Capitol Ideas / Vote in the Frauds
Bethell, Tom
Vote in the Frauds by Tom Bethell 1 n San Francisco, candidates for public office compete with one another by moving to the left. Who is the most virtuous of them all? Who dares to hit business the...
...Convicted felons currently serving a prison term or on parole are not eligible to register or vote...
...I told him I had been amused by the way he had run rings around the Republicans in Sacramento in his final months as Speaker...
...The best known are Roberta Achtenberg and Willie Brown, until recently assistant secretary of HUD and speaker of the California Assembly, respectively...
...and, no doubt in response to pressure from the governors of states where automobiles are made (and primaries are held), Wilson has enraged enviros by calling for a new study of the electric-car foolishness previously agreed to by state officials...
...There have been reports that his eyesight is failing...
...He is purely the pol...
...The environment, for example, will "continue to poison our residents, drain our economy, and degrade our quality of life," unless there is "strong and immediate action...
...New taxes...
...The very thought that a politician would play "politics" apparently came as a shock...
...I figure he will be the next mayor...
...After the TV lights were switched off, Achtenberg said, in a jocular aside to the reporter, "If you don't like history, just change it...
...As a TV Tom Bethell is The American Spectator's Washington correspondent and a visiting media fellow at the Hoover Institution...
...Two mommies...
...The best known are Roberta Achtenberg and Willie Brown, until recently assistant secretary of HUD and speaker of the California Assembly, respectively...
...As she left, I asked Achtenberg if the boy had been adopted...
...Computer programs could detect variant spellings with the same address, but they are not used...
...He can invest themost mundane utterance with a sense of weighty judiciousness, and you guess that his bumper-sticker slogan—"The one candidate we KNOW can do the job"—may not entirely exaggerate...
...As she left, I asked Achtenberg if the boy had been adopted...
...it took $600,000 or more from the Tobacco Interests...
...As a TV Tom Bethell is The American Spectator's Washington correspondent and a visiting media fellow at the Hoover Institution...
...He chuckled at his legislative shenanigans—wooing over Republicans 20 The American Spectator October 1995 Vote in the Frauds by Tom Bethell 1 n San Francisco, candidates for public office compete with one another by moving to the left...
...Flame-throwers blazed in my direction: "None of your business, buddy...
...Her challenge to the result was dragged out by Jane Harmon and recently had to be abandoned...
...There may be some improvement in California, though, because in 1994 a Republican was elected secretary of state for the first time in twenty years...
...The question would be considered "gauche...
...G iven his voice-delayed entry, predictions about how Pete Wilson will fare in the presidential primaries are premature...
...Liberals obliquely acknowledge that the people do not want what is normally thrust at them, and that elections are hazardous events because pols just might get out of hand and try to give the people what they want for a change...
...Are you kidding...
...Flame-throwers blazed in my direction: "None of your business, buddy...
...Achtenberg made one of the few concessions to reality when she said that they all just might have to hunker down and "seek funding, at least initially, from the private sector...
...Liberalism is the philosophy of high-minded pirates, and sure enough, the candidates thought of wealth as something to be captured by force, not augmented by growth or exchanged for talent...
...His navy blazer was sharply tailored and his slacks razor-creased...
...It doesn't look as though Arlen Specter is going anywhere, so Wilson will pretty much have the issue to himself—whether as a plus or a minus...
...He's a liberal who makes liberals uneasy, because they know he has a soft spot for money...
...Here...
...The more fundamental issue is that the honor system encourages fraud," she said...
...New taxes...
...But he resisted it as an unfunded mandate, and Brooks says the problem goes way beyond that...
...He has signed a de-control law that will make it easier to find a place to rent in Berkeley and Santa Monica...
...A Democratic edge in the absentee vote was unprecedented...
...The candidates declared their fealty to the arts, denounced censorship and right-wingers, defended Robert Mapplethorpe, immersed us in the usual jargon: community-based, accountability, neighborhood, cultural equity, priority, empower, challenge...
...Sensibly, he had been "called away at the last minute...
...They recently gathered for a candidates' forum sponsored by the Arts Democratic Club—a "vital player in art politics...
...He can invest themost mundane utterance with a sense of weighty judiciousness, and you guess that his bumper-sticker slogan—"The one candidate we KNOW can do the job"—may not entirely exaggerate...
...New legislation is pending, but it cannot be fully effective because it depends on an ID card or driver's license issued by the Department of Motor Vehicles...
...He chuckled at his legislative shenanigans—wooing over Republicans 20 The American Spectator October 1995 with no agenda of their own, thereby retaining power a while longer...
...Compared to most U.S...
...On the other hand, 2.9 million state residents receive Aid to Families with Dependent Children, up from about 2.2 million when Wilson took office...
...was answered this way by the California Voter Foundation, founded by longtime Democratic Secretary of State March Fong Eu: "If you are at least 18 years old by election day, and a U.S...
...Frank Jordan, a former chief of police, was elected mayor...
...The big unknown is how the abortion issue will play out in California...
...Registrants are not obliged to go anywhere near the DMV, however...
...Governor Wilson refused to implement the Motor Voter law in California until the federal judiciary forced his hand...
...it took $600,000 or more from the Tobacco Interests...
...0 The American Spectator October 1995 21...
...He is purely the pol...
...If he wins, it is fair to say, he will deal a serious blow to the anti-abortion movement...
...Then came a flood of absentee ballots from precincts near the beach town of Venice, and the Democratic candidate, Jane Harmon, won by 812 votes...
...Addresses of many absentee voters from the Venice precincts turned out to be vacant lots or abandoned buildings...
...Also running is Angela Alioto, whose father was mayor of the city in the 1960s...
...A reporter for the San Jose Mercury News marveled that "Californians can now make more at a minimum wage job than on welfare"—not the case in 1991...
...citizen, you are eligible to vote...
...Who dares to hit business the hardest, stop economic development the most thoroughly, be most solicitous of the environment...
...Liberalism is the philosophy of high-minded pirates, and sure enough, the candidates thought of wealth as something to be captured by force, not augmented by growth or exchanged for talent...
...Maryland, like Texas, Pennsylvania, and California, has no ID requirements for voting...
...Sensibly, he had been "called away at the last minute...
...It's difficult to prove that falsely registered individuals vote Democratic rather than Republican...
...Willie Brown, 61, arrived at the last minute, an aide clutching his arm as he entered the semi-dark room...
...It is a neighborhood of buildings and housing projects both run-down and boarded up—a victim of the vandalism known as urban renewal...
...Her gauzy features hardened in a flash...
...Here...
...Mayor Jordan himself was absent...
...Because "the arts" are not self-supporting, it's assumed that they must be supported politically . The forum was held at the Center for African and African American Art and Culture, a run-down building in the Western Addition, an area close to the center of San Francisco...
...Are you kidding...
...Two mommies...
...Too many homeless people were arriving to collect the cash dole of $345 a month (caseload: 14,600), too many were still camped out in front of I. Magnin at ten o'clock in the morning, too many were making a mess in public...
...As to the present system, she told me: "You can go to the Post Office and pick up fifty different forms, sign your name fifty different ways, receive fifty different absentee ballots, and vote fifty times in the privacy of your own home, without using your real name once...
...Finally, in 1991, the voters cried halt...
...There was no hint that artists might have to start appealing to audiences...
...Brooks's fate was similar to that of Ellen Sauerbrey's, robbed of the Maryland governorship by a last-minute deluge of dubious votes from Baltimore precincts...
...Oh, well...
...Achtenberg made one of the few concessions to reality when she said that they all just might have to hunker down and "seek funding, at least initially, from the private sector...
...1 n the black-walled, Afro-deco audi- torium, the candidates gathered on stage...
...Had no one in the Bay Area news media asked the question...
...Jordan is a liberal by national standards but a conservative by San Francisco's, and the contenders for his job are duly arrayed to his left...
...Achtenberg, 45, arrived early, wearing a sensible skirt and heels...
...He's a liberal who makes liberals uneasy, because they know he has a soft spot for money...
...The candidates declared their fealty to the arts, denounced censorship and right-wingers, defended Robert Mapplethorpe, immersed us in the usual jargon: community-based, accountability, neighborhood, cultural equity, priority, empower, challenge...
...In substance, Willie Brown was indistinguishable from the others, but I found myself rooting for him...
...To register, no identification whatever is needed...
...T hough Achtenberg had position papers, Brown had voter registration forms...
...The state also cannot use Social Security numbers as an aid to registration...
...The environment, for example, will "continue to poison our residents, drain our economy, and degrade our quality of life," unless there is "strong and immediate action...
...We listened politely to his stand-in, whom nobody seemed to believe...
...It was only when he had walked outside and into his waiting limo-with-driver that I realized I had forgotten to ask my question: Was he "giving up" his Porsche, as has been reported, because becoming mayor would mean a life of poverty or because of his eyesight...
...They are written in English and Chinese in San Francisco...
...Brooks has no doubt that she was beaten by fraud...
...if he is elected, he will resign at the end of this year...
...Before I knew it he was grappling my hands and reassuring me that we were old friends from way back, as I had not realized...
...cities, San Francisco is still largely intact...
...replied a friend who works for a daily in the city...
...San Francisco business people are said to like Brown for the same reason: he is someone you can do business with...
...He is still in the Assembly, by the way, and if not elected mayor he will remain there until November 1996, when his term-limits clock runs out...
...1 n the black-walled, Afro-deco audi- torium, the candidates gathered on stage...
...He has come out strongly against affirmative action—a policy based on misdirected "societal guilt," he said—and he continues to chip away at welfare...
...if he is elected, he will resign at the end of this year...
...The question would be considered "gauche...
...Had no one in the Bay Area news media asked the question...
...One day, maybe, the idea will sink in that only taxpayers should be allowed to vote...
...Brooks is right to warn Republicans that they had better wake up to the dangers of the Motor Voter Act, signed in 1993...
...Achtenberg, 45, arrived early, wearing a sensible skirt and heels...
...Now, maybe, it can be studied to death...
...His law practice conspicuously remained open for business while he was Assembly Speaker...
...Willie Brown, 61, arrived at the last minute, an aide clutching his arm as he entered the semi-dark room...
...I had a question for Willie Brown, too...
...His policies seem not so much ideological as the result of political forces he keenly senses...
...We listened politely to his stand-in, whom nobody seemed to believe...
...reporter interviewed her about something the mayor had said, her aides handed out position papers galore...
...The state press corps has been gnashing its teeth at Wilson's "pandering...
...Because "the arts" are not self-supporting, it's assumed that they must be supported politically . The forum was held at the Center for African and African American Art and Culture, a run-down building in the Western Addition, an area close to the center of San Francisco...
...There was no hint that artists might have to start appealing to audiences...
...His law practice conspicuously remained open for business while he was Assembly Speaker...
...I told him I had been amused by the way he had run rings around the Republicans in Sacramento in his final months as Speaker...
...Bill Jones won by 35,000 votes out of eight million cast...
...They always underestimate me," he said...
...But it's worth noting that "penalty of perjury" warnings on registration forms are far scarier to solid citizens in the work force who have dependents than they are to marginal, border-crossing, dole-receiving transients whom Democratic campaign workers can cajole with a few dollars into signing something or other on the dotted line...
...T he final sentence of Achtenberg's bio says that she "and her partner, former San Francisco Municipal Court Judge Mary C. Morgan, have one child, Benjamin...
...Who dares to hit business the hardest, stop economic development the most thoroughly, be most solicitous of the environment...
...Conservative issues become more appealing to candidates seeking national office, and Wilson has duly moved to the right...
...As Reader's Digest said, in a hard-hitting piece on the emerging pattern of vote-fraud nationwide, "Congress should repeal the Motor Voter Act...
...Jordan is a liberal by national standards but a conservative by San Francisco's, and the contenders for his job are duly arrayed to his left...
...if he loses in his own state, the theory will begin to look more like a political miscalculation...
...T he final sentence of Achtenberg's bio says that she "and her partner, former San Francisco Municipal Court Judge Mary C. Morgan, have one child, Benjamin...
...There have been reports that his eyesight is failing...
...If tourists would only stay longer in their hotels, they would have to pay more taxes...
...San Francisco business people are said to like Brown for the same reason: he is someone you can do business with...
...Frank Jordan, a former chief of police, was elected mayor...
...Also running is Angela Alioto, whose father was mayor of the city in the 1960s...
...His policies seem not so much ideological as the result of political forces he keenly senses...
...Let's hope Newt Gingrich won't be intimidated by the charge that he is "anti-minority" if he puts it on the agenda...
...Too many homeless people were arriving to collect the cash dole of $345 a month (caseload: 14,600), too many were still camped out in front of I. Magnin at ten o'clock in the morning, too many were making a mess in public...
...The question "Who is eligible to vote...
...One victim of the lax voting rules is Susan Brooks, who ran for a congressional district in Los Angeles as a Republican last November...
...It is a neighborhood of buildings and housing projects both run-down and boarded up—a victim of the vandalism known as urban renewal...
...Maybe we should hold presidential elections more often...
...Before I knew it he was grappling my hands and reassuring me that we were old friends from way back, as I had not realized...
...If tourists would only stay longer in their hotels, they would have to pay more taxes...
...His candidacy will put to the test the theory that if only the Republicans would forget about abortion, Perotian armies of the middle class would decamp...
...There's no requirement that you live in the state...
...He is still in the Assembly, by the way, and if not elected mayor he will remain there until November 1996, when his term-limits clock runs out...
...Finally, in 1991, the voters cried halt...
...Compared to most U.S...
...cities, San Francisco is still largely intact...
...She will run again in 1996, but already has primary opposition...
...I had a question for Willie Brown, too...
...Voting in California is a pure "honor system...
...On election night she was ahead, and early the next day she kept a slim lead...
...Now it's re-election time...
...There are said to be two to three million of them in California...
...After the TV lights were switched off, Achtenberg said, in a jocular aside to the reporter, "If you don't like history, just change it...
...Her gauzy features hardened in a flash...
...His navy blazer was sharply tailored and his slacks razor-creased...
...By 1998 two percent of new cars offered for sale in California are supposed to be "zero emission"—a standard only electric cars can meet...
...Jerry Brown stopped that, and Motor Voter prevents states who rescinded the measure from restoring it...
...reporter interviewed her about something the mayor had said, her aides handed out position papers galore...
...They recently gathered for a candidates' forum sponsored by the Arts Democratic Club—a "vital player in art politics...
...One amazing provision prevents states from removing ineligible voters from the rolls for at least eight years...
...Now it's re-election time...
...Mayor Jordan himself was absent...
...The charge is revealing, because doing the political thing implies doing the popular thing...
...In substance, Willie Brown was indistinguishable from the others, but I found myself rooting for him...
...replied a friend who works for a daily in the city...
Vol. 28 • October 1995 • No. 10
