cannabisnews.com: A Personal Letter To Mr. Davis!





A Personal Letter To Mr. Davis!
Posted by FoM on July 24, 1999 at 11:37:24 PT
Written By Jean Cowsert
Source: NORML
Mr. Davis, I read in the newspaper today your remarks stating that it is the legislatures job to implement your visions.I believe you have made a grave error. It is your job and the legislatures duty to implement the peoples visions.
You are a paid servant to the state of California, you were not voted to be "god of the state". As far as you winning by your percentage, I'm afraid you would have been greatly surprised if there had been an option of "none of the above". In that situation, you might have been surprised at how you and Dan Lungren would have lost percentage wise to that option. At this point in time I believe you fit the saying of "it is better to keep your mouth shut and have people think you stupid instead of opening your mouth and proving it". Your statement in the paper today proved to me that you are not in your position to help the people of this state, but to help your own political gain. You have obviously allowed your so called power to go to your head. It is politicians like yourself that are ruining the government of this United States and killing the citizens faith in any representatives. We vote in hopes of gaining a representative that will uphold our dreams and wishes for our state and country, only to find that once you have the office, you forget who put you there. I have been a democrat for 24 yrs and today I am not proud of that fact, since you have so boldly stated it is your "visions" that are to be implemented. I feel you have betrayed each and every person that voted for you. I can only hope that there will be some way to return you to the reality of your job and who it is you actually are serving. I assume I will not receive a reply from you, since every letter I have written to you within the last year has been ignored. Now I'm seeing why.... you must feel you are above having to answer any questions your constituents have for you. Just once I would like to receive a response that deals with the context of my letter, but I guess that is one of the visions of my government that I will not see happen. Jean CowsertGray Davis Is No Second Coming - 7/23/99http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread2192.shtml
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Comment #1 posted by FoM on July 24, 1999 at 17:04:57 PT:
Seven Months of Gray! 
Gov. Davis so far is long on posture, short on program. http://www.fresnobee.com/Published July 24, 1999 The last thing most Californians expected from Gray Davis, the man with all the credentials, was that he would be dim about how state government works. But nearly seven months after he took office, Davis apparently thinks he was crowned king. Like a lot of new governors before him, Davis seems surprised and miffed that the Legislature has its own ideas about policy. "Nobody in the Legislature ran statewide," he complained to the San Francisco Chronicle the other day. "Their job is to implement my vision. That is their job." L'etat c'est moi. Davis' statement, doubly wrong, shows there is wisdom even experience can't buy. However much governors (and presidents) may wish it were otherwise, the legislative branch has the prime duty to make laws. Governors can propose, cajole and hector the Legislature, and when they are displeased with lawmakers' bills, they can veto them. But they cannot impose their vision. They must sell it. In Davis' case, before he can sell a vision, he must first find one. He didn't offer one in his campaign, when he ran on his resume and the fact he wasn't scary like Dan Lungren. And apart from his school bills - four incremental steps that carry forward with the school reforms started by Pete Wilson - Davis and his administration have been oddly unambitious and eerily quiet. Nine months after Californians voted for political change, the new administration seems more Deukmejian than Democratic, more reactive than dynamic. With his royal comments about the Legislature, Davis threw himself into a political storm whipped up out of the policy vacuum of his own making. With little direction coming out of the administration on California's pressing big issues, lawmakers are taking the lead by default. Take the issue of health care reform. Anyone who closely followed state politics the last couple of years knew that a savvy governor needed to get out in front on health policy. Davis seemed to know it, too. With trial lawyers, doctors, unions and consumers hot to pass reform bills Wilson had blocked, Davis announced in January an administration panel to set a health direction, a group that has since disappeared into obscurity. So why, this month, does Davis seem surprised and distressed to find five dozen reform bills moving toward his desk? Unprepared for the onslaught, the governor first miffed Democratic lawmakers by asking for a pause in their lawmaking so he could put together a policy. Then he compounded his mistake by going behind closed doors to negotiate managed care reform with managed care executives but no consumer representative. That the closed-door meeting came only days after Davis had collected thousands of dollars at an HMO fundraiser tainted political bumbling with an unsavory odor. It's hard to believe that a political veteran like Davis would not have figured that building a cooperative and effective relationship with the Democratic majority in the Legislature needed to be his first task as governor. Perhaps Davis has decided it's good politics to pick a fight with his own party to prove he's his own man. By "triangulating" to keep himself in the political middle between the urban liberals and the Republican hard right and by ushering through small but symbolic measures like the assault weapon bill, the governor can perhaps keep his poll numbers afloat for awhile. But California needs more than that shriveled notion of leadership. From its tattered schools to its congested freeways to its overcrowded mental health clinics, the state suffers an advanced condition of public neglect. It must move swiftly to reverse that neglect and prepare to make the state livable for 15 million new Californians by 2020. It doesn't have seven months to waste. And it doesn't need a governor who calls all the plays or plays all the positions. It needs a leader who can call the state to greatness, who can point the right way and who can inspire citizens and other leaders to get there. Californians who voted last November for change and leadership are still waiting. 
Seven Months of Gray! 
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