For those of you who thought Gray Davis was getting a bum rap...here's how the GovWeasel works.
You no doubt recall Davis signing SB60 in the Latino community and campaigning for more illegal benefits.
The Democrat, Latino and union cross-over vote proved that Californians of all political and ethnic stripes didn't believe his campaign rhetoric from experience with the Governor's waffling and selling out to the highest bidder.
Davis could have redeemed himself with the party base and taken no action on bills he chose to veto. They would have become law before he left office at no political cost to Dems. Davis is a petty vindictive man using his last gasp of power to punish his party and groups he felt betrayed him at the polls.
Dan Walter's writes in the SacBee:
Final vetoes underscore why Davis alienated so many
Davis came to be seen -- with ample reason -- as someone who was interested only in the matter of the moment, viewing it through a purely political prism and lacking any consistency or broader vision.
A particularly blatant bit of Davis pandering happened this year, after the recall had qualified for the ballot. He had twice vetoed legislation to grant driver's licenses to illegal immigrants, saying that the measures lacked background checks and safeguards against licenses being used by terrorists or criminals. But with Latino activists pushing Davis on the issue -- and apparently making their recall election support contingent on it -- the governor reversed course and signed a bill that had even fewer of the safeguards he had previously demanded.
Having moved in that direction for obviously self-serving political reasons, however, one might expect Davis to maintain some consistency by signing other major bills that immigrant-rights advocates had pushed through the Legislature: one to compel public agencies to recognize cards issued by the Mexican government as a form of identification, and another that would have made illegal immigrants eligible for a waiver of community college fees. But he vetoed both just before Monday's deadline for action on leftover bills, thus leaving the impression, whether intended or not, that he was paying back Latinos for not being supportive enough.
The immigrant fee waiver and identification card bills were characteristic of Davis' last-minute vetoes -- reversing course even as he was packing up to leave the governor's office for good.
Davis also backtracked on his promises to unions after they and put forth a huge effort against the recall:
During both his 2002 re-election and the 2003 recall, Davis had often demonstrated an eager willingness to accede to almost any demand from labor unions. But his post-election vetoes included several measures that the unions wanted, including:
* A bill sought by the California Association of Professional Scientists to improve the group's bargaining position in future state contracts.
* A "California Living Wage Act" that would have required any state agency contractor to meet minimum wage standards.
* A measure boosting penalties on employers who drag their feet on paying wages.
* A bill to ban employers from requiring arbitration on disputes with workers.
* Authorization for state and local agencies to offer more service-time credit, dubbed "golden handshakes," to employees to encourage them to retire early
The firefighters unions have been Davis' most consistent political supporter over the years, stretching back from the recall to the days when he was battling against long odds to become the Democratic nominee for governor in 1998, and binding arbitration is a bedrock political goal.
To add still another layer of inconsistency, even hypocrisy, to the situation, he denied the state firefighters unions the same binding arbitration rights that he had granted to local police and firefighters unions in 2000 over the strenuous objections of local government officials
Good riddance.