A Week in California’s 30th State Senate District
The Daily News opines today about corruption:
Politicians who wonder why the American public is so cynical about politics need only look at the last few days’ news.
The Daily News was talking about the recent coverage of Martin Ludlow and Duke Cunningham, but they could have well have been talking about last week’s stories related to Ron Calderon and Rudy Bermúdez.
For example, the LA Times wrote about the coziness of Calderon and his cronies with the insurance industry. So many homeowners suffered as a result of their insurance companies’ demands after the fires of 2003 that some legislators banded together to create a homeowners bill of rights. Calderon and the Assembly Insurance Committee shot it down. Why?
Insurers have spent $25 million on lobbyists, campaign contributions and perks for lawmakers — even some who regularly cross them — since 2003. Their money shows up particularly prominently in the campaign coffers of members of the Assembly Insurance Committee, a pro-business, relatively conservative bastion within the generally liberal Legislature.
Insurance money — more than $1 million in 2003-04 — makes up nearly a fifth of some of those members’ war chests. And members, their spouses and their aides routinely accept expensive meals, free golf games, hotel rooms, tickets to Laker and Clipper basketball games and other gifts from insurers and their lobbyists.
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In the last three years, Allstate, Farmers Insurance Group and two industry associations gave committee member Ronald S. Calderon (D-Montebello) $1,300 in golf fees, meals and a room at the Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas. Allstate also paid for a $170 meal at a Pebble Beach clubhouse for Calderon and his wife.
In May 2003, Farmers paid for Calderon and then-committee member George Nakano (D-Torrance) to attend a Laker game at $114 per ticket.
Rudy Bermúdez has a special interest of his own. When Senator Jackie Speier tried two years ago to rein in the costly labor contract between the prison guards union and the state, Bermúdez wasn’t much concerned about the expense to taxpayers back home in his district. A former parole agent himself, he cut a deal when elected that would allow him to return to his old job once his time in office was over, reaping all the raises and benefits he managed to get in the state budget. Any decrease he made in the contract would only decrease his own post-legislative potential earning power.
The San Diego Union-Tribune reported just last week on some of the benefits Bermúdez has secured for his past and future co-workers:
Roughly one out of 10 California prison guards was paid more than $100,000 last year, fueled largely by a jump in overtime.
Some 2,400 rank-and-file correctional officers’ pay exceeded $100,000 in 2005, compared with 557 the year before, a San Diego Union-Tribune analysis of payroll figures shows.
One guard grossed $187,000, making him the highest-paid correctional officer in California, according to data provided by the state controller’s office.
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State Senate Majority Leader Gloria Romero, D-Los Angeles, said the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation remains one of the “most failed” agencies in California.
The payroll figures, she said, “hit me hard in the belly…Reform has been slow in coming, and I would say largely it’s nonexistent.”
Meanwhile, Marco Antonio Firebaugh was in the San Gabriel Valley Tribune for something a little different than his opponents last week. He was actually trying to do something helpful for the district:
A local disaster preparedness task force created after Hurricane Katrina held its first educational fair for residents in Montebello this weekend.
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Norwalk City Councilman Rick Ramirez and Marco Firebaugh, a former commissioner for the California Medical Assistance Commission, were selected to co-chair the task force.
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“We thought we could coordinate a community education program to get deeper into the neighborhood and teach people in a group about the challenges they’ll face in a disaster and try to compel them to prepare themselves,” Firebaugh said.
The Daily News finished its editorial today with the following:
Indictments, prison sentences or tougher laws will never restore public confidence in our political systems. Only when the politicians stop serving special interests - and put the public good first - will they regain the public’s trust.
Golf trips with insurance lobbyists? Pay raises for prison guards? Or disaster preparedness in Montebello? One candidate for the 30th State Senate District puts the “public good” first.
