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SY: So you mentioned lobbying and I'm curious because you had, you took some strong positions on certain issues. Now did you, how effective did you think these lobbyists were? Were you swayed by them? Did you always come forward with a, with your mind set on a certain way of dealing with things? And did you, did you consider, how much did you consider what your electability would be when you dealt with certain, some of these issues?

GN: Well, there are, there are issues that are local to your district, like in our case we're, we have the coastline, so there are environmental issues that has to deal with the quality of the ocean water as well as the beach. You need to have bills that maintain the quality for those areas, and so one of the issues that we had to deal with was storm water runoff.

SY: That's water that runs, what is...

GN: When it rains and it ends up in the gutter and then it drains off --

SY: Into the ocean.

GN: -- to the beach area. And so I was able to get funding for all the cities along the coastline to have a storm water filter, so those, that was important. That one we did on our own. One that came from an organization -- I think it's, can't remember the name of the organization. It has to do with the ocean, but it had to do with gray water being discharged from cruise ships. And gray waters are like dish wash water that's used for dishwashing, shower, and aside from that you could also include sewage water if they are discharging that instead of having some kind of septic tank on the ship, but mainly the gray water, I think that's the one that's being discharged. And so I carried a bill on that.

SY: But at the same time you obviously had an opposition, major opposition on a lot of these issues.

GN: Oh yeah, the cruise line industry, they didn't want to do any of those things.

SY: Right. So how did you balance, what was your approach in terms of dealing with opposition? Or did you just take a firm stand and try to stay very firm on...

GN: Well, you want to, at least you want to listen and find out why they're opposed to it, and a lot of time they would say it's not necessary.

SY: I see, I see.

GN: Because they really don't have a good argument in opposition to it. And so even with that cruise line issue, the discharge of those kind of waters, and of course the photographic liquid that's getting discharged in the ocean as well, but I dealt with the gray water part of it and what ended up initially was that we had to take data down as to how much is being discharged. Just like with the cell phone issue, that's what I had to do initially.

SY: Yeah, talk a little bit about that cell phone issue. That, what exactly was that about in that particular...

GN: Well, I was rear-ended by someone that was on a cell phone, but it just happened to be in a residential street that's very slow in traffic in Torrance and so there was no damage to my car nor injury to anyone, no damage to the other car as well. And I felt that there needs to be some kind of restriction on the use of cell phones while driving, and so I initiated a bill, and I thought one of the ways that -- well, so I had that and wanted some kind of fine associated with it. And then you ought to see the, all these lobbyists that represent the phone companies just converged into my office and opposed to it, and of course, they said you don't really need it. Why do you have to have restrictions? And because in my case there was an accident, but I also noticed that when I'm driving, if this car is not, appears like it's not paying attention to the road, sure enough, if you go around the car someone is on a cell phone. And so anyway, what ended up was taking data down as to what causes accidents. Well, so what we did is I had a bill, and I think it was AB 660, year 2001, the CHP will collect the data from all the different police departments in California that gives a list of the accidents and what caused the accident, and so they did it for six months. And sure enough, the number one was using a cell phone. Okay, so now you got the industry convinced of this, but the next thing is the fine and how much, and so one of the ideas that I had initially was you make the fine, have it only in the areas where you have construction going on. And even that I couldn't get it through. They had lobbied other assembly members in opposition to it.

SY: I see. So the bill never made it through.

GN: Yeah. So at least by year 2004 there had been, I think, two accidents by a bus that had people in it because the driver was on a cell phone, so I was finally able to get a bill passed prohibiting the use of cell phones for bus drivers before I termed out of office. Now, subsequent to that they were able to have a fine for people who were driving cars, but I think the latest bill now they have is to make the fine greater. But that's how long it has taken.

SY: Amazing.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.