One would be hard pressed to identify a state in greater financial and administrative chaos than California, a revolutionary Oz that mixes a majority base of conservative non-voters with an aggressive ultra-left legislature unswervingly dedicated to taxes, sexual orientation and redefinition of the traditional family.
A place rated the least favorable business climate in the nation in a Wall Street Journal poll of 2,000 business executives, many of whom are convinced the legislature is committed to over-regulating and overtaxing them to placate liberal constituencies.
A place where "tax" is instead a "fee," "assessment" or "revenue stream."
Inventive as the state is with instruments such as initiative, referendum and recall, voters cannot be faulted for not trying to change things when politicians abjectly fail to face reality.
When now-beleaguered Gov. Gray Davis took office, he said his job would be to "implement the will of the people." Translated:
1. In 1994, 59 percent (5 million people) voted for Prop 187 (to stop giving social services, publicly funded health care and public education to illegal immigrants) only to wait till 1999 when Davis and a single judge-in-the-pocket overturned the results of an election without the voters having their day in court. The deceitful silence on the billions in unaccounted-for taxpayer dollars going to services for illegals is a bipartisan outrage. But perhaps intelligent voters (dubbed bigots and racists by the slinking media) knew how explosive the financial time bomb was nine years ago.
2. In 1998, Prop 227, the English-only initiative, passed by a landslide, and Gov. Roadblock did everything he could to prevent its implementation. The law is still being opposed.
3. The same with Prop 22, a measure that defined marriage as that between a man and a woman. This one passed by a 61 percent margin. Davis called the law "divisive" and created a task force to advise him on how to bring Vermont-style homosexual "civil unions" to California.
So much for the will of the voters. Perhaps it’s time for California to send Davis packing.
According to California's Constitution, to recall a statewide officer a petition must be signed by registered voters equal in number to 12 percent of the last vote for the office.
The signatures must be obtained from at least five different counties and must be equal in number to at least 1 percent of the last vote for office in each of the five counties.
Since a record low (44 percent) of California voters cast ballots in the last election, 12 percent of the ballots equals only 897,158 signatures. The last day to collect and submit signatures is Sept. 2.
Former Assemblyman Howard Kaloogian is the chairman of the Recall Gray Davis Committee. Kaloogian, along with Ted Costa of the Sacramento-based tax watchdog group People's Advocate, have spearheaded signature-gathering efforts. This week, the campaign submitted its first 100,000 signatures to the secretary of state and received a cash infusion of $100,000 from Republican Congressman Darrell Issa.
In fact, Issa, who has little faith in the volunteer signature-gathering effort, is starting a "Rescue California" fund-raising group to solicit money. His effort will be independent of Kaloogian’s, but will work hand-in-hand toward the common goal, removing Davis.
Issa’s group plans to put 200 signature gatherers on the streets immediately. He makes no bones about it, he wants to be on the ballot as a candidate when Davis is recalled.
According to Costa’s Web site, www.davisrecall.com, here’s how things work after the signatures are gathered and the recall qualifies for the ballot:
The recall election ballot will have two simple questions. Question one will ask should Gov. Gray Davis be recalled, answered with a simple yes or no. The second question will ask whom they would vote for as the next governor of California in the event that Gov. Davis is recalled.
There will be no primaries or runoffs in a recall election. If Gov. Davis is recalled in question No. 1, then the candidate from the list on question No. 2 that gets the most votes will become the next governor of California the day after the election is certified.
Though no recall of a California governor has ever succeeded (and it’s been tried 32 times), this one is different. Past efforts haven't included the ability to download an official recall petition in seconds. Nor did talk radio have such a profound influence in a dialogue once limited to the monopoly of left-leaning, opinion-stifling TV and print media.
To the contrary of the disdainful, "ragtag" teams of signature gatherers
do not have to spend much money coordinating efforts using their computers.
As well, the Internet has combined TV, print, alternative opinion and immediacy into an unfiltered wealth of timely news, often debunking false or incomplete reports from the mainstream media. So fearful is Davis of the inevitable outcome, he has politely intimidated professional signature-gathering firms, which now decline to make their services available to the recall effort.
Yes, the noose is getting tighter. According to the Wall Street Journal, "a recent Field Poll found that only nine percent of voters have much confidence in Mr. Davis's abilities to fix things. Nine percent. Saddam Hussein would have done better than that in a Basra secret ballot."
As the state deficit increases by $30 million daily, it’s business as usual in the governor’s office. According to his busy schedule, he's hosting a $5,000-a-head golf outing on May 23 in Carmel. The invitation includes the statement "There are no limits to the amount a person or organization can contribute to this committee."
Why a lame duck governor would need to raise funds is anyone’s guess. Maybe he’ll pay people not to sign the recall petition.
Down at the controller’s office, Steve Westly, the same guy who said that Internet transactions need to be taxed, is off to New York to persuade lenders to provide the state with $11 billion in loans. Like the junky who refuses to go cold turkey, Westly has been sent to cover Davis’ rear flank with another fix of stopgap cash.
Davis and Westly recently argued over Davis’ request that the controller’s office write a legal opinion justifying a tripling of the vehicle licensing fee without legislative approval. Westly’s lawyers said no dice. Davis will have to find another scapegoat.
Then of course there’s fellow Democrat Gil Cedillo pushing SB60, a bill that would remove the requirement that illegal immigrants provide a valid Social Security number to obtain a driver’s license. Not that legal residents would be permitted to do the same thing.
Cedillo is also working with yet another Democrat, Assemblyman Manny Diaz, on AB522. The bill makes the Mexican Identification Card (matricula consular) an official form of ID in California. This fraud-ridden card is worth as much as the paper it’s written on, with many people holding multiple cards. The stacked Senate has overwhelmingly approved the bill. Davis is expected to sign AB522 into law.
On the cross-dresser front, Democrat Leno (no relation to Jay) is pushing AB196, a bill that would require Christian bookstores and other businesses to hire "transsexuals" and "cross-dressers" or face a $150,000 fine. The bill has passed the Assembly and moves on to the Senate.
Get the picture? The budget crisis doesn't even register in the minds of these people.
And for pure satire, there’s Davis spokesmen Steve "Get Over It" Maviglio and Roger "Sour Grapes" Salazar, both sounding more like Iraqi Minister of Information Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf. In much the same way the minister said "I triple guarantee you, there are no American soldiers in Baghdad," one can picture these two fulminating: "I guarantee you, not a single person has signed the petition, they are all infidel swine!"
The recall is gaining momentum for cumulative and well-documented reasons, but none more importantly than this: Davis' arrogant indifference in taking a $12 billion surplus in 1998 and turning it into a $35 billion deficit four years later.
The fact that California's deficit exceeds that of the 49 other states combined is breathtaking and a red flag of gross executive malfeasance and failure to perform. The state's parasitic tax policies are driving businesses to Nevada, Arizona, Texas, Mexico and China, and taking away jobs. All Californians, Democrats included, are being hit hard in the pocketbook, in the form of both program cuts and tax increases.
After a speech to business leaders in Sacramento on Wednesday (where he had to beg for applause), Davis met a chilly reception with reporters. "My job is not to make a given community happy but to do what's right for this state." How funny is that?
Those in office who fail to do the public’s bidding, are not fit to serve. Davis has lied about the magnitude of the energy crisis and the budget deficit, and has circumvented laws passed by the voters.
It is only when people become so fed up with a destructive condition that they have no other alternative but to take decisive action. Few people in 1978 thought that Howard Jarvis and Paul Gann’s Prop 13, a measure that ultimately saved hundreds of thousands of Californians from losing their homes to foreclosure, would pass. Two-thirds of Californians voted for it.
Today California voters can tell Sacramento that they’ve had it with Gray Davis and the tax-happy bloodsuckers by signing the recall petition. All this does is put the question on the ballot. You’ll have the peace of mind that no matter how hard Davis tries to launch this state, and your prospects in it, into the abyss, you’ve done what you can to prevent it.
Sadly, reason, facts and common sense aren't part of the equation. Davis and his liberal friends, smart people to be sure, purposefully undermine the spirit of compromise arrived at by mutual concession. Compromise means that fragile premises can be questioned and bubbles burst – a risk liberals simply can't take.
It is, in essence, a war of wills, and liberals fight harder (and dirtier) than conservatives.
Or, as a brilliant writer on WorldNetDaily has said: "The mind justifies what the heart has chosen. People tend to believe what they want to believe, what suits their worldview, and they gather all their information so as to support their opinions rather than support what the facts may point to."
Despite this widening philosophical gulf, what the facts and body of evidence point to is clear. Davis no longer deserves to serve and should be recalled immediately.
So find a petition and sign it, before the governor levies a tax on that too.
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