Visalia Times-Delta from Visalia, California • Page A6

Even in the midst of the heated presidential campaign, two news stories about alleged corruption in California government managed to draw significant headlines and public attention. One came when the state auditor issued a call for significant changes in procedures at the Public Utilities Commission, which sets rates for almost all electricity and natural gas used in California, routinely deciding billion-dollar issues. Changes similar to what the auditor recommended passed the state Assembly with a massive majority, but died without a state Senate vote on the last day of the legislative session. The other item saw the Fair Political Practices Commission announce it will investigate charges of improper donations to the California Democratic Party brought by the advocacy group Consumer Watchdog, which raised the question of links between those donations and significant actions by Gov. Jerry Brown that affected oil and energy companies which made the contributions.

But the FPPC said it investigate Brown. This was no surprise, considering Brown appoints the powerful commission chair. But leaving Brown out of this investigation is a bit like eating a hot-dog bun without the sausage. It quite possibly omits the meat of the matter, not to mention vital questions. Auditor Elaine Howell, lacking power to do more than issue reports, meanwhile, took 64 pages to say the PUC not effectively guarded against the appearance of improper influence in its public The report noted that former PUC President Michael Peevey in private discussions that were not disclosed in a timely casting legal and ethical doubts on key commission decisions.

Peevey met with officials of both the Southern California Edison Co. and Pacific Gas Electric Co. around the times of the shutdown of San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) and the multi-fatal 2010 natural gas pipeline explosion in San Bruno. In both cases, meetings, emails and phone calls went unreported to the public. One case resulted in a token fine to the other in forcing customers to pay the bulk of the costs of the SONGS closure, caused by an Edison blunder.

The PUC last spring reopened that Edison decision, but has yet to make a new ruling. In both cases, Brown did not discipline the commissioners he appointed, and the inaction as it ended its session allows for continued secret contacts like those central to those cases. The investigation comes after Consumer Watchdog documented large Democratic Party contributions from Occidental Petroleum Corp. and Chevron Corp. donation came just after Brown fired two oil and gas regulators the company felt were slow to approve its desired fracking projects.

arrived on the very day tough regulations were dropped from the 2013 Senate Bill 4, which was intended to restrict fracking operations where agricultural and drinking water aquifers might be threatened. Oxy also gave $250,000 to 2012 campaign for the Proposition 30 tax increases and another $100,000 to one of the pet charities, the Oakland Military Institute. These donations and others Consumer Watchdog reported smacked of old-fashioned pay-to-play politics. To investigate the state Democratic Party for accepting the money begs the question of who solicited those donations. There also is no announced investigation of how the military school donation came about.

Similar donations in the late 1990s from insurance companies regulated by former Republican Insurance Commissioner Chuck Quackenbush led to his being hounded from office in the midst of his term amid charges the donations were actually payoffs. Considering the timing of donation, not investigating possible link to it amounts to a clear-cut double standard. One likely outcome of all this appears to be that there will be no immediate changes at the PUC. The appearance and perhaps reality of undue influence by utilities over the agency that regulates them continues. Brown, meanwhile, will likely coast through two more years until the end of his fourth and final term as governor.

The question remaining is whether his legacy will be the green-and-clean one he so clearly desires or whether be remembered instead for the alleged corruption among some of his appointees. Contact Thomas Elias at CALIFORNIA FOCUS Investigations into corruption incomplete, mean no changes TOM ELIAS Despondent Democrats view Donald astounding victory as a sign of the apocalypse, with their beachhead of White House power suddenly engulfed by a tidal wave of angry populism. Triumphant Republicans, on the other hand, feel energized and exultant over the unexpected right turn, with newly mobilized hordes surging to the polls to power GOP victories at every level. In the midst of such emotional reactions to the recent contest, both sides should take a few deep breaths and pause for a closer look at the actual numbers that emerged from the election. These figures provide little reason for Democratic desperation, and scant basis for swelling Republican confidence in facing the future.

The most striking aspect of the popular vote total for the triumphant Trump is how ordinary, how predictable, how underwhelming his actual support turned out to be. Amazingly, Trump has received 554,000 fewer votes than Mitt Romney in 2012. W. As a matter of fact, the George W. Bush received 1.7 million more votes in his successful 2004 campaign than Trump drew in his America Great crusade 12 years later.

also worth noting that Bush drew stronger response at the polls despite the fact that there were 11 million fewer potential voters. These numbers contradict conventional wisdom: President-elect Trump base his startling upset on some new surge of indignant blue- collar true believers who had failed to mobilize for prior candidates. In fact, among first-time voters (just of the electorate in 2016, according to exit polls), Hillary Clinton won handily to with the rest going to minor-party candidates. How, then, did Trump beat Clinton? The answer is, she beat herself. As a Washington veteran and a status-quo candidate, she inspired far less enthusiasm than the charismatic avatar of hope and change, Barack Obama.

Though Trump slightly underperformed more standard-issue Republicans, Clinton fared far worse than prior Democrats getting more than 8 million fewer votes than Obama in 2008. Even John Kerry, who ran a dispirited losing campaign in 2004, achieved a nearly identical vote total to despite more than growth in the electorate since then. These incontestable facts should provide some comfort for depressed Democrats, and raise some serious concerns for resurgent Republicans. For Democrats, this Electoral College defeat hardly amounts to some sweeping rejection of the brand. Democrats will win again with candidates who inspire passion more than grudging respect, and with even greater focus on the mechanics of drawing liberal leaners to the polls.

Trumpian boasts Republicans must recognize that Trumpian boasts about inspiring fresh recruits to flock to the GOP banner, of persuading enthusiastic hordes to mobilize for the first time to the conservative cause, lack all basis in the actual numbers. Despite the unconventional aspects of his campaign, Trump fared about as well as a conventional Republican no better, and only slightly worse. Most important, he failed to make significant progress on the principal task highlighted in the Republican much-discussed that followed painful defeat: generating more support among black, Latino and Asian voters. Trump drew only of African-American voters (compared with and only of both Hispanics and Asians (to These figures would have spelled disaster against a more formidable candidate than Clinton and will likely doom Republican hopes without meaningful improvement in outreach efforts. With the percentage of non-white voters rising significantly every four years, the GOP has no future without incorporating far more ethnic diversity into its base.

Yes, the election returns established upcoming Republican control in every branch and at all levels of government. But that advantage change the facts of a polarized, nearly even partisan split in public opinion and the likelihood of more unpredictable, highly competitive campaigns that await this weary, wary nation in the years ahead. Michael Medved hosts a nationally syndicated talk radio show and is a member of the USA TODAY Board of Contributors. OTHER VIEWS DEMOCRATIC APOCALYPSE (NOT) NOW MICHAEL MEDVED One of the more amusing bits of fallout has been the safe-space response of many colleges and universities to the election of the candidate. But on closer examination, this response amusing.

downright mean. Donald victory, when most progressives expected a Hillary Clinton landslide, shocked many. The response to the shock has been to turn campuses into kindergarten. The University of Michigan Law School announced a event, including and bubbles with your fellow law Stanford emailed its students and faculty that psychological counseling was available for those experiencing anger, anxiety following the election. At Cornell, students held a Yale had a At Tufts, the university offered arts and crafts, while the University of Kansas reminded students that there were plenty of available.

easy to mock this as juvenile silliness because, well, it is juvenile silliness of the sort documented in Frank Happened To The But not all it is. also exactly what these schools purport to abhor: an effort to marginalize and silence part of the university community. In an email to students, University of Michigan President Mark Schlissel wrote: responsibility is to remain committed to education, discovery and intellectual honesty and to diversity, equity and inclusion. We are at our best when we come together to engage respectfully across our ideological differences; to support all who feel marginalized, threatened or unwelcome; and to pursue knowledge and But when you treat an election in which the candidate wins as a traumatic event on a par with the attacks, calling for counseling and safe spaces, implicitly saying that everyone who supported that candidate is, well, unsafe. Despite the talk about diversity and inclusion, this is really sending the signal that people who supported Trump and Trump is leading the state of Michigan, so there are probably quite a few on campus really included in acceptable campus culture.

not promoting diversity; enforcing uniformity. not promoting inclusion; practicing exclusion. And though it pretends to be about nurturing, actually about being mean to those who fall in the nurtured class. Schlissel wrote he wants the university to be welcoming place for all members of but how welcome can students who backed Trump feel in the wake of this performance? Aviral (and profane) YouTube rant by Jonathan Pie points out that this sort of fear and of political opponents is why Trump won, and why Democrats were shocked by his victory. right to tell people that they should engage in discussion rather than dismissal of people they disagree with, and colleges and universities should listen to him.

If, that is, not too triggering. Glenn Harlan Reynolds, a University of Tennessee law professor, is a member of USA Board of Contributors. COMMENTARY Trump win turns college into kindergarten GLENN HARLAN REYNOLDS OPINION PAGE 6A Editorial board Paula Goudreau, President Pete Wevurski, Executive Editor Send letters to the Visalia Times-Delta, P.O.Box 31, Visalia, CA 93279; Fax: 735-3399 or email: ta.com. The Times-Delta reserves the right to select and edit letters. Letters of fewer than 250 words have the best chance of publication.

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