Raoul Lowery Contreras
July 29, 2003
 

Lt. Governor Cruz Bustamante, the first statewide Hispanic office holder since Republican Lt. Governor Romauldo Pacheco was elected in 1875, stood in front of reporters from all over the country announcing the official proclamation of the first ever Recall election of a California Governor.

October 7th, he announced would be the voting on whether or not to recall Governor Gray Davis and who to replace him with if voters dismissed Davis.

Lacking the guts to attempt his own coup d’ etat by simply calling for the recall and setting himself up to automatically assume the governorship when Davis is bounced from office, Bustamante chose not to fight, but to roll over.  How typical of the Fresno college drop-out.  No fight, just talk, just hot air.  Bustamante is certainly no role model for Hispanics--he has no COJONES (the reader should know what this word means, if not, find out).

Speaking of no COJONES, we find Gray Davis sucking up more money than ever to fight off the recall.  All the corrupt unions and groups that fueled his $68-million in reelection funds are writing checks.  All the corrupt lying campaign operatives Davis has used in past years have been hired, like Bob Mulholland, and are sharpening their knives to attack and bloody anyone who runs on the ballot to replace Davis.

Davis won’t fall back on his record as Governor because his record is shameful, full of exponentially growing state spending while revenues plunged.  His inattention to the energy crisis cost Californians billions of dollars that we will be paying for a generation. Davis has not only ignored the fastest growing element of California, the Hispanic population, but he has actively stabbed them in the back by vetoing legislation he promised to sign, by setting up Hispanic high school students for failure.  And, he has criminally raised college and university tuitions by 50% while leaving in place state subsidies for white, middle class University of California students while sticking it to the 1.7 million community college students, the largest educator of Hispanic college students in the country.

Davis insisted on statewide testing before high school graduation in English without providing the means for recent immigrant children to learn English.  Since their failure rate on English-language tests has been exposed as unacceptable and may lead to delay in test implementation, why hasn’t Davis stepped forward with his vaunted teacher union supporters and offered up solutions to save these Hispanic children?  He hasn’t because he doesn’t care.

Look at how he has appointed people to his staff.  Take his Director of Finance Steve Peace.  A termed out State Senator and former Assembly colleague of Gray Davis, Peace was an ally of former Republican Governor Pete Wilson and at Pete’s insistence, and the insistence of San Diego Gas and Electric, crafted the “deregulation” of public energy utilities that has proven to be so disastrous to California rate payers--like this writer.

The Peace “deregulation” didn’t deregulate anything, it didn’t let the market determine rates, it only enabled companies to dump their outmoded energy plants for top dollars to eastern firms who raised money with Wall Street money changers  to pay California companies billions of dollars for their plants. Steve Peace had to be guarded by California Highway Patrol officers due to the rage of Californians who were ripped off by billions of dollars during the Davis blackouts.

First, Peace wound up his affairs in the State Senate.

Secondly, Mrs. Steve Peace was appointed by Governor Gray Davis to a $110,000 state job on the Waste Management Board.  The appointment was based on her extensive experience in waste management, that is, she took out the trash at her Rancho San Diego home (worth $400,000).

Thirdly, the Governor appointed former Assemblyman and State Senator Director of Finance at a salary of $125,000. 

Thus, it should be noticed that the peace family is paid $235,000 per year by California taxpayers.  The taxpayers are paying off Governor Davis’ political debts.  It wouldn’t matter if only one Peace was on the state payroll, but both Peaces to the tune of, with expenses, over a quarter-of-a-million dollars a year?

There is the inattention affair. Gray Davis has been in public service for 30-years.  He ahs never made any real money.  Thus, his close associates say, he has dropped all attention to state affairs, including the budget and its gigantic deficit because he has been angling only to join a Los Angeles law firm as a senior partner so he can knock off hundreds of thousands of dollars by playing “rainmaker” (fees) from all those corrupt campaign contributors he has served so well as governor.  No names, but one should look at any law firm that has a former United States Secretary of State as the only senior partner.

Then there is the Oracle affair.  Did Governor Davis grant a no-bid multi-million dollar contract to the Oracle company as a payoff for a $25,000 campaign contribution that was handed over in a darkened cocktail lounge. 

Just how much did Gray Davis know about this alleged campaign contribution that might be described as a bribe if there is any connection to the contract?

Just how much did Davis have to do with the squelching of a nascent state Assembly investigation into the Oracle $25,000 check?  How much did Davis have to do with the firing of the Democrat committee chairman who called a hearing to investigate the Oracle $25,000 check? Did Davis illegally violate the Separation of Powers articles in the state Constitution by conspiring to squelch to committee’s investigation.

Exactly how did Davis decide to hire former Al Gore henchmen to protect him while paying them $30,000 a month from taxpayer money when, in fact, Davis had $68-million in his campaign fund?  How could Davis conspire to rip-off taxpayers like that?

Bribery, corruption, the Steve Peaces, Al Gore henchmen, no-bid contracts and illegal tax hikes in the guise of car registration fee tripling, are the reasons to get rid of Gray Davis.  Unfortunately, so far, we have found no cohesion in the recall forces to make Davis the issue.  So far, Davis has the upper hand by turning attention on the cost of the recall, and the background of Congressman Darrell Issa, the primary force behind the recall’s making the ballot.

Defeated by Gray Davis, Bill Simon did nothing for the recall, yet thinks he can run.  Michael Huffington who bragged about being a Republican congressman once, is running, but he’s an outed Democrat.  State Senator Tom McClintock horns in on the recall and announces he will run, but he couldn’t beat a no-name for State Controller last year.  How many can name the State Controller who beat Tom McClintock just nine months ago?

California will be rung dry by recall politics in the next 70-days.  The nation and the world will be watching.  In the final analysis, the 300,000 or so Hispanics will decide whether to run out of office Gray Davis who has spent a career stabbing Hispanics in the back, or keeping him in office.

E-mail: sdraoul@att.net

Raoul Lowery Contreras'
columns are syndicated by the New York Times Syndicate, New American News service.
 

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