No Is Not Enough

By Kevin McKeown
Mayor pro tem

Plan to vote no on the recall? Convinced that your “no” will be an effective protest against big money hijacking democracy? Please think it through.

	A no vote, a vote against the recall of pay-to-play Gray Davis, won’t spank the Republicans or save the republic. It won’t save the public funds it’s taking to conduct the election, either. With a no vote, this expensive election will effect no change. We’ll still be bombarded with political attack ads on TV, only to get stuck as taxpayers holding the bag for Davis’ deals.
Mayor Pro Tem Kevin McKeown

All a no vote on the recall will do is send the message that Gray Davis, despite his proven incompetence in areas other than political fundraising, is the best we think California deserves. A no on the recall is a yes on Gray Davis.

Last time he asked for our vote, Gray Davis deliberately understated the budget crisis until he was safely reelected. The result was shameful cuts for our schools and social services, which might have been avoided with honest and timely information.

Santa Monicans struggled to pass the recent parcel tax commitment to save our schools, but that shouldn’t have been needed -- if Gray Davis had been doing his job. Instead of protecting your kids, though, he was busy protecting his political power and his political patrons.

This shouldn’t be news to Santa Monica voters. We’ve been grousing for years about Gray Davis’s shortcomings and what a donation-driven governor Davis has been. After the budget lies of last November, after watching Davis mismanage energy contracts and squander the budget surplus of just a few years ago, why do we hesitate now to replace Gray Davis with someone better?

Well, for some of us, it’s hard to step out of our comfort zone. As unsavory as Davis may be, we have to be given a demonstrably better choice for governor. Few if any Democrats or Greens want the Terminator.

Enter the Germinator!

The Green Party did not support putting this Republican-bought recall on the ballot. Greens don’t have a position, yes or no, on the recall question October 7th.

But the Green Party does have a better choice for governor, someone who, unlike Davis, is not for sale.

Peter Camejo is a financial analyst and a bona fide progressive who stands for fair taxes, supporting schools instead of prison guards, universal health care and a statewide living wage. Fiscal wisdom and progressive values: isn’t this exactly the formula we’d like to see applied in Sacramento?

Current California tax structure, the convoluted legacy of two-party rule for generations, has the poorest people in our state paying a higher percentage overall tax rate than the privileged few wealthiest Californians (see chart below). This is contrary to every principle of fairness Santa Monicans hold dear.

Peter Camejo proposes a simple reform: everybody, including the rich, pays his or her fair share. With fair taxes, our deficit disappears and California has the funding for schools and other vitally important services.

Peter Camejo also supports fair voting reforms that guarantee leadership elected by a true majority, like the cost-cutting Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) already embraced by San Francisco voters. With IRV, every voter counts and no candidate would win without true majority support.

The California League of Women Voters, like Camejo, wants gubernatorial elections “that require the winner to receive a majority of the votes, as long as the majority is achieved using a voting method such as Instant Runoff Voting, rather than a second, separate runoff election.”

You’d think in the upcoming debates this would give our League (disclosure: I’m a member) good reason to press their corporate media sponsors to include a surging third-party candidate like Green Peter Camejo. Now that we’ve seen debates with vibrant multi-partisan points of view expressed, let’s not go back!

Peter Camejo is a Green, and I suppose that may give some Democrats pause. But as a Santa Monica Democrat, more progressive than your brethren in the rest of the state, consider that the Green Party platform calls for repealing the Costa-Hawkins Act and restoring Santa Monica’s ability to better protect affordable rental housing. The Green Party is opposed to the death penalty, and, of course, the Green Party is against Bush’s war and occupation.

Of all the major candidates in this recall, only Peter Camejo qualified by turning in the required number of signatures, gathered from the grassroots. The rest bought their way onto the ballot. Peter Camejo is in the running because we the people want him there, not because someone cut a check on his behalf. Do we want a governor who respects people power, or another “for sale” politician?

The time to oppose the cynical chicanery that put this recall on the ballot was when gullible voters were signing petitions for paid circulators. That must never happen again, and the Green Party platform includes a commitment to “require all signatures for a removal effort be obtained through voluntary solicitation.”

The way this recall was qualified should remind Santa Monicans of the dollar-driven distortion of democracy the luxury hotels unleashed last year to deny hard-working service workers a living wage. Santa Monica Democrats and Greens should be joining together in a righteous crusade to get corrupting corporate money out of elections, not fooling ourselves that we make some vague progressive statement by keeping a bought-and-sold governor in office.

Abandon any illusion that Davis and the monied wing of the Democratic Party wouldn’t stoop to the same electoral self-indulgences as Darrell Issa and the Republicans. Gray Davis was quoted in last week’s Newsweek, “There will be a recall in retaliation because the Democrats have promised that.”

I can understand the reluctance to reward the deceptive use of big money in the recall process, but on October 7th a vote against the recall becomes, in reality, a vote for just another big money politician, Gray Davis. We must do better than that.

Peter Camejo will take no corporate donations. He’s not for sale. In Peter Camejo, we have the chance to elect a governor who’s more than just the best money can buy.

No matter how we vote on the recall question -- yes, no, even abstain -- we still can cast a crucial vote for Peter Camejo (www.votecamejo.org).