Just a few days ago, the California Stem Cell Report carried an item about the state's stem cell agency and its supporters' mantra that the agency has a mandate from voters albeit one that is seven years old.

We mentioned that Robert Klein, the former chairman of the agency and head of the 2004 ballot campaign that launched CIRM, is one of those fond of citing voter mandates with great regularity.

Indeed, Klein found shelter again this week under a voter mandate, but this time it was a moral one.

Klein popped up in a San Jose Mercury story about the status of the stem cell agency. Writer Steve Johnson said that Klein declared that he quit as chairman last June in part because he wants to raise money for a campaign for another multibillion bond measure for CIRM. Johnson quoted Klein as saying,

"It would be a huge failing in meeting our moral mandate" to let CIRM die. "We can't afford to break the momentum."

As we noted on Dec. 6, mandates come and go, as another multibillion California bond program, high speed rail, has discovered.

Source:
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