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Grex > Agora46 > #121: California's Governor Gray Davis facing recall election | |
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| 25 new of 264 responses total. |
gelinas
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response 90 of 264:
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Aug 11 22:50 UTC 2003 |
BS.
So California's recall law is poorly written. That's up to the California
legislature to correct. And they likely will, if another recall looms.
Recalls in other states are matters for their legislatures. From what I've
seen here in Michigan, they aren't likely. (This past few years, there have
been three attempts that I know of: two for local township boards, which went
went through, but I don't recall the results, and one for the school board,
which was dropped as more trouble than it was worth.)
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richard
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response 91 of 264:
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Aug 11 23:09 UTC 2003 |
Governor Pataki here in New York was up for re-election last year. He
got re-elected and now the state is in a dire fiscal crisis that Pataki
totally downplayed the possibility of during his re-election. Pataki
is guilty of just as much as Gray Davis, when it comes to fiscal
mismanagement and not owning up to such during an election.
A lot of people here are enraged at Pataki now. His popularity is at
an all time low. But I wouldn't sign a recall petition to undo the
last election, even though he was a republican and I didn't vote for
him. I wouldn't consider it the right thing to do. The election was
held, he won and thats it-- surely its better to have the governor
concentrating on his job and trying to fix the budget mess, than
concentrating on facing another *special* election to undo the previous
election. You don't get anywhere if you don't allow those elected to
have the time to govern.
Also when you have too many elections, this is when an electorate can
get frustrated and you end up with fringe candidates getting elected.
In Germany in the late twenties and thirties, the electorate was
divided and there elections called and more elections called, and it
got to the point where national elections were happening again and
again. Because nobody gave the elected leaders the chance to govern.
So what happened? Hitler got elected and promptly did away with
further elections. His rise to power might never have happened had
there not been so many elections held that people got so frustrated and
burned out that they were willing to consider some one that radical.
This is a pivotal moment in California's history. A vote against
recalling Davis is a vote for respect of electoral traditions, and a
vote against re-doing elections unless the elected official has become
unable to govern. Davis is a capable governor. Letting him serve out
the last three years of his term won't kill anyone.
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richard
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response 92 of 264:
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Aug 11 23:12 UTC 2003 |
whoops, correction. Hitler didn't really "do away with further
elections" at first, he just did away with further elections where
anybody but him was on the ballot. But the point is there, which is
you CAN burn people out on the electoral process via having too many
elections. Why risk setting a bad precedent?
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gelinas
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response 93 of 264:
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Aug 11 23:14 UTC 2003 |
Sounds like Pataki _should_ be recalled.
On the other hand, y'all could probably have figured out that a fiscal crises
was coming, had y'all bothered to look. You got what you deserved, I guess.
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tod
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response 94 of 264:
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Aug 11 23:14 UTC 2003 |
This response has been erased.
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scg
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response 95 of 264:
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Aug 12 01:44 UTC 2003 |
Whatever arguments there are for or against the recall, the recall does seem
consistent with the California constitution. My opinion is that the
replacement process, at least, should be changed, but what's going on now
appears consistent with the law.
I'm not sure I buy the argument that the recall getting on the ballot shows
the signature requirement to be too low. Signature requirements aren't to
prevent people from voting on things, but rather to prevent people from having
to vote on lots of stuff that only the proposer wants. Given that most polls
in California now show the recall passing, this doesn't seem like a case of
a low signature requirement thwarting the will of the voters.
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jep
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response 96 of 264:
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Aug 12 03:01 UTC 2003 |
I do hope California doesn't face an endless string of recalls
following this one. I agree with richard that that seems possible.
If the recall succeeds, I hope a politician gets elected, rather than
Arnold Schwarzenegger or Gary Coleman or some other person with no
experience in government.
California has too many people, and it's economy is too important to
the United States and the world, for me to be happy to see this recall
and the vast amount of turmoil surrounding it. I can't say I really
understand the implications very well, but the situation looks ugly to
me.
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klg
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response 97 of 264:
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Aug 12 03:10 UTC 2003 |
Go, Ah-nuld.
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i
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response 98 of 264:
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Aug 12 03:29 UTC 2003 |
It may not be a crime, but gross misrepresentation of the State's fiscal
situation and/or a candidate's intensions (once elected) strike me as a
good reason to recall him/her from office. Fear of recall might even get
a politician to tell the truth or keep a promise once in a while. If i
got to play King Solomon, both Davis & Pataki would be working bottom-rung
jobs in an Iraqi water-treatment plant.
Nah, make that a sewage-treatment plant.
Good election laws, etc. can discourage it a bit, but democracy really
does not have any way to handle sustained disfunctional behavior by the
voters or politicians. If you have a monarch, however, you can have a
"democracy strikes out" rule in the constitution - if the voters & folks
they elect are failing badly enough, then politicians are canned, all
elections cancelled, and the king/queen is awarded all power previously
held by the politicians. If the threat of this hasn't sobered the elected
folks up enough to prevent the event, then it's pretty likely that the
monarch will be no worse at governing (and there will at least be some
stability). If the king really is worse, there's a keep-the-king-in-
charge-or-not? election after a few years, and by then a bad king will
have thinned the ranks of the politicians considerably while giving the
voters good reason to take elections more seriously.
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tod
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response 99 of 264:
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Aug 12 23:52 UTC 2003 |
This response has been erased.
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gull
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response 100 of 264:
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Aug 13 00:51 UTC 2003 |
Re #22: Enron gaming the system (while Ken Lay, with a straight face,
said they weren't, and Bush backed him up) didn't help either. Gray
Davis did a bad job handling the electricity deregulation situation, but
Republican interests helped set him up.
After that evidence of how easy it is to manipulate electrical markets,
I'm amazed that other states are going ahead with deregulation plans.
Re #98: "It may not be a crime, but gross misrepresentation of the
State's fiscal situation and/or a candidate's intensions (once elected)
strike me as a good reason to recall him/her from office."
So we should recall Bush, then?
---
I'm having a hard time taking Arnold's bid for governor seriously.
After all these years you'd think he'd have at least grasped the English
language. He has no campaign planks except "bringing business back to
California." His speeches consist of bumper sticker slogans. If he's
elected, it'll prove to me that Californians really have lost track of
the dividing line between reality and the movies. I've suspected it for
a while now.
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russ
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response 101 of 264:
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Aug 13 02:13 UTC 2003 |
Wow, some commentary from Richard that doesn't come across as pure
partisan advocacy. What took you so long to get insightful?
I like the idea (#98) of holding pols to their campaign promises.
If their election could be annulled on the basis that they made
misrepresentations, it would force everyone to be more honest.
(Imagine George O'Brien being tossed out of the mayor's office
in Boston for campaigning against a subway fare increase and
changing his mind! There'd be one less folk song in the repetoire.)
I think that it also might be a good idea to force pols to recuse
themselves on votes on matters concerning persons or groups from
which they obtain significant amounts of campaign money.
I doubt that California will face endless recalls. Either the
legislature will fix the problem, or abuse of the process will
create a push culminating in an initiative to fix it. If nothing
else, I'd expect a reform to to limit ballot access to one candidate
per party represented in the previous race for the office.
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scg
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response 102 of 264:
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Aug 13 06:00 UTC 2003 |
I don't think the legislature in California has the power to prevent recalls.
The voters would have to fix the problem.
It seems to me that the existence of the recall process is probably
reasonable. The replacement election being on the same ballot leads to all
kinds of strategy games that would probably be better avoided by having a
separate, later, replacement election (or letting the Leutenant Governor take
over if he/she hadn't also been recalled). The system whereby anybody can
get on the replacement ballot simply by paying the filing fee has to go.
Schwartzenegger's answer to every question about his positions on issues seems
to be something along the lines of "I'll let you know when I'm ready." I
suspect his popularity will drop considerably if he's ever forced to answer
thsoe questions (or if the voters notice he's refusing to answer), since no
matter what his answers are they're bound to anger somebody.
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russ
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response 103 of 264:
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Aug 13 12:00 UTC 2003 |
Re #100: The California deregulation law passed a legislature
completely dominated by Democrats. When the problems began to appear,
the utilities pleaded to be allowed to make long-term contracts to
buy electricity instead of being forced to buy on the spot market.
Gray Davis instead decided to gamble with the taxpayer's money, and
lost big time. He deserves his comeuppance.
The deregulation law's problems shouldn't have gotten very far, but
did so because California's legislature is apparently full of
ideologues of various stripes but nobody with much analytical
ability. You may be right that the electorate has lost the
distinction between reality and story-telling; in any case they
have gotten what they elected, and thus what they deserve. To
fix this, they have to stop nominating (mostly the Democrats)
candidates who have no experience or record of substantive thought,
but only mouth the politically-correct slogans of the day. Then
the voters have to punish the parties for allowing insubstantial
candidates to be nominated.
As if that'll happen.
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gull
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response 104 of 264:
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Aug 13 13:01 UTC 2003 |
Re #103: But would the spot market have climbed so high if not for
Enron's strategies to drive it upwards? They were creating artificial
shortages.
*This* is why electrical deregulation is a bad idea, really. There
isn't enough competition to prevent one or two companies from
manipulating the market. It amazes me that anyone thought this wouldn't
happen. The only way to deal with a natural monopoly industry like this
is government regulation.
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bru
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response 105 of 264:
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Aug 13 13:50 UTC 2003 |
don't you think they should have been smart enough to see that and taken
action to avert it?
Arnold is at least his own man. He doesn't depend on anyone else to make his
decisions. You may see that as either bad or good, but at least it will be
different.
If he doesn't understand a problem, maybe he is at least smart enough to find
the people who do understand and can help.
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janc
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response 106 of 264:
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Aug 13 16:03 UTC 2003 |
I want to see the Schwarzenegger / Coleman debate. Might be worth getting
TV for.
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albaugh
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response 107 of 264:
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Aug 13 16:55 UTC 2003 |
I'm too lazy to research this: How did Jessie "The Body" Ventura's background
and experience before being elected governor of Minnesota compare to Arnold's?
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scg
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response 108 of 264:
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Aug 13 17:12 UTC 2003 |
Ventura had been mayor of some Minneapolis suburb. The paralel to somebody
with no political record, but a famous name and a politically connected
family becoming governor of a state significantly bigger than Minnesota but
significantly smaller than California would be George W. Bush.
I do love the bit about Schwarzenegger being a "self made man." He shows that
even a movie star who marries a Kennedy can get rich if he really works at
it. ;)
It seemed to me a few years ago that the political demands being placed on
Davis at the time were to get the power situation under control regardless
of the cost. Now that power is under control, people are upset about the
cost. I suspect if there were still frequent blackouts, it wouldn't be the
cost that people were complaining about. The real question there, of course,
is what could Davis have done to more cheaply stop the blackouts.
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gull
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response 109 of 264:
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Aug 13 18:39 UTC 2003 |
Re #105: Probably, but the pressure from the "free markets uber alles"
types to deregulate was pretty strong. It's also hard to fight a
company that has strong allies in the White House.
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happyboy
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response 110 of 264:
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Aug 13 19:06 UTC 2003 |
re107: seal training. :)
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tod
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response 111 of 264:
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Aug 13 19:12 UTC 2003 |
This response has been erased.
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dcat
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response 112 of 264:
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Aug 13 19:43 UTC 2003 |
re105: actually, he apparently didn't decide whether or not to run until his
wife told him he could.
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tod
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response 113 of 264:
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Aug 13 20:42 UTC 2003 |
This response has been erased.
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richard
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response 114 of 264:
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Aug 13 21:39 UTC 2003 |
There was an article in the New York Times earlier this week on how
crazy the California recall process is. Basically, with hundreds of
candidates on the ballot, it would be logical to list everybody running
alpabetically by last name, so you'd know where to find your candidate
on the ballot. But thats not what they are doing. They actually held
a LOTTERY style drawing where they picked letters of the alphabet out
of a hat or something randomly, and the first letter chosen determined
the first person on the ballot. So that if the first letter was "G"
and alphabetically, somebody named George Gaaronson was the first
person with the last name G whose name comes up, he'd get listed first
on the ballot. But then the second person who appears on the ballot
WOULDN'T be the second name listed alphabetically under G, it would be
the first person listed under the second letter of the alphabet that
comes up in the drawing. Or something like that. Totally absurd.
So what you'll have is several hundred people on the ballot, with the
names all scrambled and in no logical order, so you'll have to look
long and hard to find your candidate's name. This probably means LONG
lines on election day.
Also there are stories that there are right wing groups gearing up to
go hard negative on Arnold. Arnold is a Republican, but he is a
moderate, and even worse for some conservatives, is pro-choice and an
environmentalist. Those folks would rather have a DEMOCRAT as governor
than a pro-choice tree hugger! One article said they may use in ads
outtakes from Arnold's "Pumping Iron" movie, the documentary about
Arnold's bodybuilding days in the seventies, which show a young Arnold
smoking a marijuana joint, exhaling and laughing. Yep, this campaign
could get nasty! I mean unlike Clinton, Arnold couldn't even at least
deny he inhaled, because its on tape! :)
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