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Departing DeVore Zings Union Ally Spitzer
Commentary OCT. 14, 2011 By STEVEN GREENHUT Former Assemblyman Chuck DeVore has joined a growing line of conservative Californians who are heading to greener economic pastures in Texas, where he will write a book and serve as a scholar at a Texas free-market think tank. Chuck was running for Orange County supervisor, which now leaves the field open to one of the most problematic politicians in California, former Assemblyman Todd Spitzer. In his goodbye email below, DeVore zinged Spitzer with these words: “I’m expecting that a successful businessperson, someone with a strong record in promoting fiscally responsible policies, will soon step forward to run for the important office of Orange County Supervisor. When that person emerges, I expect that you’ll know who it is and that they have my full support.” Spitzer has a “strong record” in creating the fiscal mess now faced in Orange County and the state. He led the charge to retroactively increase pensions for his union allies in OC and Spitzer was something of a demagogue in the Assembly. He knew no shame when it came to promote anti-civil-libertarian police-state policies advocated by the law enforcement unions that funded his campaigns. If you disagreed with him, he would say you were a friend of criminals and an enemy of police officers. Spitzer, who was fired as a prosecutor with the OC DA’s office, epitomizes the worst of California politics. He is totally self-absorbed. His outrage over issues centers mainly on what it means to his career personally. He is a wholly owned subsidiary of a government interest group. He is a consistent advocate for bigger, costlier government. He is a shameless press hound. The funniest memories of him I have were during OC wildfires. He was an Assembly member but dressed in yellow boots and vest to give the impression that he is a first responder. Most significant, though, are the costly fiscal policies he imposed on the county. The unions are thrilled that they will probably have him on the board again, although thanks to Spitzer and others like him, there’s not much money left to squander on the things they want. Spitzer claims to be in favor of pension reform now, but just wait until the pendulum swings back the other way. Spitzer is smart, hard-working and a nice guy to be around. But DeVore is right: a fiscal conservative needs to emerge to take the seat on the board. Here is DeVore’s good-bye message: It’s hard to say “good-bye” – perhaps “au revoir” is better (till we meet again). As some of my friends know, our family has been caring for my aged in-laws, 86 and 82. As with many people who have seen a full life of war and work and raising a family, they need our help. This assistance has consumed our whole family – in fact, it’s the toughest thing – and the most important thing – we’ve done, even more so than running for statewide office. In addition, as with many in the Golden State, I have found it hard to earn enough to support my family. My old aerospace clientele has fled to greener, less-expensive pastures. Combined with the drain on our savings caused by six years of public service in the Assembly, we have come to the reluctant conclusion that it is time to move. The good news is that there are still other places in America where the taxes are lower and the regulations less onerous than here in California, my home for most of the past 36 years. One such place is Texas. It is there, I am pleased to announce, that I have accepted a position as Senior Visiting Scholar for Fiscal Policy at the Texas Public Policy Foundation. My first order of business is to write a book on the Texas Model of how low taxes and low government spending, a light and predictable regulatory environment, respect for property rights, and a business-friendly legal climate has turned Texas into America’s jobs generating dynamo. (In fact, as part of my research, I’ve noted that almost 2 million Californians moved out of the Golden State in the past ten years – Texas, with no income tax, having received the largest number of Californians.) Believe me, with what I know about California, having been the chief Republican on the Assembly’s tax writing committee, Texas is a vastly different land in regards to public policy. As for the campaign for Orange County Supervisor, we’ll be winding that down and refunding the surplus to our supporters. This process will take a month or two, but everyone who contributed should get something back. I’m expecting that a successful businessperson, someone with a strong record in promoting fiscally responsible policies, will soon step forward to run for the important office of Orange County Supervisor. When that person emerges, I expect that you’ll know who it is and that they have my full support. I’m hoping, that in some modest, tangible way, California today has a bit more economic freedom, a slightly lighter tax burden, a little less government spending, a few less business-killing regulations and more jobs – in short, more liberty – because of my time in the arena. California is in a precarious position. Years of overspending, overregulation, and generous payouts to strong public employee unions have left the Golden State gasping for air. Just last week it was revealed that California’s budget revenue is falling some $705 million short of estimates made just a few short months ago in the first quarter of the new fiscal year. I hope to keep in touch with y’all (I’m practicing for Texas). If I don’t respond right away to calls and emails, it’s because I have 200 pages to write and nothing concentrates the mind like a deadline. I wish you all the best and hope to see the great state of California turn things around and prosper – with one-eighth of Americans living in California, America needs a strong and an economically vital California.
Comments(31) |
May 23, 2012
Spitzer, who was fired as a prosecutor with the OC DA’s office, epitomizes the worst of California politics. He is totally self-absorbed. His outrage over issues centers mainly on what it means to his career personally. He is a wholly owned subsidiary of a government interest group.
Most significant, though, are the costly fiscal policies he imposed on the county. The unions are thrilled that they will probably have him on the board again, although thanks to Spitzer and others like him, there’s not much money left to squander on the things they want. Spitzer claims to be in favor of pension reform now, but just wait until the pendulum swings back the other way.
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While I agree 100% with everything in this about Todd Spitzer, him getting fired at the DA for raising legit concernes is not one of them, and a very good (bad) example of why gov is so screwed up.
Relax we are only the tenth cut of a thousand cuts that will topple
California…..
Spitzer is just one more example of the worse than useless political hacks that dominate the GOP establishment – in OC, the state, and the nation. Is it any wonder that we face fiscal collapse?
If Spitzer had an ounce of moral fiber and integrity, he’d slink away in shame to wallow in his failure. Sadly, he has neither. He’s just another skeezy political huckster.
The good news is that Mark Bucher is taking DeVore’s place to run against Spitzer. http://blogs.ocweekly.com/navelgazing/2011/10/mark_bucher_to_replace_chuck_d.php
Bucher has led several attempts to reign in the overpowerful public sector unions. So, the choice is cleat: Bucher (on the side of the taxpayer) or Spitzer (union stooge).
Steve, we get it – you don’t like Todd.
But as this evidences, Todd is going to win. Period.
Chuck saw the writing on the wall, that he had zero shot at winning. So he fled the state.
I don’t buy for a second that if Chuck thought he had a shot at winning that race, he would’ve stuck around in California.
You can belittle Todd all you’d like (as I’m sure you will), but get used to it – he’s going to win.
Jim: I’m here in Orange County, and it’s hard to see Spitzer winning against any reasonable opponent. The candidate has to run on just one issue: when he was on the Board a decade ago, Spitzer goosed the pensions retroactively, severely damaging county finances, possibly risking another bankruptcy.
– John Seiler
OK Jim so he will win. Wow. I guess we shouldn’t criticize politicians who are going to be successful. What am I going to do for a living then?
John-
Didn’t for a moment expect you to ease your criticisms, just to see the realities of the situation. Bucher is an untested candidate. Todd has a million dollar headstart and is say what you will about his policies, is as good a politician as they come. He’ll win this without breaking a sweat.
Jim: I don’t know how Bucher would do. Somebody else might run. I do know that the pension issue is by far the biggest issue in OC. It’s even the biggest issue in SF, where Adachi is running on it. And the numbers aren’t going to get better by June and November next year.
Spitzer also has a lot of enemies, starting with Rackauckas. And it’s hard to see how Moorlach and Nelson would support Spitzer, due to the pension issue.
It’s like it’s hard to see how Obama can win with 9.1 percent unemployment for three years in a row. Unless, in his case, a third-party conservative or libertarian makes a run with some decent money behind him, splitting the anti-Obama vote. But in OC, if there’s a November runoff, it only would be between two candidates.
The Register also endorses candidates now. And it’s hard to see them endorsing Spitzer. (I’m not on the editorial board there, although I do freelance with them a little bit. But they’re obviously concerned about the pension issue.)
– John Seiler
When are you guys going to give Moorlach his share of the blame for this? It’s easy to make Spitzer the patsy, but as Treasurer your bearded leader voted to commission the study on the actuarials, and then voted to send it to the Board of Supes for approval.
He loves to tell us about how he was a CPA. We can’t rewind the clock. If this was something that AT THE TIME was so clearly and blatantly wrong, why did John approve vote after vote?
It’s time to set the record straight on this.
John – you seem pretty righteous in your condemnation of Spitzer for having voted for this. But at that time, weren’t you at the Register, with a pretty big soapbox from which you could have shot off some kind of warning flares? Where were they? … It’s pretty easy to Monday Morning Quarterback any vote a decade after it occurred. But if you “criticize politicians” for a living, as you say – where was any such criticism BACK THEN, when it was going on, when you were at the Register? I’ve been a Register subscriber for about 15 years, and at least don’t remember any such sirens being sounded by you or Greenhut back then…
Going back to my earlier point, Todd’s campaign is extraordinarily strong.
Even since my posts from yesterday – he has added endorsements from Congressman John Campbell, Senators Mimi Walters and Bob Huff, Assemblyman Don Wagner, Mayor Tom Tait, Councilmen Steven Choi, Jon Dumitru and Denis Bilodeau.
Not only conservatives, but conservative leaders who represent the 3rd Supe District in their own right.
Another big step forward for the Spitzer juggernaut.
No question, Jim, Spitzer is likely to win. What exactly is your argument? Politicians love to endorse likely winners. But that doesn’t change the fact that Spitzer is a totally owned subsidiary of the unions, someone who will promote big-government policies and he’s a self-centered, unprincipled hack who wants nothing more than power. Yes, he will probably win. The endorsements spotlight how unprincipled these other politicians are.
“The Register also endorses candidates now. And it’s hard to see them endorsing Spitzer. (I’m not on the editorial board there, although I do freelance with them a little bit. But they’re obviously concerned about the pension issue.)”
You aren’t there now, but you were when this vote happened John.
Where we the “sky is falling” editorials back then?
It is easy to nitpick years and years after the fact, but if this was foreseeable as so egregious, why weren’t you all over this as it was unfolding?
Can someone refresh my memory?
Where was John Moorlach during all of this?
Wasn’t he Treasurer then? Wouldn’t his office have been asked whether such a proposal was sustainable? Where was he?
My argument is that I think voters are smarter than you’re giving them credit for.
Those who have been here a while, as I have, of course we think 3@50 is terrible in hindsight. But at the time, nary a soul uttered a peep in opposition.
Not the now-pension-busting Moorlach, who was actually in a position to declare it unsustainable as Treasurer. Not your Editorial Board at the Register. I don’t remember hearing much criticism of it at all.
My point is that voters know times were different then, and aren’t going to single out one individual for casting a vote ten years ago that many people share responsibility for.
And given that, Todd’s otherwise strong record of conservative votes, his long history of actual accomplishments that have made OC safer, his pages-long-list of conservative endorsements, and his million dollar head start are what will decide this race.
Todd defended his pension-spiking scheme until the public turned against it. Now he and his cheerleaders blame others for a policy he championed and defended. He sticks his finger in the wind. He never takes a principled stand until he sees which way the wind is blowing or unless it affects him personally. He has been silent on law enforcement abuse issues, until of course he claimed to be a victim of it. If Todd is a conservative (and I’ve just got off the floor laughing), then it’s understandable why that movement has fallen on such hard times. But, again, I don’t doubt he will win. This wouldn’t be the first time a big-spending, unprincipled, fiscally reckless Republican scoundrel will win a high office in OC with the backing of many other Republicans.
Taking the lead on Marsy’s Law or Jessica’s Law – raising money and championing the issues until they were passed by voters into law – isn’t taking a “principled stand”? Or, do principled stands only count when you agree with the principle?
You have a point — Todd does have some principles. He believes in exploiting people’s fears to expand government, to run up debt, to limit our civil liberties, to protect ill-behaving public employees, to do the bidding of the law enforcement unions that fill his campaign coffers.
These laws only limit the liberties of those who have already committed terrible crimes. I have three children, and I am thankful that these laws make it harder for predators to get near them.
Big-government liberals definitely believe that all the laws that “protect” us only apply to the bad guys, which is naive at the very least and misunderstands the nature of government as our founders described it. That’s why Spitzer is no conservative, although modern conservatives aren’t much different than liberals on that point. He believes in government and has devoted himself to expanding its powers and to protecting its agents. I don’t disagree with Todd on Marcy’s Law which wasn’t what I was referring to when I mentioned Todd’s history of opposing open government and civil liberties. I remember when he was there with the police unions halting a bill that would have allowed the public to know about the misbehavior of dirty cops. That’s just one example. Combine that authoritarian philosophy with unlimited ambition and he’s a problem — less so on the board than when he becomes DA.
At the Register at the time, we wrote many editorials and columns opposing the pension spiking, warning about just such a disaster as is unfolding.
“Times were different then” — only in the illusion that prosperity would last forever and so could easily fund the spiked pensions. But we never bought that at the Register. I don’t know how many times I wrote, “The business cycle has not been repealed.”
– John Seiler
Here’s an editorial from the Aug. 25, 2004 Orange County Register. I shows we were on top of the game, opposing the pension spiking from the getgo. So was John Moorlach.
I’m pretty sure this editorial was written by Steven Greenhut.
And let’s remember that 2004 was the height of the real-estate boom, with property values rising 16 percent a year in Orange County. And it never could end, could it? By 2011, everybody would be a millionaire, and it would be easy to pay for pension spiking. There never could be a crash, could there?
– John Seiler
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The Orange County Register, Aug. 25, 2011
A Pension Spike to the County’s Heart
Orange County Treasurer John Moorlach, who was vilified by county leaders when in 1994 he predicted, correctly, dire financial consequences from the county’s investment policies, is once again being vilified by county leaders for pointing out the shaky financial situation underlying a retirement plan proposed for county employees.
The Board of Supervisors is likely to approve a pension spike – already overwhelmingly approved by the county employees – at today’s board meeting, even though taxpayers eventually will be left to pick up the pieces.
This is the latest proposal in a mad rush by public employee unions statewide to spike public retirement pay to levels far exceeding those typically earned in the private sector. Few voices have been heard to question the soundness of such generous, taxpayer-backed proposals, even as some California cities already are facing disastrous financial consequences because of unwise pension obligations.
Mr. Moorlach is standing virtually alone against the tide within county government. The result has been as predictable this time around as it was in 1994. The union’s leader told the Register the union would unleash the “hounds of hell” if supervisors didn’t agree to this pension enhancement. Chairman Tom Wilson, a reliable supporter of organized labor, last week unleashed his own intemperate, ad hominem attack on Mr. Moorlach in a memo that pretends to tell the “truth” about the retirement spike.
In the months preceding the county bankruptcy in 1994, Board of Supervisors Chairman Tom Riley ignored Mr. Moorlach, then a candidate for treasurer, and showered praise on then-treasurer Bob Citron, whose risky investments led to the collapse. Now we have a new Chairman Tom doing, in effect, the same thing on the pension issue.
John- just as you maintain a healthy skepticism of politicians, I do of self-appointed watchdogs.
“I don’t know how many times I wrote, ‘The business cycle has not been repealed.’” is a clever line, but what it is not is evidence of actually having sounded such a warning about this 3@50 business.
I also note your silence as to Mr. Moorlach’s involvement in this matter.
Just trying to correct some of this revisionist history.
Question?:
See my previous post. We WERE against the pension spiking, calling it, “A Pension Spike to the County’s Heart,” in an Aug. 25, 2004 editorial. And Moorlach was against it, too — strongly.
Where is your info of Moorlach’s “silence” on the county pension spiking — when he clearly DID speak out against it?
– John Seiler
John, thank you for making my point for me. The editorial you cite was printed a full THREE years after the fact.
24. Question? says:
October 16, 2011 at 3:08 pm
John- just as you maintain a healthy skepticism of politicians, I do of self-appointed watchdogs.
“I don’t know how many times I wrote, ‘The business cycle has not been repealed.’” is a clever line, but what it is not is evidence of actually having sounded such a warning about this 3@50 business.
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Actually there were tons of people-the ones who knew about 3%@50- who sounded 5 alram fire bells when this scam went down.
Most of the time these multi million dollar give aways were NOT PUBLIC UNTIL A DAY OR TWO BEFORE THE VOTE ON THEM, LIKE all PUBLIC UNION CONTRACTS THEY ARE NEGOTIATED behind closed doors, and then not given a chance for the public to vet them. That is how the scam is played, how it works.
But Todd has defended his vote up until about eight seconds ago. His whole defense is that others should have stopped him from doing what taxpayers groups and others warned him against doing. Wow … what a great defense. Let’s vote for Spitzer — it’s not his fault that he championed horrific public policy. Other people should have stopped him. Give me a break! Anyone who advocated retroactive pension spiking and then repeatedly did so in the Assembly and continued to defend the policy well after the results were clear, but then changed his mind in the face of changing public opinion is the lamest sort of politician.
–Steven Greenhut
As I pointed out in a Note above, I’m going to have to check the chronology of what we wrote way back when. I’m not at the Register anymore, so I can’t access their database directly.
Anyway, it probably doesn’t matter financially if Spitzer wins this time. The damage has been done. The USA, California, Orange County and many cities are headed for bankruptcy. Spitzer and the other politicians already have done their damage.
More productive people will be heading for the hills — like DeVore.
– John Seiler
Here’s something Steven Greenhut wrote in the Register’s Orange Punch blog on Aug. 3, 2007. Link: http://orangepunch.ocregister.com/2007/08/03/todd-spitzer-epitomizes-whats-wrong-in-sacramento/1972/
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From Steven Greennut:
Todd Spitzer Epitomizes What’s Wrong in Sacramento
I talked to Assemblyman Todd Spitzer, R-Orange, yesterday about his 2001 vote as a supervisor to give law enforcement not only a 50-percent spike in pensions, but to do so retroactively. He still zealously defends it, even the retroactive portion.
An example of what the vote meant: a union member who had worked his entire career under the old formula and was about to retire with 60 percent of his final year’s pay (a pretty good deal, by the way), was instantly given an extra 50 percent so that he would retire with 90 percent of his pay (after 30 years, available at age 50). Spitzer and other supporters pushed the enhancement as a way to improve recruiting, but retroactivity only benefits current workers. It doesn’t help lure new ones.
That vote was not only an assault on taxpayers that has expanded unfunded liabilities (taxpayer debt to pay for these pension promises), but something quite unfair, when one considers the retirement packages of the poor sops who have to make good on the promises by free-spending legislators such as Spitzer. It is that retroactive portion of the deal that the current board is challenging as an unconstitutional gift of funds, an unconstitutional payment for past services and an unconstitutional expansion of public debt without a vote of the people.
Spitzer wants the retroactive benefit portion enforced, even though he admits that he doesn’t have a problem with people looking to see if something is legal or not. How generous of him!
Spitzer likes to highlight other officials’ mistreatment of public funds, such as his recent grandstanding about the Placentia OnTrac fiasco. He is right about that situation, but the financial mess in Placentia is nothing compared to the financial mess Spitzer has caused in OC, and with his support for big-spending programs in Sacramento. Watch him and Assemblyman Jim Silva, another former supe who voted for the retroactive pension spike, posture as fiscal conservatives in Sacramento. But their past behavior reveals them more as big-spending, pro-union liberals.
Such hypocrisy epitomizes why most Californians shake their heads at the nonsense that goes on in Sacramento.
In all this arguing about how “evil” Todd Spitzer is, you forgot the best news of all: Bye-bye, Chuckie Baby, don’t let the door hit you in the butt!