Don't bother looking for the California Assembly's roll-call record of one of the most contentious issues of the budget revisions: the plan to open new offshore oil drilling off the Santa Barbara coast for the first time in 40 years. It's not there.What are they afraid of? Afraid Californians might be upset that much-needed energy is being denied to the people?
The July 24 vote on AB23 (28 yes, 43 no, 8 not voting) has been officially expunged - erased as if it never happened.
This purge of voting records is unacceptable in a representative democracy. Not a single one of the 80 Assembly members rose to object when the motion to expunge was made by Assembly Majority Leader Alberto Torrico, D-Fremont.
"The whole thing seems to me rather Orwellian," Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, R-Irvine, author of the oil-drilling bill, said Friday in a phone interview. "It does strike me as trying to take an inconvenient historical fact and shoving it down the memory hole."
Republicans suspect the move was made on behalf of Speaker Karen Bass, D-Baldwin Vista, who supposedly did not want a roll call when the defeat of the measure became apparent. Democrats insist the purge was for the benefit of Republican leader Sam Blakeslee of San Luis Obispo, whose vote for the oil-drilling plan as part of the budget deal was not likely to play well in his coastal district.
The bottom line is that the Democrats control the Assembly, and thus bear the ultimate responsibility for this anti-democratic whitewash. DeVore said Republicans did not object to the move because they recognized the futility of trying to win a procedural vote in a Democrat-dominated house.
However, DeVore did manage to grab a printout of the real-time vote tally before the record was expunged. The Sierra Club, which vehemently opposed the drilling plan, also posted a recap of the roll call on its Web site, highlighting the votes of specific legislators.
The erasure of recorded votes is not unheard of in the Assembly, but it's most common during late-night sessions, when fewer journalists and activists are paying attention. This vote occurred in midafternoon, and was broadcast live on the California Channel, where anyone could follow the red and green lights next to members' names during the roll call.
"I don't know what they were trying to accomplish," DeVore said. "It's not like Al Gore hadn't invented the Internet yet or we didn't have instant replay.
"This isn't like 1955, when you could control information."
What they did produce was further evidence of why Californians are so disenchanted with the level of ethics and competence demonstrated by their elected representatives in Sacramento. A poll released last week by the Public Policy Institute of California showed that legislators' approval rating sank to a record-low 17 percent.
Now that dismal number is one inconvenient historical fact they cannot expunge.
What a bunch of losers.
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2 comments:
"DeVore said Republicans did not object to the move because they recognized the futility of trying to win a procedural vote in a Democrat-dominated house."
The Republicans should have objected on principle none the less. That's what real leadership is all about.
The whole bunch of them should all be voted out of office as soon as possible. None of them appear to be worthy of holding such offices and we should start with a clean slate. These people should be the servants of "We The People", not those who would brow beat us and shove things down our throats. They need to be held accountable and this can only be accomplished through the Ballot Box.
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