UNITED STATES: Why Gray Davis may be terminated

August 27, 2003
Issue 

BY BARRY SHEPPARD

SAN FRANCISCO — Editorial writers and TV talking heads have deplored the recall election of Governor Gray Davis in California as anti-democratic and a joke. Californian law allows for a recall election of officials if enough registered voters demand it. This democratic reform was passed in the early 1900s to counter the domination of the state's politics by the Southern Pacific Railroad.

In the same election in which voters will say "yea" or "nay" to throwing Davis out, voters will choose his replacement from among candidates who qualify for the ballot. The requirements are very easy to meet, so there are more than 100 candidates; the one with the highest vote will become governor if Davis is recalled. It is this aspect of the recall ballot that the pundits have seized upon to claim it is a farce.

It's true that publicity hunters like Hustler publisher Larry Flint and a porn star are candidates, and the capitalist press plays them (and others) up. However, they downplay serious candidates like Peter Miguel Camejo of the Green Party.

The real reason the corporate media is loudly opposing the recall election is that it has gotten out of the control of the two capitalist parties' machines. For the first time in a long time, the issues before the people of California are being discussed, even if in a tentative way. They are used to the Democratic and Republican machine-picked candidates slandering each other but otherwise presenting voters with very little to choose between.

That results in a general lack of popular interest in elections. In the gubernatorial election won by Davis in November 2000, for example, less than 50% of registered voters took part, and 250,000 who voted for candidates for other elected positions cast blank ballots for governor. Many others are so turned off by the capitalist electoral farce that they don't even bother to register to vote.

In contrast, the recall election has stirred interest. A recent NBC News poll reported that 78% of voters said they would definitely vote this time. Another 12% said they probably would.

Most of the corporate media commentators are charging that, since Davis was elected last November, the recall election is an undemocratic attempt to reverse that result. The powers that be hate the idea of citizens directly intervening in politics, going around the capitalist party machines.

Schwarzenegger

Davis claims that the recall election is a right-wing plot to get him. It's true that the recall process was started by a right-wing Republican, but hatred of Davis is evident across the political spectrum. Some 1.7 million voters have signed the recall petition, more than twice the number needed. More would have signed if they had the opportunity — I would have had I come across a petitioner. Polls show that only about 20% of voters have a positive opinion of Davis.

The right-wing of the Republican Party is angry because the recall process that they initially supported has gotten out of their control. The most popular Republican to enter the race is the body-builder-turned-Terminator Arnold Schwarzenegger. The rightist-dominated Republican Party machine hates the Austrian-born actor because he has said things in the past that have been interpreted as support for abortion and gay rights. He was able to bypass the machine because of the provisions of the recall law.

In reality, Schwarzenegger's politics are not much different to Davis'. As a result, three prominent right-wing Republican candidates have entered the race to point out this fact.

Davis is on the right of the Democratic Party. He has given full support to the US-led occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq, and to the USAPATRIOT Act which is trampling on civil liberties. He supports draconian prison sentencing for non-violent drug users, as well as California's "three strikes" law, which imposes life sentences for any third offence no matter how trivial. California's prisons are expanding, and Davis is the most enthusiastic supporter of the prison screws' "union".

Davis prides himself on very rarely releasing prisoners, even when parole boards recommend it. One of his most grotesque decisions has been to refuse to release women who, in self-defence, had killed abusive spouses, despite self-defence being now accepted as a defence.

Electricity 'crisis'

Davis is famous for raising huge amounts of money from the big corporations. Enron, the disgraced energy manipulator, gave him more than US$800,000 for his reelection last year. That was the second-highest Enron donation for any gubernatorial candidate in 2002, which is saying something considering the amount that crooked company spent on buying politicians throughout the country.

So it was no surprise when Davis shovelled billions of dollars into the coffers of Enron and other electricity companies during the rigged electrical crisis of 2000-2001.

In the 1990s, the electrical utilities were deregulated in much of the country, including in California, with the full support of both the Republicans and Democrats. The result was that the formerly regulated capitalist electric monopolies were transformed into unregulated capitalist cartels of the major electricity providers, which could set their own prices daily. They took advantage of high demand and exploited the fact that they had shut down many generator facilities to raise prices sky high. To exacerbate the "crisis", about one-third of electricity generating capacity was shut down for "maintenance".

At the time, I worked for a small electricity producer connected with United Airlines, and I was able to see the prices the cartel was charging. At the beginning of 2000, electric power producers were charging $30 a megawatt-hour. For some hours during the "crisis", they were charging $2400, and the average was around $1700! As a power-plant operator, I can assure you that the cost of producing electricity did not rise by 5700%.

Instead of seizing the power plants and arresting the crooks (which he could have done under Californian law), Davis paid Enron and the other members of the cartel billions of dollars to keep the juice flowing.

Now Davis blames Bush for not stopping the rip-off. Bush blames Davis. Both are right.

Deregulation was never meant to improve the service of the electricity utilities. It was simply aimed at increasing the profits of the capitalist owners.

Under the system of regulated capitalist monopolies, there was some public control. For example, utilities had to make investments to meet anticipated demand. Governments had an interest in doing so. But under deregulation, the utilities were looking for immediate profits and cut generating capacity. One area they cut back on investments to keep the electricity grid in a position to meet increased or unexpected demand. The failure to do so resulted in the big power blackout in Northeast US and parts of Canada on August 14. More are likely to follow.

Drastic cuts

This giveaway to the electric power cartel was part of the reason California's budget went from a surplus to a projected US$38 billion deficit. Davis' plan to correct the deficit includes drastic cuts to education and other social services, while increasing spending on prisons. More than 30,000 teachers have already been given lay-off notices.

Education was already in pretty bad shape in California, with dilapidated schools, especially in the poorest areas and in African-American and Latino communities. In Oakland, some schools don't have enough textbooks. Last May, a suit filed on behalf of 1 million children asked for a ruling that all public school children be entitled to the same quality of textbooks, teachers and classrooms.

Davis has spent millions of the state's money fighting this suit. He has hired "experts" who say that poor children don't do any better at school, even if they have the same textbooks, teachers and facilities as more privileged students.

Green Party candidate Peter Camejo points out that the deficit could be wiped out with a slight increase in the income tax on the rich. Today, the lowest-income, non-elderly 20% of families pay an average of 11.3% of their incomes on state taxes, while the top 1% pay 7.2%.

No wonder Davis' positive opinion poll ratings are so low. The list of his right-wing positions goes beyond what this article can convey.

Attempting to fight his recall, Davis has backtracked on some of his most rotten positions in an attempt to look "progressive". He even made a mild mea culpa about the energy "crisis". Davis and the Democratic Party machine tried to prevent any prominent Democrats from becoming candidates. But given that the polls say that the recall has a majority, Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante entered the race at the last minute.

Bustamante has the same politics as Davis. But the two don't get along. Davis even cancelled parking permits at the State House for members of Bustamante's staff, and has moved behind the scenes to try to prevent donations to Bustamante's campaign. The latter recently denounced Davis on TV for this. Another thing I like about this recall campaign is that more dirty linen is being exposed. When thieves fall out!

Bustamante is trying to look slightly to the left of Davis. Of course, the reality is that he has supported Davis' policies in the past.

Schwarzenegger is doing his best to avoid all questions about where he stands on policy. His rightist Republican competitors are denouncing his so-called "moderate" views. They also don't like that he married into the Kennedy family. The B-movie actor is playing on his macho image to pump up his support, spending millions of dollars on TV ads that portray him as a "can-do guy" who will fix up California's mess — somehow. Schwarzenegger isn't talking about things like abortion and gay rights, in an attempt to hold onto the Republican right-wing.

From Green Left Weekly, August 27, 2003.
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