Ted Costa is a longtime wingnut activist, and he's pissed. He joined Republican Assemblymember Dan Logue and Republican Congressman Tom McClintock to draft the initiative to indefinitely suspend AB 32 that is likely to appear on the November ballot. And although you'd think Costa would be excited that Texas oil companies are apparently backing the initiative, Costa is instead throwing a fit:
Ted Costa, of People's Advocate, said he continues to believe in the thrust of the initiative but that the signature-gathering campaign has been "stolen" by big-money interests that have not identified themselves publicly.
"You ruin the whole organization when you go through this kind of muck," said Costa, who helped craft an early version of the initiative but was elbowed out of the drive in the jockeying to recruit backers....
Costa said the key issue to him is integrity -- the initiative he filed was shelved in favor of a virtually identical one backed by undisclosed interests that are "hiding" their identities and their contributions, he said.
"At a time when Californians really need honesty and integrity, there will be none," Costa said. (Capitol Alert 3/10/10)
Costa even said he'd sign a ballot argument against the initiative, showing the depth of his anger.
But should he really be all that surprised? The only people who would benefit from undoing AB 32 like this would be large corporations like Valero. Every other working Californian would be much worse off if the initiative passed, since their jobs and livelihoods would be in greater jeopardy thanks to unchecked global warming. And the state would lose the lead in innovating green jobs to places like China and Europe.
Maybe Costa was a true believer, but right-wingers should know how conservative politics works by now. Everything they do is bankrolled by the wealthy and large corporations, because that is who benefits from conservative politics. The notion that such politics are at all populist or benefit anyone not rich is a convenient lie, a smokescreen for the benefit of a credulous public.
Still, if Costa now wants to speak out against the initiative, I'm all in favor of it. The more the merrier! |
