I agree with Steven J. Graham's letter in Saturday's Bee that one of the problems with California's mess in the Legislature boils down to our gerrymandered state. Until we tackle redistricting reform and allow the voters to choose the candidates, rather than letting the candidates choose the voters, we will be frustrated.
If you read Dan Walters' column today, there is yet another reason to make redistricting reform. Candidates are raising bundles of money for their elections, as if there were a real contest. Of course, there isn't. Then, when the candidates win easily, as they routinely do these days, there is a lot of money left over. That’s mischief waiting to happen. So now we have our elected officials living like kings, traveling the world and entertaining their buddies for free, using those leftover funds to pay their cronies and relatives big salaries for jobs related to their imaginary campaign organizations. All this behavior is merely the fruit of the poison tree.
Read Graham's letter by clicking here.Read Walters' column by clicking here.
You are talking about Nunez and Perata-both Democrats right?Then its no big deal.They won't get treated like Cunningham, Foley etc.. by the media or the socialist left. After all The Predator President is their idol and his tribulations are the stuff of legends within that group.Keep voting Democrat if you support this behavior.
Everybody, except the legislature, agrees that there is a problem with redistricting reform. The legislature would say - for public consumption - for PR purposes - that it is a problem - that something needs to be done, but their insincerity is shown by their ongoing inaction.
I get the feeling that no politician - of any party, is sincere about reform.
Letter writer Stephen Graham says we should "exert pressure on the Legislature." Good luck! And what would that "pressure" entail? Write a nasty column about them? Hasn’t worked! Threaten their job security? Hasn’t worked! Hold them up to public contempt? Hasn’t worked! Write another ballot initiative? "They" will only offer a confusing alternative initiative that will split the vote. Hasn’t worked! Turn it over to the courts? A lot of good that has done us!
The sad truth is, that most, if not all politicians are more concerned about the next election not the next generation.
I wish I knew what we should do. I don’t! It may be too late! We have turned our state over to politically correct bureaucrats who seemingly loathe the electorate!
Maybe we need to ponder again the words of Thomas Jefferson: "Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established, should not be changed for light and transient causes; and, accordingly, all experience [has] shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But, when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce [the people] under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security."
Like Brian, I once believed that Democrats tended to be more corrupt than Republicans. But 12 years of Republican control of Congress, along with 6 of those years where the GOP controlled all 3 branches of the federal government, cured me of that silly notion. Give Republicans power, and they will quickly show they can be as corrupt as anyone else, if not more so.
Mike D.-The liberals liberal.Oh excuse me-a Progressive.How about a list of all these transgressions you speak of-supported by facts. The left has no soul and will go to any length to tear down this administration and the institutions that have made this the greatest country in history.You are no phoney soldier in this effort Mr.D.
You really need a list, Brian? I had assumed you were more well-informed than that. I'm not going to do your homework for you - just look at all the Republican officeholders who have been indicted or resigned in disgrace the last 6 years. Look at all the money squandered on no-bid contracts with politically connected companies in Iraq, Katrina, etc.
I don't need to tear down this administration - they're doing a fine job of that themselves. And as for the institutions this country was founded on, the imperial presidency was not one of them.
We are all aware of Republican transgressions.How can we not be with the liberal media. I had hoped you would have been honest with yourself as far as transgressions on the left and possibly cotrasted the differences in how they were handled by the different parties, media, constituents etc... I guess in your world they(the left) get a pass.Short list of libs who got a pass.Bill and Hillary Clinton,Barney Frank, Richard Byrd, Ted Kennedy,William Jefferson, Gary Stutz, Sandy Burgler, Al Sharpton,Jim Wright, Jesse Jackson etc.. Short list of Republicans who didn't get a pass.Scooter Libby, Duke Cunningham, Mark Foley,Newt Gingrich, Dick Livingston, Richard Nixon, Spiro Agnew etc.. You see a pattern genius?