If I Could Run for Governor of California...

If I Could Run for Governor of California…

By Kéllia Ramares

August 2, 2003 Oakland, CA – At least 296 people have taken out nomination papers to run in the Oct 7th recall of Gov. Gray Davis. Unfortunately, I’m not one of them. It takes 65 signatures on petitions plus a $3,500 filing fee. I don’t have the fee or the money to take two months off work to seriously campaign. Too bad that even the cheapest way to get on the ballot for a major office is still too expensive.

What passes for a democracy these days is an auction, which is why we are having a recall in the first place. Republican Congressman Darrell Issa had enough money to hire signature gatherers to get the recall on the ballot. That this is the first recall petition drive in 32 efforts to succeed in California shows you how unpopular Gray Davis is, and for good reason. But it is disconcerting to know that this recall was not a grassroots effort, as would befit the governor’s unpopularity and the populist movement that created recall in the first place. For that reason, I’m going to vote no on the recall.

By I still get to vote on a successor and I wish I were on the ballot. If just quarter of the people who took out nomination papers actually qualify, the ballot is going to look like a phone book. of those candidacies are ego trips.

I actually have a real platform:

Energy
If I could stump the state as a gubernatorial candidate, I would tell Californians about the real energy crisis that is on our doorstep: the current natural gas shortage and the looming oil shortages that will occur later this decade because the world has just passed the peak of global oil production. Davis’ move to fast track new natural gas-fired power plants in the wake of the corporate gouging in 2000-2001 is going to backfire. North America is running out of natural gas. Already the U.S. must import 3 trillion cubic feet of gas a year. We get most of it from Canada, which is itself now showing a decline in gas production. Ironically, the high priced contracts that Davis signed may look like a bargain in a few years.

Dale Allen Pfeiffer has written a very informative article on the natural gas crisis in the Los Angeles-based newsletter From the Wilderness.

We have to get California on the fast track for alternatives to hydrocarbons, and we have to step up conservation. One proposal I would make would be to give a tax credit to landlords who install solar panels, better insulation and other energy saving devices on their properties. As it stands, rental properties are an energy Catch 22: The landlord has no incentive to install energy saving devices because the tenants pay their own utility bills. But the tenants don’t own the property, so they don’t have the right to install these devices on their own. This wastes money and energy.

Budget and Taxes:

California is the only state that requires the budget to be passed by a two-thirds majority of both houses. This is too high and leads to what James Madison would have recognized as a tyranny of the minority.

I signed a petition in favor of the Budget Accountability Initiative, which would lower the percentage needed to pass a budget to 55% and forbid the legislature from taking time off if they have not timely passed a budget.

Nobody enjoys paying taxes, but taxes have been particularly demonized in California when Prop. 13 passed. That proposition used a real problem, viz., that inflation was boosting people’s property taxes too high, to push forth a different agenda, defunding the government. Republicans have been doing this for decades at all levels.

I consider the Republicans’ anti-tax stance entirely cynical. Money borrowed in lieu of raising taxes is money that must be paid back WITH INTEREST. The more we borrow, the larger a portion of our state budget must go toward debt service to the financial institutions and other investors rather than to government services for the taxpayer. And the financial community can pick the pocket of the state at any time just by cutting the state’s credit rating, which means more interest will be demanded.

Taxes are the cost of having a civilized society. They must be fairly assessed and efficiently spent. We must wean the state off borrowing byraising revenues through fair taxation. Reinstating the tax bracket for the wealthiest Californians, which existed when Republican Pete Wilson was governor, would be one method I would support.

If I were governor, I would invite Catherine Austin Fitts, a former investment banker and assistant secretary of Housing and Urban Development under George Herbert Walker Bush to advise me on how to get the best value for the taxpayer. You can find some of her ideas on the subject at her web site, Solari.com.

Racial Privacy Initiative

Ward Connerly’s latest attack on affirmative action is a plan to create a colorblind society by refusing to acknowledge that discrimination exists. The Racial Privacy Initiative, which is also on the ballot with the recall, forbids the state from gathering racial information. Gee, if we don’t have any statistics, I guess we can’t make a case that racism exists!

But we must have information on such matters as whether banks are engaging in discriminatory lending practices or police are racially profiling on the streets. This way we will know when things are better and where discrimination still exists.

Racial Privacy? Will the Orwellian newspeak ever stop? Ward, you’re black. I don’t see how you can keep that private unless you go out wearing gloves and a paper bag over your head.

Your Vanishing Civil Rights

Many cities, towns and counties throughout California and the nation have passed resolutions against the fascist Patriot Act. I applaud these efforts and as governor, would openly encourage more localities in California to pass strong resolutions, such as the one in Arcata, which imposes a fine of $57 on any city department head who voluntarily complies with investigations or arrests under the unconstitutional Patriot Act.

I would press for a state resolution demanding the total repeal of the Patriot Act and would do what I could to keep taxpayer resources from being employed to enforce this fascist law.

I also support Prop. 215, the Compassionate Use Initiative for Medical Marijuana and would order the Attorney General to defend it as vigorously as possible against Federal challenges. Medical practice has always been regulated by the states and the Feds have no business telling us what is and what is not medicine.

Well, I could go on, but I won’t, other than to say that I am constitutionally qualified and willing to serve. Perhaps some day there will be a way for poor people to run for governor.
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Kéllia Ramares, 48, has lived in California since 1980, almost all of that time in Oakland. She is a radiojournalist and writer for KPFA-FM in Berkeley, WINGS – Women’s International News Gathering Service, Free Speech Radio News and OnlineJournal.com. She has a B.A. in economics from Fordham University in New York and a law degree from Indiana University in Bloomington. Prior to becoming a journalist, Kéllia worked as a writer in the legal publishing industry. Kéllia’s web site is at http://www.rise4news.net/