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Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Leave it to long time San Francisco Bay Guardian scribe and now Executive Editor Tim Redmond to lay down the truth about Pacific Gas and Electric Company's campaign of lies and misrepresentation regarding Proposition H. Read this by Redmond:Way back in the 1980s, when Willie Brown was the untouchable speaker of the State Assembly and by all accounts the second most powerful politician in California, he came to an event at the San Francisco Press Club and gave a few dozen reporters a lesson in how to defeat a ballot measure. I'll never forget it.
A group of reformers — some Republicans, many unhappy with Brown's leadership — placed a measure before the voters that would have taken the power of drawing legislative districts away from the State Legislature and given it to a panel of retired judges. The Democratic leadership, which had used its redistricting power with shameless brilliance to create safe seats for Democrats, wanted to kill the proposition, but polls showed it passing by a good margin.
So Brown went to the notorious Los Angeles political consulting firm of Berman and D'Agostino (a.k.a. BAD Campaigns). "And they told me," Brown announced to the audience, "that any piece of legislation has something in it that can be used to upset and confuse the voters....MORE
Labels: CLEAN ENERGY, no on h, pacific gas and electric, pge, politics, sf bay guardian, yes on h