From: john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon)
Newsgroups: ba.motss
Subject: Re: The Gap stores
Date: 29 Sep 92 07:44:02 GMT
Distribution: ba
Organization: Green Hills and Cows

In article <michaelh.717664164@Xenon.Stanford.EDU> michaelh@Xenon.Stanford.EDU (Mike Hennahane) writes:

>what choice did he have? how many years in a row do you think that he
>could get away with vetoing this thing?

I think that is a bit harsh. He could have easily vetoed it. Right now,
I do not think that Wilson believes that signing that or any other bill
would garner him many brownie points. And in case you don't know it, he
has been enforcing a defacto version of that bill (by executive order)
for the past year. This law now codifies what the governor has been
encouraging all along.

>get out your scorecard; he has alienated so many
>groups that it's hard to keep track of them all and what set them off.
>he seems to have vastly exceeded his quota of breaks...

Yes, most of the groups he has alienated have been on the receiving
side of the public trough. Honig, whose only talent appears to be to
whine about how Wilson is taking away HIS (Honig's) money to dump down
the school rathole, seems to be incapable of examining and correcting
the problem of the miserable cost/performance ratio of the public
schools (the worst it has ever been in history).

If the legislators had had their way in just raising taxes to balance
the budget gap, California's tax base would have shrunk even further.
You can only squeeze so much out of the "rich" and business before they
take a hike. As the ratio of producers to takers in California
declines there is a tremendous temptation to just wring more and more
out of those producers who remain in the state. In reality, what has to
happen is that costs will have to be cut and/or the ratio of producers
to takers will have to be improved.

>a governor's job is more than just making sodomy legal; are the laws
>there enforced anyway?

Unenforced laws have a tendancy to become "selectively enforced" laws.

>has the arkansas governor even had the luxury
>of an *opportunity* to sign a bill (let alone *veto* it).

Is he a leader or a follower? Are you saying that Governor Clinton has so
little influence that he must just sit on his hands waiting for the
legislature to hand him something? This sounds a lot like Bush's excuse
for having nothing happen in the last four years: "I was at the mercy
of a Democratically-controlled Congress..."

>i can't see california as being much better; look how much
>trouble it took to get a bill to the governor's desk at all and the
>trouble it took to get the guy to sign the damn thing...

Yes, and now California is one of a very small handful of states to
have such a law codified. As mentioned before, it was only the
governor's executive order at work for the past year.

>i guess that the bottom line is that i'm not ready to give wilson any
>credit for anything; he's lost his credibility with me (and judging
>from the polls, most of the rest of californians, too). sigh...

That is unfortunate. When he first took office, Wilson was not my
favorite person. Since then, he has boosted himself considerably in my
eyes. He vetoed last year's rights bill but listed his reasons why.
This version addressed all of his objections and he signed it. What is
wrong with that? And don't forget, no one twisted his arm to implement
his executive order prohibiting sexual-orientation discrimination.
-- 
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