(on vacation September 17)
Citizens of Rohnert Park have a rare opportunity: they can
support active campaigns to oust their elected representatives at the city,
county, state, and national levels (see votetoimpeach.org). A Total Recall!
What’s fueling the recall fire? Here at home, it’s the
casino. Supervisors Kerns, Smith, and Brown oppose the casino, but apparently
with insufficient gusto. The local recall forces say no amount of gambling
money, promised to the City and County by the tribe, can buy back the safety
and sanctity of our communities. The gambling issue adds heat to the state
recall race, too, as stakeholders either collect huge contributions from the
Indians or blast away at those who do.
The gubernatorial recall is yet another symptom of what I’ll
call “monecrocy”, where money smothers the power of the people. But while some
say the Davis recall was simply the work of reactionary Republican Darrel
Issa’s $1.6 million, that’s only half true. Issa’s political ambition provided
the spark, and his fortunes fanned the flames, but Gray Davis’ provided much of
the fuel. There are good reasons to have not elected him last year, and to not
re-elect him in three more. Still, does Davis’ behavior warrant a recall? And
will that solve the problem?
In the first chapter of “Master of the Senate”, the thick
bestseller about Lyndon Johnson’s pre-presidential career, Robert Caro
describes how the 1868 US Senate rejected impeachment conviction of President
*Andrew* Johnson for vetoing popular legislation (which punished the post-war
south.) Senator Lyman Trumball, a supporter of that same legislation,
nonetheless opposed conviction: “Once set, the example of impeaching a
President for what, when the excitement of the hour having subsided, will be
regarded as insufficient cause, no future President will be safe… What then becomes
of the checks and balances of the Constitution?”
Davis is an unlikable outcome of our cash-powered political
ecosystem. But his recall is something much worse: part of an escalation of
right-wing attacks on democracy. Jeb Bush’s voter purge removed tens of
thousands of legitimate and likely Gore voters from the Florida voter rolls,
falsely suspected as felons, just months before the 2000 election. This, more
than the Supreme Court or hanging chads, handed the Presidency to brother
George. This year, Republican Texan legislators have staged an unprecedented
attempt to prematurely redraw Congressional district boundaries, again
disenfranchising Black Democratic voters in order to consolidate Republican
Congressional power (see savetexasreps.com.) If you think Republicans wanted
Davis recalled for serious ethical or managerial failures, why did Issa (on
September 23rd) urge Republicans to reject the recall if it appeared
that a Schwarzenegger-McClintock split would hand Bustamante a victory?
I’m voting No on the recall, to help stop the unraveling of
democracy all across America. But if you, like I, want your No Recall vote to
be more than a Yes Davis vote, more is required. If you want to reject the “win
at any cost” approach that has infected even our City Council elections, you
need to look further down the ballot. Arianna Huffington and Peter Camejo
understand what has diseased the governance of this state, and have the
independence and strength to cure it. Camejo, for example, showing the depth of
his knowledge, pointed out how a Governor not beholden to Big Energy could use
the power of state pension funds’ stock ownership to renegotiate those
expensive energy contracts.
Huffington’s long transformation from Republican to
independent populist came from her first-hand experience, as a community
service volunteer, with the failures of trickle-down economics. She’s launching
a “Clean Elections Initiative” for the November 2004 ballot, patterned after
the successful public campaign funding programs in Maine and Arizona (see
votearianna.com.)
If I end up voting for Bustamante over Camejo or Huffington,
it’s primarily to avoid a repeat of the Presidential outcome, especially
environmental impacts of the Hummernator. But without leadership for thorough campaign
finance reform, based on public funding, we can expect more of the same in
Sacramento (and Petaluma), regardless who wins the recall battle.