An Outrageous Performance

Hitting below the belt is illegal in boxing, but Gov. George Deukmejian obviously thinks that it is just the ticket for politics.

Answering questions after a speech to East Bay business leaders in Moraga on Thursday, the governor said that “I am not going to be involved” in the campaign to unseat California Chief Justice Rose Elizabeth Bird and two associate Supreme Court justices in November. That is fair enough, considering that the Supreme Court does not get involved in his campaigns.

But in the same speech Deukmejian said that businessmen in California would be far better off if they could count on Supreme Court decisions that were “not so burdensome and onerous as some” that the court has made in recent years. We assume that businessmen can take a hint like anyone else: Let’s you and me get rid of the chief justice.

Later reporters asked him to describe an onerous decision that burdened business. “I’m certainly not in a position to enumerate them all,” he said. By the time he walked away it was pretty clear that he was certainly not in a position to name even one.

It was an outrageous performance, not exactly the kind of campaigning that would appeal to the Marquess of Queensbury. But at least the justices now have fair warning that, as far as the governor is concerned, anything goes.