Beating the Bushes for Money

What was that rustling in the bushes of a fashionable Sacramento home on a recent fall evening? Was it the Great Pumpkin on the early lookout for the most sincere pumpkin patch? No, good grief, it seems it was the governor of California.

As The Times’ Dan Morain reported, Gray Davis was seeking to avoid a television news crew that had turned out to register his arrival for a fund-raising dinner at the home of a land developer.

Apparently Davis’ security force was alerted that a Capital Television News Service reporter and cameraman were staked out at the front door of the house. The governor, a consummate fund-raiser, and his security detail reportedly tried to slip unseen into a side door via the backyard of a neighbor. Thus the trek through the shrubs. Later, an aide shrugged off the suggestion that Davis was trying to avoid the camera, saying that security “determines where the governor parks, where he stops.”

In fact, the governor has been extremely secretive about when and where he raises money for his 2002 reelection campaign fund, already swollen to more than $20 million. He refuses to list these affairs on his public schedule of events and has been particularly sensitive about making time for the recent event because his staff had been emphasizing the long hours he was putting in at the Capitol dealing with more than 1,000 bills that came to his desk at the recent close of the legislative session.

It could have been worse. Some unwary neighbor might have heard the rustling and called 911, spilling the beans. But you can trust us to be circumspect, governor. Just make that schedule public.