Gray Davis usually presents himself as a hands-on administrator,
dialed into the details of state government. But as the Oracle
scandal unfolds, Davis is trying hard to distance himself from the
workings of his own government. The governor who boasts of his
micromanaging competency now asks Californians to believe that he
is not running their government. Evidently he was the last person
in his office to know that he approved an overpriced, unnecessary
software deal with a reliable corporate donor to the Democratic
Party.
Davis, of course, is making a great show of his anger over this
deal, as if the use of state government to feather his re-election
campaign is a novel departure for his administration. The truth is
that Davis has largely turned his first term into a re-election
racket.
To take just one recent example, the Los Angeles Times
reported in April that Davis “received an additional $251,000 from
California’s prison guards union earlier this month, only weeks
after the governor granted the officers a pay hike of as much as $1
billion and fulfilled their wish by proposing to close five private
prisons.”
Arun Baheti, the director of e-government expediently fired last
week, was simply following the logic of Davis’ first term. He is
only guilty of doing clumsily — he took a $25,000 Oracle donation
to Davis’s re-election at a Sacramento restaurant — what Davis
does more covertly.
Davis has long kept his fundraising schedule private, lest
Californians realize that the bulk of his time as their governor is
turned over to shaking down individuals and companies benefited by
state government.
Davis is letting hapless underlings like Elias Cortez, the
suspended director of the state Department of Information
Technology, twist in the wind for the modus operandi of his
administration. Cortez was reduced to tears earlier this week
before the California legislature as he described the high-handed
manner with which Davis suspended him from his duties. A Davis
subordinate let Cortez know of the governor’s decision — based on
an anonymous report that document shredding had occurred at the
Department of Information Technology — as a doctor was conducting
heart tests on Cortez.
Cortez says he was “out of the loop” on the deal — an alibi
Davis should surely appreciate. But why defend an underling when it
is so much easier to dump him? Davis, playing the media like a
fiddle, announced loudly that he had sent California Highway Patrol
officers to the Department of Information Technology headquarters
because of the anonymous tip about document shredding.
This is typical Davis: create a big mess through corruption or
cluelessness, then ride in as the savior to clean it up.
But notice that Davis, even as he cans or suspends minor aides,
retains the ones important to his re-election. Why, for example,
hasn’t he fired Susan Kennedy, his deputy chief of staff? She is
the one who pressed so hard for the bogus deal, all the while
rejecting the advice of non-political state employees. Cynthia
Curry, an attorney at the Department of General Services, said that
Kennedy, a close Davis adviser, praised her agency after the deal
was railroaded through over the objections of civil servants. “She
said we were a can-do agency,” Curry said.
Why was a top Davis aide so focused on a matter beyond her
expertise? Do the political advisers of a governor customarily
concern themselves with the software needs of state government?
The California legislature is expected to question Kennedy soon.
Davis, meanwhile, is eager to change the subject, and with the
disclosure of the Enron memos suggesting manipulation of the
California market, his wish may come true. That story has already
driven the Oracle scandal off the front page of the Los Angeles
Times.
Whether Davis is discussing long-term energy contracts or Oracle
contracts, the buck never stops with him. Unless it is green.
