It’s often said that Bill Clinton saved the Democratic Party nationally by pushing it toward the political center. The same could be said of Gray Davis regarding the Democrats who currently rule California. The governor’s veto pen is stopping a lot of mischievous and anti-business legislation from becoming law, and thus possibly sparing Davis’ fellow Democrats in the Legislature the political consequences of their bad behavior.
Just last week, for example, Davis put the kibosh on partisan bills that would have added new taxes on Internet sales and discouraged free trade.
Assembly Bill 2412, by Dem Assemblywoman Carole Migden of San Francisco, would have taxed online sales of retailers that also have stores in the state. Davis, in vetoing the measure, sensibly noted that imposing sales taxes on the fledgling Internet would send the wrong signal about California’s role “as the incubator of the dot-com economy.” The governor also noted that the measure was anti-consumer.
Davis also shot down a couple of measures sponsored by state Sen. Tom Hayden that would have subjected NAFTA and WTO agreements to scrutiny for possible conflicts with California environmental and labor laws.
The governor rejected a couple of other loopy measures, too, including another one from Hayden that would have increased paperwork for the Franchise Tax Board. Pete Wilson couldn’t be doing a better job of punching out the liberal lawmaker from Santa Monica than Davis is.
Now, when it comes to a defining issue like education, Davis embraces the old guard, not new solutions. He’s a big spender. And yours truly keeps watching for payoffs to the trial lawyers. But it’s much harder to complain about a politician who fights in the middle of the ring than one who stays in the left corner.
Davis has to be racking up points with voters of all political stripes. But how long can the same be said of runaway state lawmakers?
