Yesterday’s Los Angeles Times chronicles the ways in which California Democrats are quickly becoming the Kings of Nanny State legislation:

SACRAMENTO — Enjoy fast food? Like to light up while you watch the waves? Forget to sock away money for your kids’ education?

Some California lawmakers want to change your ways. They’ve planted a crop of proposals this year — “nanny” bills, as they’re called — that would:

• Restrict the use of artery-clogging trans fat, common in fried and baked foods and linked to heart disease, in restaurants and school cafeterias.

• Bar smoking at state parks and beaches, and in cars carrying children.

• Open a savings account, seeded with $500, for every newborn Californian to use at 18 for college, a first home purchase or an investment for retirement.

• Fine dog and cat owners who don’t spay or neuter their pets by 4 months of age.

• Require chain restaurants to list calorie, saturated fat and sodium content on menus.

• Phase out the sale of incandescent light bulbs, which are less energy-efficient than compact fluorescent bulbs.

The proposals have sparked something of a debate in the hallways of the State Legislature in Sacramento: The debate has commenced in the Capitol: How far should government go?

The proposals are the brainchildren of Democratic legislators. Republicans, who say the sponsors are trying to parent the whole state, are having none of it.

“Could you imagine the founding fathers dealing with — I don’t know — wearing a helmet when you’re in the buggy?” said the Assembly’s Republican leader, Mike Villines of Clovis.

“We all know you can’t mandate behavior; it just does not work,” he said. “It creates criminals of people for things that are not criminal behavior…. You can’t legislate for stupidity.”

But that is exactly what legislators across the country are trying to do and, as David Boaz points out, the Nanny State impulse isn’t limited to Democrats:

Republicans are no slouches in the nanny-state department. From New York mayor Michael Bloomberg’s jihad against smoking to Arkansas governor Michael Huckabee’s war on obesity to President Bush’s grab-bag of Clintonesque hand-outs and religious-right prohibitions, Republicans have proved themselves equally adept at hectoring, monitoring, nudging, and punishing recalcitrant citizens.

So the next time you hear a Republican complaining about Democrats who want to ban smoking in outdoor restaurants, or trans-fat, or whatever it might be, remember this:

[F]rom the Republicans we get federal money for churches; and congressional investigations into textbook pricing, the college football bowl system, the firing of Terrell Owens, video games, the television rating system, you name it; and huge new fines for indecency on television; and crackdowns on medical marijuana and steroids and ephedra; and federal intervention in the sad case of Terri Schiavo; and the No Child Left Behind Act; and federal subsidies for marriage; and (for less favored constituencies) a constitutional amendment to override the marriage laws of the 50 states.

Republicans and Democrats. They both want to control your life. And they both think they know what’s good for you, better than you do.