News :
Schwarzenegger's price
Toledo Blade - Toledo, OH, USA, July 21 2005 -- One of
Arnold Schwarzenegger's major selling points in his winning campaign
for California governor was that he couldn't be bought by special interests.
But news from Sacramento indicates that the purchase had
been consummated even before the wealthy bodybuilder and film star was
sworn in after the Gray Davis recall in 2003.
It turns out that two days before Mr. Schwarzenegger became
governor he quietly signed a contract to become an editor and columnist
for two muscle magazines, a pact that was expected to bring him $8 million
over five years.
The governor backed out of the contract last weekend after
intense criticism - richly deserved - that it amounted to a direct conflict
of interest with his state duties. But he says he will keep the money
he has "earned" and will continue to write columns for the
magazines.
Despite this belated show of ethical concern, Californians
shouldn't let Mr. Schwarzenegger off the hook so easily. They now know
he can be bought if the price is right.
The deal, disclosed completely only recently in federal
securities filings, was to pay the governor a percentage of advertising
revenues from two publications, Muscle & Fitness and Flex, which
derive nearly half of their support from ads for controversial dietary
supplements used by bodybuilders and other athletes.
In 2004 Mr. Schwarzenegger vetoed legislation that would
have set state regulations on supplements, which are the target of health
warnings by health and consumer groups.
On the face of it, the governor's deal with the magazines,
owned by tabloid king American Media, not only represented a conflict
of interest but the functional equivalent of a bribe. Law enforcement
officials ought to look into convening a grand jury.
It should be clear by now to Californians, and to all Americans,
that Mr. Schwarzenegger is not what he pretended to be when he chased
his predecessor out of office with a fierce campaign against the corrupting
power of political contributions from special interests.
He made a great show of declining to accept the governor's
$175,000 salary and the magazine deal makes it easy to see why. He was
supposed to be paid $2.15 million in 2006, 2007, and 2008, followed
by $1.7 million in 2009. In no case was he to receive less than $1 million
a year.
The governor's staff notes that there is no law against
earning outside income, but that's not the point.
His veto last year of the diet supplement legislation was
a surprise to state lawmakers because there was no organized opposition,
not even from the industry itself. It wasn't needed. Mr. Schwarzenegger
cast the only vote that counted.
This is the very definition of a powerful state politician
being in thrall to a special interest. A less charitable way to put
it is "on the take."
(source :
toledoblade.com)
