WHO WE ARE-As I cast my ballot at midday Tuesday at the Disabled American Veterans hall on Corbin Avenue, I shouldn’t have been surprised there was only one other voter there, although three precincts use the facility on election day.
After all, something like 85 percent of California voters couldn’t be bothered to go to the polls or even mail in a ballot.
I don’t entirely blame them. Not voting maybe the only way to protest the abject failure of the political system that has turned the promised land of the Golden State into the capital of inequality in wealth, income, quality of life, education and opportunity to name a few of dozens of categories of disparity.
It’s not an effective way to protest the breakdown of democracy but it’s better than the 10 percent of people who voted for Leland Yee (photo), the long-time San Francisco politician caught in an FBI sting in March and indicted on charges of public corruption and bribery involving an illegal gun-running operation.
The nearly 300,000 votes Yee got were enough to put him in third place in the race for Secretary of State.
These voters were obviously moved by Yee’s ballot statement:
"Under the Constitution, the Secretary of State's job is to empower Californians to govern California, to guarantee fair elections, expose special interests, and prevent corruption. I am the Democrat who will represent everyone. I hope to be your Secretary of State."
Politicians all over the world are crooks; it’s the nature of the job.
What is so disturbing these days is that voters seem to be deaf, dumb and blind to what is going on, has gone on for so long.
We don’t seem to care at all that Yee is still drawing his legislative salary even as he awaits trial that could send him to prison for the rest of his life.
He might not be friendless in prison since his colleague in the Senate, fellow Democrat Ron Calderon, also got busted in an FBI sting this year.
Back in January, Calderon got caught taking $100,000 in bribes, meals and golf outings from an FBI agent, leading to his indictment on 24 charges.
Playing fast and loose with corruption laws and the public’s money is something of a tradition of the Calderon family with its long history in politics.
Two months after Ron Calderon’s arrest, it was disclosed that the family’s mentor in how the system works, Charles Calderon, 74, who spent 20 years as a legislative leader, had generously looked after surfer boy Ian Calderon by paying him $40,000 to help out mobile park operators whose favorable legislation the dynasty founder was carrying.
Proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that the problem isn’t so much crooked politicians but ignorant voters, Ian is now a state Assembly member and easily won his primary on Tuesday on the road to re-election.
Democrats in the state Senate have yet a third legal problem in Rod Wright, who was convicted back in January of eight felony count involving voter fraud and perjury for lying about living in his poverty-stricken Inglewood-based district, clearly below the standard of living for such an important personage.
The wonder is why he even came to trial so quickly after his indictment, just four years and one successful re-election campaign after he cost taxpayers $120,000 to settle a harassment claim.
Former state legislator Richard Alarcon was indicted on similar charges the same year during his third term on the LA City Council and still has yet to go to trial.
So on top of all the other disparities in the way people of different stations are treated, you can add there is different treatment for different folks.
If you or I were caught gun-running or taking bribes or committing perjury or engaging in blatant conflicts of interest would be out of work in a minute.
But Yee, Calderon and Wright are still drawing their legislative salaries, still getting those hefty benefits and taxpayer expense just as Alarcon did for three years on the City Council while adding more time to the six-figure city pension he is now getting.
It is all just a game to politicians, the screw the public game.
Showing his indifference to corruption and scandal, Darrell Steinberg, the Senate President pro tem, reluctantly and belatedly put the three accused criminal senators, all members of his own party, on paid leave but rejected calls to expel them.
“Let him who is without sin among you cast the first stone,” Steinberg declared, invoking the words of Jesus Christ when he protected a woman accused of adultery being killed for her sin.
Equating adultery, an everyday matter in the world of politicians, with gun-running, bribery and corruption of the political process itself ought to be a crime.
(Ron Kaye is a lifetime journalist, writer and political observer. He is the former editor of the Daily News and the founder of the Saving LA Project. He writes occasionally for CityWatch and can be reached at [email protected])
-cw
CityWatch
Vol 12 Issue 46
Pub: June 6, 2014