CA: Shelley's office filled with political appointees (ShmelleyGate)

Sac Bee ^ | 12/24/04 | Herbert A. Sample

[NormsRevenge]

The state Legislature has loaned --snip-- Shelley eight non-civil service positions over the last 22 months, giving Shelley as many as 14 political appointees at one time.

Combined with extra employees he gained through legislative changes and an administrative maneuver he arranged, the loaned legislative workers gave Shelley seven times the political staff allocated to the secretary of state's office before he was elected to the post in 2002.

The so-called "exempt" positions are especially coveted because the elected official can hire and fire them without regard to civil service rules.

At various times, records show, Shelley "borrowed" six positions from the Assembly and two from the Senate, filling them with aides who worked on press relations, dealt with voting machine and elections issues, and managed his schedule, among other tasks.

The disclosures come in the wake of a state auditor's report that blasted the Democrat's handling of federal Help America Vote Act funds. The report cited "insufficient planning and poor management" that could force the state to miss the law's deadlines and refund money to the U.S. Treasury. Moreover, it described Shelley's office as highly partisan, disorganized, indifferent to state and federal rules, and willing to use what was intended to be nonpartisan election money to push Democratic causes.

In response, Shelley has blamed the law's complexity and the energy his staff directed into last year's unscheduled gubernatorial recall election and two statewide elections this year.

State Sen. John Campbell, an Irvine Republican who has been a key GOP player on legislative budget committees, criticized Shelley's borrowing of legislative employees.

"When you put it in the context of all of the other stuff that's now in the (audit), it seems pretty clear that he was trying to accomplish a political agenda with a taxpayer-funded office," Campbell said.

[goldstategop]

He's a Democrat of course.

[Steel and Fire and Stone]

Is there anything worse for the integrity of free elections in California, than to have them guaranteed by an absolutely partisan, lawless individual such as the current incombant?

This, along with the Gore attempt at stealing the national election in 2000 in Florda, along with the election being stolen by a Democrat in Washington state now, along with the multiple measures promoted by Democrats towards weaking the integrity of the elections system (e.g. motor-voter act, etc.), is THE reason why American's can never, ever trust Democrats with political power. They do not believe in the republican Democracy established by our founding fathers, and guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. They do not accept the results of free, fair, and open relections, and will do all in their power to guarantee that such elections never exist again, if they indeed achieve that level of political dominance.

SFS