Ten good reasons to recall Gray Davis

Human Events, Aug 18, 2003

Thanks to a grassroots campaign that gathered more than a million signatures from registered voters, the state of California will hold a special election October 7 on whether to recall Democratic Gov. Gray Davis. Despite all the media hype, there is no guarantee that the recall will be approved.

Here are ten good reasons Californians should pull the plug on America's worst governor.

1

Very Questionable Fundraising

Last year, Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill Simon ran television spots during his campaign against Davis in which average Californians were depicted approaching Davis's secretary. Each asks to speak to the governor and is turned away in favor of a shady man bearing a briefcase of cash. Finally, a small boy approaches with his piggy bank. The secretary takes the bank, holds it up and shakes it, and tells him, "Keep saving, kid."

The ad may actually have been an understatement.

In January 2002, Davis signed off on an astounding 34% pay increase for state corrections officers. Just weeks later, the prison guards' union contributed $251,000 to Davis's campaign. Their contribution, argues former state GOP chairman Shawn Steel, "bought the prison-guard union of 26,000 a billion-dollar pay increase over the next six years."

In April 2003, Davis revisited prison spending in the light of the state's $38-billion budget crisis. Rather than pare down the astronomical pay hike, Davis cut training for corrections officers by one-fourth, from 16 to 12 weeks.

In June, the San Jose Mercury News reported a complaint by two state prison investigators that Davis was trying to close the prison internal affairs office in Rancho Cucamonga, even as internal affairs was investigating allegations of savage beatings against shackled prisoners. Legislators-including some liberal Democrats-are fighting the closure plans, which they see as an obvious favor to the union. The governor has portrayed the closing as a cost-cutting measure to save $1 million. Last month, the FBI got involved in the prison investigation.

The 330,000-member California Teachers' Association, on the other hand, received very different treatment when it failed to pay up. CTA President Wayne Johnson told the press in May 2002 that during a policy discussion in the governor's office months earlier, Davis had pressured him to collect $1 million from union members and donate it to the governor's re-election campaign. "Davis hit us up two or three times for a $1-million contribution," Johnson told the San Francisco Chronicle. The union did not make the contribution, and Davis refused to back their demands for expanded collective bargaining rights regarding school curricula and textbooks. They did not get them.

Davis's top political advisor insisted at the time that there is "never a connection between contributions and policy."

The Chronicle reported May 2, 2002, on another controversy involving the California Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS). Wealthy Democratic fundraiser Richard Wollack and the huge commercial real estate firm of which he is director, CB Richard Ellis, made $25,000 in direct contributions to Davis. Wollack also hosted a $2,500-a-head Davis fundraiser featuring former Vice President Al Gore. Simultaneously, CalPERS-whose executive board consists of prominent Democrats, some of them Davis appointees-decided to invest $100 million of the state pension fund in Premier Pacific Vineyards, which Wollack co-founded and where he serves as co-CEO. The Chronicle reported that it was the first time CalPERS had ever invested in an agribusiness.

2

Bungled Energy Strategy

A combination of bad luck, incompetence, and greed doomed California's experiment with electricity deregulation, but it didn't have much to do with the universal media scapegoat, Enron.

On the bad luck side, a drought reduced the amount of hydroelectric power available from the Pacific Northwest. A natural gas shortage later forced some utilities to demand higher prices to meet their expenses and keep the power coming.

Also, California's stringent environmental regulations, which make it nearly impossible to build new power plants in the state, made the state energy-dependent, leaving the door open for just such a crisis.

But it was Gov. Gray Davis who signed off on $42 billion in vastly overvalued energy contracts in 2001. And it was Davis's.state energy traders who arranged for the state to pay prices for energy that were well above market.

State Sen. Tom McClintock (R.)-then an unsuccessful candidate for state controller and now a gubernatorial candidate-sued last May to invalidate the contracts based on one negotiator's blatant conflict of interest. Vikram Budhraja, a former senior vice president with Southern California Edison, was retained as a consultant to Edison International even as his firm was contracted by the state to negotiate California's power deals with Edison's subsidiaries.

After the sweetheart deals were made, Edison's stock surged. Among the beneficiaries was Budhraja, who bought Edison stock days after his consulting company received its contract to negotiate the state rates. He sold the stock eleven days later at a 40% profit, according to the Los Angeles Times. Budhraja's financial disclosure forms indicate that he received more than $100,000 from EI while his state agency negotiated with them.