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Recall Vote Challenge
Aired August 20, 2003 - 13:43 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: A key ruling due within the next hour or so out of California. A judge deciding whether the October 7 recall election will go on as planned.
Meantime, one of the 135 candidates getting into the swing of things, so to speak today, CNN national correspondent Bob Franken joins us from Los Angeles with all of that. As they say out there, you can't tell the players without a scorecard, right, Bob?
BOB FRANKEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A very, very big scorecard. Peter Ueberroth is among the candidates who I would put into the list of those who still does have a snowball's chance, but is certainly not in the top tier. Arnold Schwarzenegger, of course, showing his top- tier status by getting heavy coverage for this financial meeting.
But Peter Ueberroth has a proposal in which the state would be helped out of its financial mess by, $8 billion projected deficit, by among other things, having a tax amnesty, where people would be allowed to pay taxes they owe before they're prosecuted for owing it. He says that would make up about $6 billion dollars of the deficit. He also would put in some budget cuts, and also would tighten up alleged fraud in the MediCal system, which is the Medicare system in this state, for poor people.
That of course is similar to the proposal made by the Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante, the Democrat, yesterday. That was part of his package. The Bustamante package also includes all kinds of taxes on the wealthy, corporations, cigarettes, and alcohol, which many people believe is going to have a tough time passing the legislature, as it did with Governor Gray Davis.
for the lawsuit, you'll remember, Miles, that the ACLU is saying that because the six most populous counties in California still use the discredited voting card machines, those people, in effect, are disenfranchised, therefore, the election should be delayed until March when the new machines are in. The judge was quite skeptical about that, saying in his line of questioning that he would be overcoming the rights of the California voters to make a choice that they've said that they wanted to under the law.
Now if he follows his line of questioning, he's going to turn that down. But judges have this bad habit of surprising people with their rulings. We should find out about it within the next hour or so, as you said. The one certainty we have is that there will be an appeal and that this recall campaign, at least for a while, will continue, one of the strangest political episodes any of us have ever witnessed -- Miles. O'BRIEN: CNN's Bob Franken, out there on the left coast. Thank you very much.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired August 20, 2003 - 13:43 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: A key ruling due within the next hour or so out of California. A judge deciding whether the October 7 recall election will go on as planned.
Meantime, one of the 135 candidates getting into the swing of things, so to speak today, CNN national correspondent Bob Franken joins us from Los Angeles with all of that. As they say out there, you can't tell the players without a scorecard, right, Bob?
BOB FRANKEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A very, very big scorecard. Peter Ueberroth is among the candidates who I would put into the list of those who still does have a snowball's chance, but is certainly not in the top tier. Arnold Schwarzenegger, of course, showing his top- tier status by getting heavy coverage for this financial meeting.
But Peter Ueberroth has a proposal in which the state would be helped out of its financial mess by, $8 billion projected deficit, by among other things, having a tax amnesty, where people would be allowed to pay taxes they owe before they're prosecuted for owing it. He says that would make up about $6 billion dollars of the deficit. He also would put in some budget cuts, and also would tighten up alleged fraud in the MediCal system, which is the Medicare system in this state, for poor people.
That of course is similar to the proposal made by the Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante, the Democrat, yesterday. That was part of his package. The Bustamante package also includes all kinds of taxes on the wealthy, corporations, cigarettes, and alcohol, which many people believe is going to have a tough time passing the legislature, as it did with Governor Gray Davis.
for the lawsuit, you'll remember, Miles, that the ACLU is saying that because the six most populous counties in California still use the discredited voting card machines, those people, in effect, are disenfranchised, therefore, the election should be delayed until March when the new machines are in. The judge was quite skeptical about that, saying in his line of questioning that he would be overcoming the rights of the California voters to make a choice that they've said that they wanted to under the law.
Now if he follows his line of questioning, he's going to turn that down. But judges have this bad habit of surprising people with their rulings. We should find out about it within the next hour or so, as you said. The one certainty we have is that there will be an appeal and that this recall campaign, at least for a while, will continue, one of the strangest political episodes any of us have ever witnessed -- Miles. O'BRIEN: CNN's Bob Franken, out there on the left coast. Thank you very much.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
