Contributor

Ray Haynes

Mr. Haynes is an Assembly member representing Riverside and Temecula. He serves on the Appropriations and Budget Committees. [go to Assembly Member Haynes website at California Assembly][go to Haynes index]

They Really Are Lucky To Have Their Jobs
Desperately hanging on to power...
[Ray Haynes] 5/31/05

The battle is engaged. The Governor this week inched closer to calling a special election and the Democrats increased their attack rhetoric. The union bosses increased their media buys, using the money those bosses steal from the rank and file union member to advance their anti-Governor agenda, and then these same bosses paid for a rally on the capitol steps to call the Governor names. The Governor, in response to these repeated attacks, stepped in front of the microphone, and fought back.

He pointed out that the Democrats, who have controlled this Legislature for all but four of the last 45 years, received record surpluses in the late nineties, and gladly accepted a raise in 1998 for the “good work” they did in creating those surpluses. The Democrats, and their union boss masters, then promptly bankrupted the state. These same legislators scapegoated Governor Davis, who lost his job because he wouldn’t control the spending addiction of the Democrats in the Legislature. Those left wing spendthrifts raised taxes, spent the surplus, chased jobs out of the state, served their special interest masters, and avoided the blame.

Governor Schwarzenegger said that at the same time this Legislature was getting a raise this week, the Legislative leaders were proposing tax increases and taking political potshots at him. They weren’t solving the budget crisis, they weren’t solving the housing or traffic crisis, and they weren’t bringing jobs to California. No—these Democrats were worried about plastic surgery for dogs, how many pages a classroom textbook should be, and “where ice cream trucks should park.”

The problem is even deeper than that in this Legislature. This week, with a looming budget deadline, the Legislature continued to fiddle while Sacramento burned. Two examples of just how foolish this Legislature has become were on the calendar this week.

The first bill – AB 616 by Assemblyman Vargas of San Diego – has to do with smoking. Currently state law prohibits smoking within twenty feet of a state building. This bill would make it illegal to smoke on an enclosed patio on state land. Why do we care, you may ask? Because this Governor is so evil that he smokes his cigars on the patio outside his office. This bill is a direct effort to stop that practice – which is not something you or I think about when we are stuck in a 24 hour traffic jam. This bill is little more than a juvenile prank at a time when the Legislature faces problems that need adult solutions.

The other bill – AB 709 by Assemblywoman Lois Wolk – would make it illegal for the Governor to raise money for initiative campaigns. Right now, the union bosses, who force state employees to pay them money, are spending over $100 million to call the Governor every name they can think of, and when the Governor asks a few of his friends to contribute (voluntarily, I might add) to respond to these attacks, the Democrats scream bloody murder. These leftists don’t want a healthy debate; they want to silence their opponents. Their greatest fear is that people might actually listen to the Governor, and they might lose their power.

In the end, that is what this fight is all about. These leftist power mongers have had a monopoly on the levers of power for too long. Governor Schwarzenegger has figured out how they got that power, and he wants to take it away, so that state government will benefit you and me, not union bosses and trial lawyers, the leftists’ allies in the rape and pillage of Sacramento. These vandals won’t go without a fight, however, so this fall is going to be a season of war and distress. The stakes are high. We can only hope the Governor wins. CRO

Mr. Haynes is a California Assembleyman representing Riverside and Temecula and frequent contributor to CaliforniaRepublic.org.

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