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Stay alert and safe. Gray Davis and his band are bad enough to be roaming on our streets!
Posted on 05/07/2002 10:21:58 AM PDT by randita
Daniel Weintraub: Do voters care that Davis mixes politics, business?
By Daniel Weintraub -- Bee Columnist
Published 2:15 a.m. PDT Tuesday, May 7, 2002
As long as Gov. Gray Davis has been in politics, he has been known for the joy he takes in separating campaign donors from their money. What most politicians do with reluctance, Davis, by all accounts, does with relish. His ability to ask for $1 million with a straight face has made him the most successful fund-raiser in the history of California politics.
The voters haven't seemed to mind. Davis' money-grubbing, a constant topic of conversation among Capitol insiders, hasn't stopped him from rolling up big victories even as the public has been crying out for campaign finance reform.
All of that might be about to change.
The Davis operation has just been caught in a transaction that, if it wasn't criminal, was at least criminally dumb. It could be the kind of juicy story that finally leads voters to sit up and take notice of the governor's habit of mixing campaign money and public policy to an unseemly degree.
Davis a year ago accepted a $25,000 campaign contribution from Oracle Corp. just days after the state and the computer software company signed a $95 million contract that the state auditor has since concluded was a terrible deal for the government.
The state thought it was saving money by getting a volume discount. Instead, it bought far more software than needed at prices that were no bargain. The whole thing, the auditor says, could cost taxpayers $41 million more than if there had been no deal at all.
And the Oracle donation, it turns out, was not given through normal channels from the company's headquarters to the governor's campaign committee in Los Angeles. Instead, a company lobbyist handed the check to Davis' e-government director in a Sacramento bar.
The contribution was perfectly legal as long as there was no quid pro quo, no agreement that the company was giving the money in exchange for the contract. But it smells awful. And most voters, put on a jury and asked to judge such conduct, would undoubtedly vote to convict, whatever the law might say.
Davis has suspended one official responsible for the contract and forced out two others, including Arun Baheti, the man who accepted the campaign contribution. The governor's aides are working furiously to distance Davis from the decision. But even if they somehow prove a negative -- that Davis knew nothing -- the Oracle case has opened a window on the governor's world that will not be easily closed.
This is a man who is known to keep lists, to keep track of friend and foe, of those who have helped him and those who have not. It is common knowledge among lobbyists that an individual or group that wants to meet with Davis can most easily secure an audience by ponying up $100,000 to his campaign committee.
Running for governor of California is no cheap task. It takes millions. But Davis, more than most politicians, leaves himself open to suspicion about his motives because he demonstrates so few core beliefs. And he has a curious habit, as he did in the Oracle case, of taking money from interest groups his administration has just helped or is in a position to assist.
In 1999, for instance, Davis attended a fund-raiser with health care lobbyists even as he was negotiating a plan to overhaul the way the state regulates managed care. Consumer advocates criticized the final deal as tilted toward the industry.
Around the same time he went to a reception hosted by the timber industry as his Department of Forestry was unveiling new logging regulations. He took about $75,000 from the ski industry and then exempted the resorts from paying overtime to seasonal workers. He received $130,000 from the Rite Aid corporation before his administration cancelled television ads criticizing the company for selling tobacco in its pharmacy stores. And earlier this year, he got $250,000 from the state prison guards union only weeks after signing off on a contract that will give the guards raises of more than 30 percent over the next five years.
Even when Davis does the right thing, his aggressive fund-raising tactics make his motives appear suspect. The governor, for example, has wisely vowed to veto a bill sponsored by the California Teachers Association to make education standards, curriculum and textbook selection the subject of union negotiations.
But now come published reports that before making that announcement, Davis twice asked the union's president for a $1 million donation and was rebuffed. Would his position on the bill have been the same if the union had come through with the money? That seems unlikely.
Davis has defended his relentless search for the dollar by saying, correctly, that he must raise a ton of money to have a chance against a wealthy opponent, Republican businessman Bill Simon. The governor has tried to make Simon's millions an issue.
But if he is not careful, Davis might leave voters thinking that they would rather have a governor who can spend his own money to get elected than one who sees every issue before his government as a chance to build the balance in his campaign fund.
The Bee's Daniel Weintraub can be reached at (916) 321-1914 or at dweintraub@sacbee.com .
Here is a photo of this deranged terrorist:
Go to this link for more up todate data: (link)
Stay alert and safe. Gray Davis and his band are bad enough to be roaming on our streets!
They can tear him apart with impunity now because he's beating Simon by double digits in the polls. If Simon ever gets close, you will see a media lovefest for Davis like you've never seen before. They don't like Davis, but they don't like Simon even more.
This is still the same state that voted for impeached ex-President Clinton twice, elected and reelected Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, elected and reelected Alan Cranston, etc. etc. Apparently we like sleazeballs a lot.
Hah! The idiot who wrote this obviously has no clue about California.
I hope they surprise me (my expectations are very low).
I'm sure Davis is already putting his people in place for a "properly tuned" election count this November as well...
I'm about 20 miles north of SLO.
DUMP DAVIS PING PING PING PING PING!!!!!!
I lost this in the traffic!
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Bribery? Hey, how's a Po' Boy gonna get elected these days?
If the price of admission is too high, don't play. Maybe that's not a good thing for Democracy, but instead of taking bribes, he could try to change the rules by legitimate means. But that would mean playing by the rules...
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