He did make some cuts to our local community college so they raised the per unit cost from $11 to $24 (Fall). Plus, each class MUST have a preclass signup of 20 students. Thats going to cut a lot of classes, including general ed classes that you need to graduate.
Plus, it seems to me he never accounted for where all the energy money went & why.
As has been mentioned, his relentless (and frequently tasteless) fundraising. In the eyes of many (including myself), he spent way too much time panhandling when he should have been trying to manage a fiscal crisis. In one of his more amusing moments, he interrupted a policy discussion with the California Teachers Association to ask them to give him $1 million. What followed was a stunned silence, after which Davis went on witht he discussion as though nothing had happened.
The energy debacle. He first ignored the problem until it became a crisis. Then he forged an insanely stupid deal with the energy companies, committing our state to very high prices for (I believe) several years, although the prices were lower than what the market was currently dictating. Then, when the prices dropped a few months later (as anybody with half a brain could’ve figured - prices always rise during the summer and then drop again), he sued the energy companies for ripping him off. As if it was their fault he was an idiot.
The Oracle scandal. He signed a deal with Oracle to buy more copies of their software than existed computers in the entire state that could actually use it. A couple days after the deal was signed, an Oracle lobbyist gave him a check for $25k. Later, Davis tried to weasel out of the deal, after it became clear how mind-bendingly stupid it was. He also returned the $25k, but only after the press made a big deal out of it.
Generally, the man exudes sliminess and insincerity. He has a habit of pay-for-play politics, and screwing people over after he no longer needs them.
That hair! My God, that hair!
And for the record, while it’s true his election win versus Bill Simon was not extremely close, it’s worth noting that Simon ran the most inept campaign since Walter Mondale. People would’ve voted for Saddam over Simon. And even so, Davis won by a slim margin. I know of many who voted for Davis, but not a single person voted for him because they wanted to. It was always a vote against Simon, not for Davis.
All that said, I’m loathe to vote for a recall against the man. It’s just bad policy, and it’s theoretically possible for someone to become governor with 10% of the vote. There’s no limit to how many contenders can run against Davis, and no plurality requirements. If there was going to be a secondary vote to determine the governor, I might consider it (albeit begrudingly, as I’m of the opinion that if we were stupid enough to re-elect Davis, we should be stuck with the creep for 4 years). As it stands though, I won’t sign the petition, and when (not if) the vote happens, I’ll likely abstain. What I’d really like is an option on the ballot for “I think you’re a tool, Davis, but I don’t support a recall”.
Jeff
There’s more truth to this than many care to admit. The biggest problem was that we tried to deregulate energy half-way. We deregulated supply, by allowing the California companies to buy and sell at whatever prices they wished. However, we failed to deregulate demand, in that there still existed caps on what the energy companies could charge consumers. Thus companies had to buy their energy for market value (which was high), but couldn’t pass this cost onto the customers, which hurt them. Their credit went all to hell, which made it more difficult for them to acquire new energy contracts from energy wholesalers. And since people were still paying low prices (lower than what the market would’ve dictated, anyway), there was no curbing demand. Voila - instant power shortages. And the signs for this were long coming - people were talking about this a year before the problem hit. And it was, in fact, California’s problem. We screwed things up, it should’ve been our responsibility to fix it, by either completely deregulating the industry, or giving up and re-regulating the whole thing. Instead, we left it broken, and whined to Daddy Fed to bail us out.
Jeff
The energy ‘crisis’ was never a crisis. There were more news reports about blackouts than there were actual blackouts, and through the entire affair my electricity bill was generally the smallest of all my utility bills.
Davis strikes me as a mediocre dope, but this recall business is the kind of thing that makes it hard to give a damn about American politics. As a Californian, I’m a little disappointed this guy is the best we could come up with, but he was elected. Twice. You want a democracy? You got one. Now quiet down and go clean your room.
While your synopsis of the “energy crisis” is accurate, you neglect to mention that the market value wasn’t just high–it was unnaturally high, due to manipulation of the market by the energy producers–taking advantage of the mess California made of their energy policy.
I’ll grant you that the Rush Limbaugh comment was tasteless and while he’s not in anyway an official voice of the party, at times he might as well be. However, in what way is a SNL skit at all indicitive of a right wing smear campaign? They pretty much make fun of both sides(and I remember when they used to be funny).
Didn’t Davis hire goons to conduct a smear campaign against Riordan, among other things? Republican voters were still the ones who chose him, but that doesn’t mean Dave is free of responsibility.
It worked… but you’d think the Dems would know better after their other smear campaign that ended up making Reagen president for two terms.
Yup. Davis smeared Riordan in hopes that Riordan would lose the primary, and thus ultimately pit Davis against the much less popular Bill Simon. Worked pretty well, I guess.
Jeff
My understanding of this is that there wasn’t anything particularly nefarious about the prices - they were as high as they were because the credit of the California energy distributors sucked goat testicles. Just like if I have crappy credit, I’m going to pay high interest rates on credit cards, loans, and whatnot. High risk = high prices. And judging by the fact that Californian distributors were constantly at risk of going bankrupt, the high prices seem justified. Sucks for us, of course, but it’s just good business sense.
Jeff
It’s pretty difficult to avoid the perception that Bush threw California to the energy dogs that bought face time with him diring his election campaign. It was payback for not having carried the state in November.
That said, Davis has shown himself to be pretty incompetent in terms of real leadership. California’s routine budget crises are doing tremendous damage to the state’s economy. Although before his time, the downgrading of California’s bond status by Moody cost us billions. There is a continuing inability of our state’s politicians to pass a budget on time. Davis evidently lacks the spine, commitment and influence to knock heads until the deal gets done. This lack of firm governorship is another minus on a checklist of typically sleazy political moves.
His fundraising mooching is just plain disgusting. I seem to recall that he passed a bill permitting a hiring freeze of extra prison security staff while simultaneously accepting a huge donation from their union. He passed another bill related to residential plumbing and then took a large donation from the contractor’s union. All of this is so blatant that it’s hard not to want him recalled.
So long as the republicans trot out morons like Bill Simon, this state will be safe for democracy. Davis is his own worst enemy and I’m personally getting pretty sick of his shenannigans. Still, our sun would have to go supernova before I’d vote republican.
Sorry, couldn’t let this one pass. Did you know Colorado sends eleventy bazillion more gallons of water to California than we get back? It’s all part of the give and take of living in these United States…
At the moment, California hasn’t approved it’s budget so the budget makers don’t get paid until they do (I think Gray is one of them). Eventually the community colleges staff won’t get paid if they don’t hurry up with the budget too.
Unfortunately, the space is all located in the middle east. :rolleyes:
Considering the smear campaign that is now being directed at Issa , I’m not sure where we will end up, governor wise. But it would be nice to have a balanced budget before the legislature all traipses off for their 4th of July vacation…