to be built. After passing through three committees, the bill unanimously passed the Senate. But it died in the Assembly.
Determined to build the planned veterans' memorial, LeBard tried another tack. Having learned that CalTrans had sanctioned—as part of its Transportation Art Program—murals featuring portraits of Fidel Castro and Che Guevara, LeBard decided to reclassify his intended memorial as an art project. He called it, "A Tribute to the Protectors of Freedom." CalTrans green-lighted it—provided it didn't feature an American flag.
LeBard got written permission (at CalTrans's insistence) from the United States Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and Coast Guard to use their seals. CalTrans then demanded, however, that LeBard remove from the Army seal the motto of "E Pluribus Unum"—which appears on our coins, has appeared on the Great Seal of the United States since the 18th century, and was first proposed as the motto for such a seal on July 4, 1776. CalTrans also demanded the removal of the words "United States," which would have left just one word on the seal: "Army." (As CalTrans wrote to LeBard, "Be sure to black out the 'United States' and motto part of the seal.")
LeBard then sought to get CalTrans to sell the small patch of land in question to Santa Barbara County, which had expressed enthusiastic support for OTORA's privately funded project. OTORA would simply be required to pay the "nominal fee" that CalTrans would charge the county. But just when all appeared to be nearly resolved, the current director of CalTrans, Malcolm Dougherty, wrote a letter to LeBard declaring the following:
"In order to sell its property, Caltrans is required to review and approve metes and bounds, draft property descriptions for fair market appraisal, and obtain review and approval by the Right of Way Division, the Environmental Division, the Project Development Division, and Maintenance and Operations Division of Caltrans to ensure that no other public projects require the property and that there are no archaeological or environmental impediments to the relinquishing of the property.
"This process requires extensive public labor and other resources. A conservative estimate to cover the cost of these resources is $10,000."
In other words, OTORA would have to pay $10,000 to CalTrans (based on a "conservative estimate") just to have CalTrans decide how much it would then charge for the land it would sell to the county at OTORA's expense.
OTORA didn't have the $10,000. But almost three years later, in February 2016, LeBard finally learned CalTrans had decided that the full price for the tiny plot would be $47,900. That wouldn't include access to any water or electricity.
So now LeBard has written his letter to CalTrans's Dougherty to announce his campaign. Whatever happens from here, one suspects that CalTrans will regret not having given in sooner to the former Marine.