California Recall

[Roadtoad]

I got this from the Sacramento Bee's Daniel Weintraub. Pretty interesting, reading this. Davis will stoop to any level, including this new low. He's dragging Shelley through the mud along with him.

June 27, 2003
Shelley responds
Secretary of State Kevin Shelley says he’s not Katherine Harris in pants. Calling your blogger to explain his position on the verification of recall signatures, Shelley said he’s relying for advice on a bipartisan group of lawyers in his office (including one whose name is Riddle).

“My responsibility is to run a fair and impartial election system,” Shelley told me. “Sometimes I’m going to make a ruling or provide advice that’s going to make the proponents happy or mad, and the same thing for the opponents. I can assure you, they’ll have equal-opportunity to be ticked off. My absolute bottom line here is to make sure this is an accurate process. However that ends up. My concern is to make sure it’s overseen properly and done fairly.”

Shelley also took pains to point out that he's not telling the counties that they must pause their verification process for a month. Only that they may pause if they want to. "They have the option," he said.

Well, whether Shelley is trying to be fair or not, I still think he and his lawyers are wrong. The law says the registrars must report every 30 days the total of “all valid signatures received since the time the recall was initiated.” That seems pretty clear to me. They can’t report the number of valid signatures unless they are checking to see if they are valid. Can they?

[peptoabysmal]

If the Democrats are smart, they will dump Gray like a rotten banana and blame everything wrong with the Democratic party on Mr. Davis. They badly need a scapegoat, along with a decent candidate and a clear party message. Well, there I go again, using oxymorons like "smart Democrat". :p

[Jedi Knight]

California is so broken, it would be justice to leave Davis in power. California is the most broken political entity in the world--surpassing any 4th world despotic regime by echelons.

JK

[Mike B.]

How much if anything does the mess have to do with Prop. 187?

[Landis]

It is interesting that the Republican's behind the recall effort cite the huge growing deficit as the main reason for recalling Davis. However, if you point out that Bush has created a huge and growing national deficit, they suddenly get mum. Let's recall Bush.

[3-toed-sloth]

Is Arnold Schwarzenegger still interested in becoming governor?

[iMoc]

Can we recall Bush????

[davefoc]

California Recall Issues
1. What constitutes a justification for the recall of a state governor in your mind?
a. nothing
b. incompetence
c. corruption
d. other

2. Does Joe Davis qualify under your criteria for recall?

[Nova Land]

Originally posted by Roadtoad

Davis will stoop to any level, including this new low...
Not having followed this story closely, I'm not clear what you are talking about.

I gather from what you have posted that there is a recall effort in progress concerning Governor Davis, that some issue has come up regarding the recall effort, and that Kevin Shelley has made a ruling which sounds like it would permit a 1-month pause in the verification-of-signatures-on-recall-petitions process.

I also gather from your post that you are upset by this.

What I'm not clear about is why. What were the issues involved that led them to consider pausing the process, what were the reasons Kelley used to justify doing this, and why is this such an outrage? Sometimes there are good reasons for doing things, and sometimes there aren't.

(I'm not saying it isn't an outrage, since I am completely unfamiliar with this. I'm asking for why you think it is, so I can understand what's being talked about.)
...The law says the registrars must report every 30 days the total of “all valid signatures received since the time the recall was initiated.” That seems pretty clear to me. They can’t report the number of valid signatures unless they are checking to see if they are valid. Can they? Again, I don't know what's going on in California with this, but from what you've provided I don't see this being a problem. What the counties that pause the process would report would be something to the effect:

"We have received petitions containing 25, 678 signatures. Of these , 12,111 were validated, 234 were invalidated, and 13,333 have not been examined yet."

Since they are supposed to be reporting monthly the number of signatures that have been validated, and this is an ongoing process, even without the 1-month pause I assume that at any time a report was issued there would be additional petitions with signatures awaiting validation. There would be a greater number of outstanding signatures awaiting validation if a pause were taken, but other than that I can't see how the reporting process would be different with the pause than without it. (Or am I misunderstanding how the reporting works?)

Again: I'm not trying to defend the ruling, or the governor, as I know little about either. You seem very upset, and I'm trying to understand why. This may indeed be something to get worked up about, and if so I'd like to add it to my own list of things to be outraged about, which is why I'm asking. How does this show that Davis will stoop to any level, and why is this such a new low?

[peptoabysmal]

Originally posted by Landis
It is interesting that the Republican's behind the recall effort cite the huge growing deficit as the main reason for recalling Davis. However, if you point out that Bush has created a huge and growing national deficit, they suddenly get mum. Let's recall Bush.

Bush did not create the national debt. It may have gotten worse, but you are comparing wartime economy with peacetime economy on a national level - apples and oranges.

Gray Davis has taken the state of California from a surplus when he started to a whopping 30 billion dollar defecit. Gov. Davis has been involved in numerous scandals where he has given state contracts to companies that give him the greatest campaign contributions. Here's a story on how Gray Davis handled the energy crisis. (http://www.counterpunch.org/leopold1111.html)

Gray Davis solution to the problem of the 30 billion dollar defecit? Well, you guessed one of them - raise taxes. His other solutions include raising auto registration fees by about 400%, taxing cigarettes (I know you don't care about this) so that a pack will cost $1.10 more than it does now. The cost of a pack of cigarettes in California is anywhere from $3.85 to $4.50 a pack now. OK, it's a "sin tax", so why hasn't there been as dramatic a price jump in alcohol prices? The libs don't really mind if anyone smokes, just as long as it's not anywhere near them and they get their cut of the profits, but God forbid if the cost of wine and cheese goes up.

The unemployment rate in California is now at a five year high. Good time to start raising auto registration fees, eh?

[shanek]

Hmm...When I saw the subject line, I thought it was California itself that was being recalled, an idea which, I confess, has some merit.

"I love California. I love the whole idea of what California is. Whenever someone gets an insanely stupid idea, California tries it out, thus sparing the rest of us." —Tim Slagle

[Landis]

Bush has had over 2 1/2 years to reverse the negative trend in the national debt but it is only going to grow. He doesn't care that the future of the nation and our children is being sold out as long as he can gain from the immediate benefit of his tax cuts.

Why is it that Bush is excused from his financial mismanagement based on the "war economy" but Davis is not? Is California somehow exempt from effects of the war economy?

I don't particularly like Davis but he won the election fair and square and didn't need the California Supreme Court to step in and hand it to him.

A small percentage of Californan's are now trying to reverse the will of the majority by forcing an expensive recall. The effor led by a huge financial donation from a Republican with a dubious criminal past (twice arrested for schemes involving car theft and insurance fraud scams).

But hey, like I said earlier, I do not see any Republican criticism of Davis that can't be leveled against GW. If the Republican's want to wage this fight in California, then they shouldn't object to a Democratic led effort to recall GW.

[shanek]

Originally posted by Landis
Bush has had over 2 1/2 years to reverse the negative trend in the national debt but it is only going to grow.

And he's planning on increasing the budget by over $100 million every year.

He goes on and on and on about tax cuts, but what he refuses to acknowledge is that, without spending cuts, the increases will have to be funded via deficits. And one way or another, we'll end up paying for it, either in bond payments or in inflation.

Why is it that Bush is excused from his financial mismanagement based on the "war economy" but Davis is not?

Personally, I'm not excusing either one of them.

But hey, like I said earlier, I do not see any Republican criticism of Davis that can't be leveled against GW.

It's just like Teller (of Penn & Teller) said:

"Democrats and Republicans - well it's kind of like a "magicians choice" - two identical incumbent organizations pretending to be different so that we will vote the same old mob back into power."

(I think I might stick that in my signature.)

[Landis]

"personally, I am not excusing either one of them"

Yeah, I do not excuse them either. In trying to offer a counter argument to the Republican recall effort, I've ended up defending Davis. Most Californian voters were made well aware of Davis' shortcoming during the last election. We picked Davis because he was the lesser of two evils. Now, we are having to re-live the whole thing over again and it's damn annoying.








_____________________________________________
"What does it all mean, Mr. Natural?" "It don't mean sheeit!" R. Crumb

[peptoabysmal]

Originally posted by Landis
"personally, I am not excusing either one of them"

Yeah, I do not excuse them either. In trying to offer a counter argument to the Republican recall effort, I've ended up defending Davis. Most Californian voters were made well aware of Davis' shortcoming during the last election. We picked Davis because he was the lesser of two evils. Now, we are having to re-live the whole thing over again and it's damn annoying.
_____________________________________________


When Davis was running for office again he swore up and down that he wouldn't raise taxes or let energy costs go up. Now he's doing both of those and raising car registration fees. I agree that he didn't have much of a Republican candidate to run against, sadly.

I think recalling Davis would cause more damage than good right now. I also think that California will be held up as an example of the fulfillment of the Democratic promise taken to it's destructive conclusion. Davis has unwittingly given the Republicans a lot of ammo.

[Roadtoad]

Let's not forget one other little gaffe which Davis is guilty of:

During the Gray-outs, it was revealed that many people on Davis's staff, including his chief mouthpiece, "Stunning" Steve Moviglio, all had made major stock purchases, including huge buys in a certain company called "Enron." And they had profited quite well from said stock transactions.

Moviglio had the audacity to tell Mark Williams of KFBK-AM radio that this was really nobody's damn business, that it was HIS money that was involved, which Williams countered with, "But don't you have a certain obligation to avoid conflict of interest?"

I'll spare you the rest of this. Moviglio is still on the job, needless to say. I can only wonder why, given that even a cretin like "Sneaky" Pete Wilson, (who still claims he never said that people who disagreed with his tax hikes were "F***ing irrelevant...") would have canned that SOBs ass.

[peptoabysmal]

Oh yeah, LOL.

ENRON

Gray Davis is now blaming the whole energy crisis on ENRON. Story (http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/5/16/160145.shtml)

Davis is one cheeky bastard.

[davefoc]

To give this thread some balance somebody needs to say something in defense of Davis. I can't think of anything so I won't be the guy. I think he's put the whole state at risk of a terrible economic crisis.

It looks like a triple whammy to me.
1. Terribly incompetent and perhaps corrupt handling of the power crisis.
2. A lack of political will to stand up to the Democratic led charge to radically expand state government.
3. A lack of political will to do anything about an impending disaster with regards to the runaway worker's comp insurance premium.

He now finds himself between a rock and a hard place. He is so unpopular he has no ability to control the legislature and the only thing the legislature will consider to fix the problem is to raise taxes to keep their patronage crap in place.

[swellman]

An update to this story.

http://www.boston.com/dailynews/189/nation/Recall_backers_say_they_have_e:.shtml


Recall backers say they have enough signatures, end petition drive

By Erica Werner, Associated Press, 7/8/2003 12:01

LOS ANGELES (AP) Organizers of a Republican-led effort to recall Democratic Gov. Gray Davis said Tuesday they were ending their petition drive because they had more than enough signatures to bring the measure to a vote.

Officials of Rescue California Recall Gray Davis said a final July Fourth weekend push gave them more than 1.2 million signatures, and that two other, smaller recall drives had some 200,000 signatures between them, for a total of more than 1.4 million.

The recall effort needs 897,158 valid signatures to make the ballot; organizers are turning in more to allow for those likely be found invalid.

...

A spokesman for Taxpayers Against the Governor's Recall said he doubted Rescue California's claims. ''Our basic response is we will believe it when we see it,'' said spokesman Carroll Wills.


It should prove interesting to watch this play out. Davis has become the scapegoat, but it's hard to see how any replacement could improve things.

I am most curious about how the process will be handled. Will bureaucratic/judicial challenges be employed to stop the recall ballot? Will Gov Davis stand aside if his demise becomes clear? Or will he fight tooth and nail on constitutionality issues?

Is Arnold still in the picture?

Inquiring minds want to know!

[corplinx]

Does anyone blame the california assembly for the state problems? It seems to me that Gray Davis is just a small part of any problem since he is just the governor.

[Roadtoad]

Originally posted by corplinx
Does anyone blame the california assembly for the state problems? It seems to me that Gray Davis is just a small part of any problem since he is just the governor.

Hell, yes, I blame the rest of the legislature!

We're "represented" by Senator Deborah Ortiz, who gave us her plan to tax junk food, and State Assemblyman Dave Cox, who's got his eye on higher office, (but likely won't get there if he continues to play his budgetary games). These are two of the most incompetent, cowardly people ever elected to public office in this state. I keep voting against them, and THEY KEEP COMING BACK! God, they're like a case of herpes!

These people and their pet projects have royally screwed this state. Sounds like the Congress.

[RandFan]

Originally posted by Mike B.
How much if anything does the mess have to do with Prop. 187? Zero, but thanks for asking.

187 was gutted by Davis who played a game and pretended that he was fighting for 187 when in all actuality he wouldn't even let the authors of the proposal into the mediation. By the time he and his friends were finished there was nothing left of 187.

In fact there is a very good argument that had 187 gone into full force we would not be in the mess that we are in.

[RandFan]

Originally posted by Nova Land
What I'm not clear about is why. What were the issues involved that led them to consider pausing the process, what were the reasons Kelley used to justify doing this, and why is this such an outrage? Sometimes there are good reasons for doing things, and sometimes there aren't. There is a window of time. If the ballots are not counted (as they are required by law to be) by the deadline then the election will get pushed back 6 months. It is seen to be simply a way to put off the will of those who want the recal with out justification and in opposition to the law.

This has angred many.

[RandFan]

Shelley slows the recall count (http://www.sacbee.com/static/weblogs/insider/archives/000149.html)

Big news from the Secretary of State’s office on the recall. According to a spokesman, Secretary of State Kevin Shelley has interpreted the law to say that county registrars need only be verifying the signatures they received by June 16. The rest they may set aside until the end of the next reporting period on July 23. Then they will report that number to Shelley and he will give them the go-ahead to verify the second batch. But they won’t be required to report that new number until Aug. 22. If this ruling stands, it will delay considerably the verification process and the date by which the recall qualifies for the ballot. It would almost certainly delay the election until March.

A state-by-state look at taxing and spending (http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2003-06-22-state-by-state_x.htm)

California came in dead last.

California
Fiscal management: Poor
Annual spending change: +9.1%
Annual tax rate change: -1.0%
2002 budget: $133.1 billion

The state borrowed $11 billion last week to cover its 2003 deficit. It will borrow another $2 billion to make a required contribution to the state employees' retirement system. Democrats, who control the Legislature and the governor's mansion, have been spending $1 billion a month more than the state takes in for two years.

Special Survey on the California State Budget (http://ppic.org/main/publication.asp?i=427)

75% of likely voters disapprove of the way Governor Davis is handling his job, and 57% of the state's residents disapprove of the way the legislature is handling budget issues.

The reason why Davis is to blame (http://www.cato.org/dispatch/01-10-03d.html)

California voters are suffering the consequences of reelecting a fiscally irresponsible governor. "California voters re-elected pro-tax and pro-spending Governor Gray Davis despite the fact that during his first term he ran the state economy and state budget into the ground," she said. "In four years, he has grown the state budget by nearly 40 percent and turned a $10 billion budget surplus into an estimated $35 billion deficit.

[peptoabysmal]

Originally posted by corplinx
Does anyone blame the california assembly for the state problems? It seems to me that Gray Davis is just a small part of any problem since he is just the governor.

Gray Davis is a big pimple on the state of California, but not the only one. Like I've been saying all along, this is a prime example of a full-on liberal Democratic government allowed to run to it's pitiful conclusion. Yes, I know there are Republican officials in California, but a California Republican is like, well, a taco from Minnesota, it just lacks a certain something. The predominant political atmosphere in California is an overwhelming liberal stench.

[RandFan]

Originally posted by peptoabysmal
Gray Davis is a big pimple on the state of California, but not the only one. Like I've been saying all along, this is a prime example of a full-on liberal Democratic government allowed to run to it's pitiful conclusion. Yes, I know there are Republican officials in California, but a California Republican is like, well, a taco from Minnesota, it just lacks a certain something. The predominant political atmosphere in California is an overwhelming liberal stench. Whenever a predominant ideology becomes endemic regardles of what that ideology is there will be problems.

Governemt in America works best when there is more than a modicum of opposition to the party in power. California is a prime example of that.

[davefoc]

Peptoabysmal talks about California's problems as a "prime example of a full-on liberal Democratic government allowed to run to it's pitiful conclusion.

RandFan says "Governemt in America works best when there is more than a modicum of opposition to the party in power. California is a prime example of that."

While I think both of these views are right, neither one touches on what I think is the most important problem. That is the almost unparalleled incompetence of our chief executive.

Corplinx said:

Does anyone blame the California assembly for the state problems? It seems to me that Gray Davis is just a small part of any problem since he is just the governor.

The problem with what Corplinx said is that he sees something in government that will almost always be broken as a source of the problem. Legistatures, by their very nature are corrupt bodies. They make deals to generate local benefits at the expense of the population as a whole, they are controled by special interests and their size distributes accountability to the point that there is no accountability. The only thing that separates us from disaster from an unconstrained legislature is the chief executive.

In California we are seeing the kind of problems that occur when the chief executive is a weak, conniving individual driven more by politics than any desire or ability to run the government.

I'm a person that generally votes Republican, that was initally opposed to the recall effort. It was my philosophical point of view that recalls are only to be used in the case of extreme corruption or extreme incompetence. I didn't initially think that Davis was guilty of either.

I changed my mind, when I began the to realize the near totality of his failures, that include the inept handling of the power crisis, a disastrous runup in state spending and a complete failure to deal with the worker's comp crisis that threatens to put California in to a major economic crisis. If this stuff isn't an example of extreme incompetence, I don't know what is.