THE CREDIBILITY PROBLEMS ON BOTH SIDES IN RECALL

 

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, JULY 20, 2021, OR THEREAFTER

 

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
        “THE CREDIBILITY PROBLEMS ON BOTH SIDES IN RECALL"

 

        From their first day of circulating petitions targeting Gov. Gavin Newsom, backers of the upcoming recall election attacked his credibility.

 

        They make some strong points, but those same organizers also suffer credibility problems of their own.

 

        Their favorite target all along has been Newsom’s notorious dinner party last fall with lobbyist pals at Yountville’s super-pricey, Michelin-starred French Laundry restaurant. It was largely indoors at a time when Newsom’s administration had banned inside restaurant dining, and the crowd was above the state-imposed limit also enforced by the governor.

 

        How credible was his professed concern over COVID-19, when he combined this event with sending his own children to in-person private school, while mandating closure of virtually all public schools?

 

 

        Then there were wildfires, which ravaged California last year and figure to be in full flame when the recall vote is held Sept. 14. Newsom trumpeted figures about fire mitigation efforts by the state that turned out to be exaggerated by a factor of about nine. A difference of more than 80,000 acres. The governor tried to let a state bureaucrat take the fall for that lie by admitting he gave Newsom wrong numbers.

 

        It didn’t matter…politicians are always responsible for the veracity of what emerges from their mouths.

 

        This most recent episode of non-credibility brought caustic comment even from some of the governor’s usual supporters.

 

        And yet…the other side has plenty of its own credibility problems. For one, while circulating the recall petitions, major backers blasted Newsom for mishandling the rollout of Covid vaccines. Many of the same folks spent years before the pandemic inveighing against mandatory vaccinations for schoolchildren against often-fatal diseases like rubella, whooping cough and polio. Now they’re griping about a governor doing whatever he can to get every Californian protected from COVID-19 and its variants?

 

        There are credibility problems, too, among the Republicans working to oust and to replace Newsom. One big example came in late June, with word from something called the Election Integrity Project (EIP) that it has lined up as many as 30,000 poll watchers to “ensure the integrity” of the recall vote.

 

        This outfit turns out to be the creation of a former Tea Party leader for whom California government seems too liberal and too concerned with the welfare of minorities, now a large majority of the state populace when taken together.

 

        EIP previously failed in pursuing baseless claims of election fraud and improper registration, essentially following the model of ex-President Donald Trump and his false claims of actually having won last fall’s election.

 

        The group’s history suggests its real purpose – if it can actually turn out 30,000 poll watchers in September – will be to intimidate voters it thinks will go against the recall.

 

        That’s a big credibility problem for recall organizers.

 

        Then there are some of the positions taken by significant candidates to replace Newsom, all Republicans at this writing. Businessman John Cox, defeated by Newsom by a near-record margin in 2018, announced his plan for solving the homeless problem, one that would essentially force homeless individuals into counseling or therapy whether they like it or not. The trouble is, that tactic runs counter to both state law and a longstanding U.S. Supreme Court ruling.

 

        How credible is a candidate who advocates an illegal practice to solve one of California’s big problems?

 

        So there are no saints headed for this fall’s ballot as yet, and there is plenty to question about both the governor and his political enemies.

 

        The usual outcome of elections that pit negatives against each other is that voters choose the devil they know over the one they don’t.

 

        But there could be a wild card this year: So far, Newsom and state Democratic leaders have managed to dissuade all significant Democrats from entering the list of replacement candidates. But that list is far from complete right now.

 

        If a major Democrat who is relatively scandal-free – like former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, for one example – were willing to risk becoming a party pariah for the rest of his life should he lose, the balance of credibility could change substantially.

 

        And then all bets would be off.

       

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    Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net

 

        Suggested pullout quote: “There is plenty to question about both the governor and his political enemies.”

WHY DON’T STATE’S CONGRESS MEMBERS DO THIS MORE OFTEN?

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, JULY 20, 2018 OR THEREAFTER

  BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
            “WHY DON’T STATE’S CONGRESS MEMBERS DO THIS MORE OFTEN?”

            It’s remarkable what California’s 53 members of the U.S. House of Representatives can do when they decide to work together.

This corps of politicians together makes up almost one-eighth of the lower house of Congress, holding many influential committee and subcommittee chairmanships regardless of which party is in power.

But California’s potentially immense clout as America’s most populous state is only rarely brought to bear in the nation’s capital because of ideological differences. The state’s impotence could best be seen this year on the House Intelligence Committee, where Republican Chairman Devin Nunes of Hanford released a report attempting to whitewash President Trump in the Russia election tampering scandal over the strong opposition of the ranking Democrat on the panel, Adam Schiff, who represents Pasadena, Burbank and almost everything in between.

Conversely, Trump also gave Californians in Congress an opportunity this spring to demonstrate what they can accomplish on the rare occasions that they opt to work together for the good of the entire state.

 When Trump tried to remove $10 million from the federal budget that was earmarked to continue work on and perhaps complete a West Coast earthquake early warning system, California Democrats and Republicans alike reversed his action and then some.

Instead of $10 million for the system, the budget bill Trump eventually signed actually contained $22.9 million. Of that, $10 million is goes to the physical buildout of the remaining 800 or so seismic watch stations (more than 800 had already been set up, but Trump was willing to waste all that prior work). The other $12.9 million is for continued development of the early warning system’s technical aspects, which will likely be refined and improved continually for decades to come.

            The prime mover in this total turnaround of Trump’s choice was Republican Ken Calvert of Corona, usually a quiet back-bencher, but the holder of one of those influential chairmanships. Calvert heads an appropriations subcommittee overseeing the United States Geological Survey, builder of the system and essentially the country’s earthquake arbiter.

            “I will continue to be a champion for this life-saving technology that can have a significant impact when big earthquakes hit,” he said in a statement. “Let’s take the steps we can to save Americans from preventable injuries during natural disasters.”

            His comment was echoed by Schiff, an early advocate of the warning system, known as ShakeAlert. Schiff’s district sits just south of the San Andreas Fault where it runs east-west near the San Gabriel Mountains. Schiff thanked Calvert for his leadership, adding that “This system…will save lives across California, Oregon and Washington.”

            With Californians nearly unanimous in supporting it, the vote for even more funding than Trump had tried to eliminate was quiet and overwhelming.

            Maybe some of the nearly $13 million in development money can now be deployed to convince jaded Californians who have seen plenty of unfulfilled disaster warnings and evacuations notice to pay attention to warnings that may come 30 seconds to a minute before big shocks occur.

            That skeptical quality was seen in Santa Barbara County’s mudslide-plagued Montecito, where many residents in slide-prone areas deliberately ignored mandatory evacuation warnings during the spring season’s last large rainstorms. There had been too many false alarms following the winter’s previous serious barrage of earth movement.

            The USGS took note and is now trying to decide whether and how early to issue warnings using information from the new system. Too early and a quake might turn out to be very small, rendering warnings unneeded; too late and lives could be lost.

            The difficult part is that when earthquakes begin, it’s impossible to know how great their impact will be.

            So part of ShakeAlert’s mission will be to convince Californians to heed quake warnings, even after some of them have fizzled.

            But that’s secondary to the ultimate good that this system will do as it saves lives by getting people off bridges and away from buildings where they could be hit by falling debris.

            It’s all very important, but the real meaning of the vote to reverse Trump was to demonstrate for the first time in years what Californians in Congress can do when they work together. Too bad they don’t do it more often.

           
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    Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net.

HOW MUCH OF THEIR PLANS SHOULD CANDIDATES REVEAL?

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, JULY 20, 2010, OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“HOW MUCH OF THEIR PLANS SHOULD CANDIDATES REVEAL?”

For more than seven months, Meg Whitman, the Republican nominee for governor, has berated Democratic rival Jerry Brown for not telling Californians exactly what measures he would pursue to pull this state out of its financial malaise.

Meanwhile, she’s spelled out detailed plans for what she'll make happen if she wins the office.

Whitman’s stands come via an unprecedented 48-page magazine printed on high-quality paper that promises she'll cut 40,000 state jobs, suspend regulations for reducing greenhouse gases mandated by the 2006 AB32 even if a November ballot initiative aiming to do the same should fail, revise state labor laws and increase the number of H-1B visas given to foreign workers at high-tech companies.

There is, therefore, little doubt about what Whitman will attempt if she takes office. Hers is an approach very much like the one Arnold Schwarzenegger took during the 2003 recall election that made him governor – one that didn’t work for him and probably won’t work for Whitman if she becomes governor next January.

Sure, the media love this kind of openness. By spelling out dozens, maybe hundreds, of specific actions she will take or support, Whitman opens herself to all manner of questions and analyses. Everyone knows where she stands on a host of matters.

This can work well in a campaign, and it did for Whitman in the primary. But – like her talk about preventing amnesty for illegal immigrants – she might find once she takes office that there’s little she can do about much of her agenda. It took Schwarzenegger more than a year to learn this.

The Whitman approach stems from her long experience as a business executive, topped by almost a decade as chief executive of the eBay online auction house. She didn’t have to deal with a Democratic-dominated Legislature there. And her pledge to help turn that Legislature part-time (see page 22 of her campaign magazine) won’t sit well with many lawmakers who would vote on the bulk of her proposals.

Brown’s approach has been completely different. A former two-term governor, he said shortly after filing his candidacy papers that “We need to distinguish between what a CEO of a company does and what a governor does. The governor can’t pick many of his or her employees or a board of directors. It’s very different.”

That’s one reason Brown has played his cards close to the vest so far, revealing very few proposed actions. No promise to build a peripheral canal to carry Northern California river water around the delta of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers (Whitman’s magazine calls for an “alternative conveyance system,” which sounds to many like a peripheral canal). No plan to make legislators part-time. No promises to fire a large percentage of state workers.

Just a commitment to work with any legislators interested in solving problems. Yes, Brown takes a sort-of pledge about no-new-taxes: “I don’t think we have to raise taxes and there will be no new ones while I’m governor unless the people themselves vote for them,” he said. It’s an approach he followed for eight years as mayor of Oakland, where voters did pass (by two-thirds majorities) parcel taxes to help schools and police.

Rather than reveal a specific agenda, Brown has talked only about a process. “Focus on the budget is clearly the No. 1 priority,” he said. “I will deal with all 120 members of the Legislature from the day I’m elected, if I’m elected. I’m prepared to do the best I can to get us out of this mess.”

He makes it conditional, because he knows he can lose this election, as he lost his 1982 run for the U.S. Senate and a couple of abortive presidential bids.

Brown also has a touch of the optimism his father, Pat Brown, exuded during two terms as governor, a time when the University of California and the Cal State system expanded exponentially and most work on the state Water Project was done.

“Look,” he says, “we have a deficit for sure. But it’s a tiny fraction of California’s gross state product, which is in the trillions of dollars. That makes this more a problem of money management than anything else and we will fix it. There is plenty to work with.”

But he also makes no promises to state workers. “We need to look at every aspect of state government,” he said. “We need to slow our spending as the resilient, dynamic economy of California comes back.”

There were no specifics there. In fact, Brown's talk isn’t much different from Whitman’s overall theme. It’s the approach that’s different.

Yes, reporters would like him to reveal more about his plans, if he has any. They need things to write about. But whatever Brown says now could hamstring him later, as Schwarznegger’s promises did him and Whitman’s could do to her.

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Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net