Posted on 10/06/2004 8:37:51 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
Were Arnold Schwarzenegger the bold reformer he purports to be, were he truly committed to "blowing up boxes" and obliterating "politics as usual," he would have vetoed Assembly Bill 1077 and signed Assembly Bill 2106. But he did exactly the opposite, thus perpetuating - and even solidifying - two aspects of state government that epitomize its dysfunction.
AB 1077, the bill Schwarzenegger signed last month, originally dealt with complaints against police officers, but a few days before the 2004 session ended, Assemblyman Herb Wesson, D-Los Angeles, did a classic "gut and amend," stripping out the original contents and inserting authorization for $100 million in lease-revenue bonds to finance five new state-operated homes for military veterans. The completely new bill then whipped through the Legislature by overwhelming bipartisan votes. Wesson's bill was veto-worthy for several reasons, including the semi-sneaky way in which it was enacted. Another was its misuse of lease-revenue bonds to build the new facilities, a technique also misused to build many new prisons.
Traditionally, public facilities - schools and colleges, for example - have been constructed with "general obligation bonds," which require voter approval, while "revenue bonds" have been used for projects, such as dams and canals, that produce income.
But to avoid votes, Sacramento's politicians dreamed up "lease-revenue bonds" in which one state agency would issue the bonds and build the prisons and another would "lease" and operate the institutions.
They are, in effect, general-obligation bonds without voter approval because the "revenues" involve taking money out of one state pocket and putting it in another. And, of course, once they were issued for prisons, politicians used them to build other facilities.
(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...
We got rid of Gray Davis alright, but now we are saddled with another dishonest, liberal bum.
I submit that it is not the fate of California to be faced year after year with a dishonest executive.
Next time vote conservative for some relief from this mess.
The reality is Republicans like Arnold will be the only Republicans to be elected to statewide office here for the foreseeable future. There are just too many liberals in the electorate to make it possible for a conservative to win.
They don't need to be Republican. They need to be conservative. There have been and still are conservative Democrats.
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