California State and Local Redistricting Commissions Drawing Fire Over Controversies

The non-partisan California Citizen’s Redistricting Commission is supposed to draw lines for new State Assembly, Senate and U.S. Congressional districts that evenly and fairly distribute the political balance of power among communities and groups of interest.  Instead, the commission has drawn fire from the start and recently came under attack by the California Republican Party after it was revealed Friday by CalWatchDog.com that Commissioner Dr. Gabino Aguirre concealed political contributions and was found to have ties to radical political organizations with a Democrat partisan agenda, including the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF), which is actively lobbying the commission.

Californians may recall the words that were immortalized by the godfather of Democrat politics in California, former State Assembly Speaker Willie Brown who said, “In politics, a lie unanswered becomes truth within 24 hours.” Instead of repudiating the allegations of political favoritism and engaging in partisan gerrymandering of districts which tilt the political balance of power, a spokesperson for the commission said that Commissioner Aguirre would be unavailable for comment.  Perhaps Aguirre and other individuals from the 14 member panel were busy recalling another quote by former Speaker Brown when California’s electorate turned against Democrat policies. Speaking about Democrats Brown said, “We are in trouble” which proved to be an accurate assessment then and would seem to apply now.

In addition to the allegations of gerrymandering, Aguirre is accused of violating the California State Constitution, as recently amended by voters with the passage of Proposition 11 during November 2008, which legally mandates “strict non-partisan rules designed to ensure fair representation.”

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With less than 24 hours until polls open in most of the United States, the media seems to have taken on the role of the young boy with his finger in the dike, doing their best to plug leaks that will hurt incumbent and liberal Democrat candidates so that voters will not have critical information to help them decide how to vote.

The media would have you believe that in California, former Governor Jerry Brown has already won with poll reports showing Meg Whitman trailing and Barbara Boxer surging to a low single digit lead over Carly Fiorina. Sources associated with the Whitman and Fiorina campaigns have indicated that internal polling actually shows Whitman and Fiorina to be much more competitive than the media would have you believe, and in some cases, beating Brown and Boxer who represent the relics of failed Democrat ideals.

Americans have come to understand the phrase “all politics is local” as immortalized by former House Speaker Tip O’Neill; however, all local politics are not reported equally.

I would like to share with you three examples where the media has been protecting politicians and an explanation of how the media is being influenced in their decision to not report these stories.

First, on October 19, 2010, with news cameras present in studio and rolling, it was revealed on The Rick Amato Show that Congressman Bob Filner (D-CA 51st) was having an inappropriate relationship with a Southwest Airlines corporate lobbyist. It was also revealed that Congressman Filner who serves on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee agreed to sponsor legislation impacting aircraft maintenance.

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California Attorney General Jerry Brown seems to be getting a lot of reminders from his gubernatorial challengers Steve Poizner and Meg Whitman about his failed governorship of the state from 1975-1983 when Californian’s endured high unemployment, home foreclosures, large scale labor strikes and fuel shortages at the gas station. Recognizing the failed policies of then Governor Brown, California voters revolted and passed Proposition 13 which is a landmark initiative that limited politician’s ability to arbitrarily raise taxes on California residents.

Over a week ago, Attorney General Jerry Brown got yet another reminder, this time coming from the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. The report “Follow the Money: ACORN, SEIU and their Political Allies” focuses public attention on AG Brown’s failed investigation of ACORN. While some of Brown’s gubernatorial challengers talk of the need for a California Governor to have a spine of steel, AG Brown has instead crumpled like an aluminum can cowardly hiding behind state bureaucrats and a wall of state agencies.

On October 1, 2009, Jerry Brown publicly announced that an investigation had been opened concerning undercover videos that were obtained by citizen journalists James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles who videotaped ACORN employees at two California offices. ACORN employees were filmed providing advice regarding tax evasion, prostitution and human smuggling of underage girls. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was informed by AG Brown in a letter that he had “opened an investigation of both ACORN and the circumstances under which ACORN employees were videotaped.” Since that announcement, AG Brown has found himself at the center of a controversy surrounding the mismanagement of the investigation as well as a potential scandal due to a double standard involving one of his own state employees secretly recording conversations with reporters.

Shortly after ACORN had been alerted to the immanent investigation as a result of AG Brown’s public announcement, ACORN employees at the San Diego, CA office were caught engaging in a massive document dump on October 9, 2009. Those records were retrieved from an unsecured shared public dumpster where they had been thrown revealing sensitive personal, financial and banking information for both clients and employees in addition to revelations about the political inner workings of ACORN’s relationship with major U.S. banks and labor unions.

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What does the Persian Gulf emirate of Dubai and ACORN have in common?  Both of them have some bankers on Wall Street worried.  When brokers and traders returned to work after the Thanksgiving Holiday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average went on a wild rollercoaster ride dropping as much as 233 points during the trading session due to an announcement that Dubai would be rescheduling the repayment of $3.5 billion in bonds.  This unexpected announcement was not what Wall Street wanted to hear on Black Friday when retail sales were already down by 8% compared to the prior year and Cyber Monday sales were less than robust with individual online purchases being 2% less than they were last year.  All of this at a time when brokers, traders and economists across the country are watching to see if cash strapped consumers are going to bailout retailers from what is shaping up to be a dismal retail Christmas season.

It is understandable why Wall Street would be concerned about Dubai.  Why would they be concerned about ACORN?  On October 24, 2009, Biggovernment.com revealed that the San Diego office of ACORN dumped thousands of documents into a dumpster in advance of an investigation into the organizations activities by California Attorney General Jerry Brown.  I retrieved the documents from a shared public dumpster located behind the local ACORN office.  The documents that were retrieved filled the back of my Suburban.  Much of what was retrieved was truly trash, items such as banana peels, coffee grounds and marketing materials. After sorting through the documents, though, the 20,000 documents that were retained included sensitive personal information, financial records and documents outlining the internal and political workings of ACORN.  One of the documents obtained by Biggovernment.com shows that ACORN had business relationships with 28 major financial institutions for the purpose of assisting homeowners whose mortgages were in foreclosure.

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On October 1st, 2009 California Attorney General Jerry Brown announced that an investigation had been opened into ACORN’s activities in California, resulting from undercover videos showing employees seemingly offering to assist the undercover film makers with human smuggling, child prostitution and even tax advice to boot.

Although ACORN has denied any wrongdoing, some of the employees involved were terminated, and ACORN has publicly stated that they would fully cooperate with any investigations that followed.

Interestingly, the local head ACORN organizer in California, David Lagstein was caught on tape earlier this month speaking to an East County Democratic Club.

Mr. Lagstein stated: “…the attorney general is a political animal, but certainly every bit of the communication we have had with them has suggested that the fault will be found with the people that did the video and not the people with ACORN.”

Continuing, Mr. Lagstein stated: “…we are fully cooperating, some of the investigators visited our office this morning and I think they really understand what’s going on.”

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