Davis Is Humble, Confident in Session

Dennis Richmond, KTVU: Emotionally, how are you handling this? How do you feel about this?

Gov. Gray Davis: It is not an easy time for my wife, Sharon, or I, and it is not fun seeing everyone condemn you up and down the 24-hour news cycle.

I know that the problems we deal with pale in comparison to the problems of the people that I represent. I have their message. I know they are angry. This has been a humbling experience. But I know they want me to fight for their future, so I have specific things to get done, including re-regulating energy. We’ll get to them.

Richmond: In acknowledging this unprecedented recall, you’ve admitted that you made mistakes.... What do you feel that you did wrong and what will you change?

Davis: The biggest thing that I will change is to stay connected to the people of the state. When I was first elected, I had town hall meetings, I spoke with people and learned a lot and got a lot of good ideas. Governing should be a two-way street....

Richmond: Now, you said you made mistakes. What are you saying that you did wrong?

Davis: I think that I was too slow to act on the energy crisis. This is what we were facing, faced with. People ought to know. Everyone told me to raise consumer rates even though the promise of deregulation was that rates would go down. I felt something was amiss, either with the utilities or energy companies, and consumers should not have to pay the full load. Everyone asked me to do it. I hesitated, hesitated because I did not want to do it. Eventually we raised the rates 10 to 20%, not the 400% we wanted.

Dan Borenstein, Contra Costa Times: Governor, you recently said, “What is happening here is part of an ongoing national effort to steal elections Republicans cannot win.” But Bustamante says that voters who signed the recall petition were “sending a real strong message to the people in the state of California, especially its leadership in Sacramento.” Governor, was there a message and, if so, what was it?

Davis: There is no question there was a message, and the message was that people are angry. I understand their lives are not going as well as they were a couple of years ago, and I understand I’m the brunt of their concern.

But I do believe that at the heart of this, in the beginning, were a group of Republicans that were upset they could not win last November’s election. They did try to do what they’ve done to President Clinton, to try to impeach him in 1998 after they could not defeat him in ’96....

So that effort by Republicans got the ball rolling. But they did tap into some genuine anger that I recognize.

Borenstein: You came into office promising to govern from the center, governor. But after the recall came, you started to describe yourself as a progressive. What are you, a centrist or a progressive? And why have you suddenly started to describe yourself as a progressive?

Davis: I said in my first address that I would take a good idea from wherever it came from, the right the center or the left, and I’ve maintained that posture from the very beginning. I do believe government’s role is to help people, to be a safety net. And I do believe that many of the policies that I’ve pursued fill that overall goal. So I do not find any inconsistency. Being a centrist does not mean that you take the middle line on every issue....

Pilar Morreno, political editor of La Opinion: Governor, while community classrooms are closing, class sizes are increasing, you provided a 34% pay raise for prison guards whose union generated against your campaign? Why?

Davis: I know it is a conventional criticism and a good question. Looking at the budget, the budget this year has $40 billion-plus for education, K through 12 and community college, state college and university, and about $5 billion for the prisons. All of the raises given last year are being renegotiated.... At the end of the day, you will see concessions from all organizations, including the prison guards.... .

Morreno: In the recent budget, tuition fees for colleges and universities were raised 25, 30%.... How did you stand allowing that, calling yourself the education governor?

Davis: Let me tell you how it happened. The Republicans took this position: They would not raise taxes at all cost. They would rather shoot their mother than increase any taxes. I say that figuratively. But there was no circumstances under which they would raise taxes, even though they did it, $7 billion for Gov. Wilson. What did that mean?

The Republican budget said they wanted to virtually eliminate the freshman class at the University of California in 2004, and reduce by 40% the admissions to the Cal State system, and increase the fees to community colleges by $26. We were able to fight most of those off. But the net result were more increases in fees than I would like.

But still, there is a freshman class. The fees at the community colleges went up to $18, which is by far the lowest in America. The next lowest is at $25.

I regret every fee increase, believe me. What the Republicans threatened was far worse than the one I signed....

John Myers, Sacramento bureau chief for KQED-FM: Governor, one of the most controversial budget decisions this year... was the car tax. You argued against raising that tax in the January budget but then included the increase in your budget plans in May.... Do you think raising the car tax was the right thing to do?

Davis: .I opposed efforts to raise it early on. But the car tax was brought to us from the prior administration.

The year before I was governor, they lowered the car tax. They delayed its implementation until I was governor. The car tax does not go to Sacramento. It goes to Walnut Creek, to San Francisco, it goes to Santa Monica....

But it increased when the state could not write the check this year.

John Popescu of San Francisco asks Davis what he is doing to keep jobs from going overseas:

Davis: I increased the unemployment insurance considerably and made a -- made it retroactive to Sept. 11, 2001, when a number of people lost their jobs for a different reason....

I believe strongly that we should discourage people moving jobs offshore.

And I said this year I would sign two bills that penalize corporations that incorporate in Bermuda and the Caribbean, saying that we do not care if you incorporate there now, we’ll tax you as if you are still in California....

Tim Rodriguez of Berkeley: I’m one of the 8 million people you speak about who voted for you in the last election. I’m concerned that I will not be able to do it in this election.

Davis: We need to talk then.

Rodriguez: Yes, sir. I need a reason to vote for you, rather than to vote against your opponents.... How will you guarantee to me that if I vote for you, for the new Gray Davis, I will not get the old Gray Davis?

Davis: Believe me, this has been an awakening for me. I know people are upset, and it is not fun hearing it day in and day out.

Just imagine if you go through your whole day, turning on the news, everyone is battering you, calling you names. It is [a] wonderful wife and a strong faith in God to sustain yourself through that.

So I’m not going to retreat from the promises that I’ve made, which is I’m going to stay connected with you....

Vic from Sacramento: I would like to ask you what your position is on Proposition 54.

Davis: I’m 100% against Prop. 54. I think it is a ban against information. Let me give you two examples....

We want every ethnic group to improve [in the classroom]. We collect data based on how are Latino students or African American students doing.

In the days when we had money, and we could reward schools for meeting improvement goals, we would not give them money unless every group met the improvement goals, not just the average.

If you do not have that data, you do not have the information to modify the curriculum....

The second reason is that drug companies depend on the kind of data we collect to ensure that the drugs they provide for you work for you....

Richmond: We want to offer you 60 seconds or so for a closing statement.

Davis: Well, I want to thank KTVU for having this forum. I particularly want to thank the citizens for coming here. Some of you came from quite a distance. You know, democracy depends on an informed citizenry.

I learned one thing in Sacramento, you can, though, not just sit up there, work 14, 15 hours a day and govern well. You have to be in touch with people to know their hopes, aspirations and frustrations.

I’ll do my third town hall tomorrow. My second one, three [people] came up to me and complained about a given department. I would not have heard that. We’ve made calls. Not only do you get feedback that can help make adjustments positively affecting people’s lives, but you get good ideas.