Central Valley Football Follies--Or “You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown”

Nicole wanted Dean to go slow or some such nonsense and tag-teamed early-on with Republican State Senator John Denham from Salinas and Democratic Congressman Sam Farr from Monterey County to thwart Florez’ efforts.

Now I can understand why State Senator Denham and Congressman Sam Farr would want to distract attention from Florez’ potent review of something that seems bad like 9 E.coli0157H:7 toxic outbreaks in the last 10 years. These terrible events were on their “watch”. But what’s Nicole’s interest? I couldn’t figure out why she would be interested in pulling the football away again when Dean Florez is about to kick it. Hey, couldn’t her constituents eat tainted and contaminated spinach and lettuce just like everybody else? Isn’t that important?

Well, many of us know that Nicole has been attacking Florez since almost from the day she was elected to public office. There’s nothing new there. Florez seems to do things right while she, well… seems to smoke cigars and drink with the boys as well as be on the lobbyist side of an issue. In addition, their districts are very close geographically to each other so it’s natural that some jealousy would erupt when she is undoubtedly compared to Dean Florez on a daily basis.

But even that did not seem to be enough motivation in this case. Back in 2006, she’d been unusually nasty in her choice of words and attitude for what Florez is trying to do. Whatever happened to scholarly debate and statesman-like behavior in elected public office? Heck, she’s in the same party as Dean Florez.

But Why, You Ask

But there may be have been other motives for Parra’s behavior.

Motive #1 – The Cal Dooley Connection

Nicole if you recall, was a staffer and employee for California Ex-Congressman Cal Dooley a number of years ago before she ran for office. Old “Cal” has gone on to be in charge of perhaps the biggest food processing lobby (trade association) in the United States and it’s named the Food Products Association (FPA). Now these guys are big and spend big money each year influencing legislation on behalf of the food industry clients and they have been having some trouble,,, maybe Nicole is trying to help?

It also turns out that Cal’s organization has been in big trouble in Washington, D.C having employed relatives of White House staff to lobby Congress, among other things. An example is an article from MSNBC news:

WASHINGTON - Critics of legislation to curtail warning labels on food have adopted a personal strategy: showcasing ties that some lawmakers have to food industry lobbyists.

According to reports filed with Congress, people lobbying against the labeling bill include former House Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio staffers Mason Wiggins, lobbyist for the Food Products Association, an industry trade group.

Also listed is Brad Card, brother of White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card and former top aide to Rep. John Sweeney, R-N.Y. Brad Card has lobbied on food labeling issues for the Food Products Association. The association is headed by a former congressman, Democrat Cal Dooley of California.

“It’s a perfect storm of insider access, big money and bad policy,” said Andy Igrejas of the Washington-based National Environmental Trust, which did the lobbying research. “They’re sweeping away 200 state laws without a hearing, all because very wealthy interests want them to."

Cal Dooley is identified on the Internet as “Treasurer of Food Products Association PAC” and therefore very influential in whom the Association decides to give money to in Congress.

Well, as if it couldn’t get worse for hapless Cal Dooley, now comes the consumers’ friend in California, Dean Florez, who discovers and reports in a public State Hearing on October 11th some highly inept performance in food safety on behalf of the State of California as well as various Federal agencies. That kind of publicity is not good for old Cal because it could throw unwanted light on some suspicious goings on which he would undoubtedly just like to go away. It also makes trouble for his employers, the industrial members of his Food Products Association. That kind of thing usually has members calling up and asking him what he can do about this trouble Dean Florez is making for their business – a business called the “Vegetable-Industrial Complex” by the New York Times.

Motive #2 – The leadership Chair on the Assembly Agriculture Committee

We now know that Nicole Parra was angling to get the Chair of the Ag Committee which she was granted this legislative session.

In the past, the media would often cover Parra and Florez political differences almost as “sport”. It would all too often be portrayed as just another dust-up between two political rivals rather than serious public policy issues with serious consequences for the Central Valley, California, and many times, the entire nation. The Bakersfield Californian even once asked the Rodney King question of the two of them, “Can’t we all just get along?” Too often the picture was drawn for us that these two were simply engaging in their usual jousting and there wasn’t much reason for us to give it any serious concern.

On June 27, 2007 and in the Assembly Agriculture Committee which is now chaired by Nicole Parra, she joined Republicans in voting against the Florez leafy greens tracking system bill, SB 202. According to press reports, she was also poised to vote against SB 200 and SB 201, also authored by Florez, which would establish a state leafy green inspection program and set fines of up to $10,000 for failure to comply. As Chairperson, Parra was able to get the two bill shelved and didn’t even allow the bills to come to a Committee vote after having been passed by the Senate.

In a San Francisco Chronicle report of the event, it was written that “after the hearing, Florez called the committee members cowards for failing to bring two of the bills to a vote. Parra responded that she'd been called worse.”

Parra’s Fundraising

Looking further at the analogy to Lucy Van Pelt and Nicole Parra you may remember that Lucy charged someone 5 cents to talk to her at her “psychiatric” stand. Well Lucy may still charge only 5 cents but that fee has gone up plenty in case of Nicole Parra. According to the Civil Justice Association of California (CJAC) in her first election in 2002 Parra collected $229,000 from personal injury lawyers, $118,000 in what they called stealth "independent expenditures". CJAC President John H. Sullivan said, "Despite contribution limits, this special interest group has dumped hundreds of thousands of dollars into target races – sometimes more money than their candidates have raised from all other sources combined," said John H. Sullivan, president. "If there was ever a situation where the term ‘trying to buy an election’ fits, this is it."

CJAC in March, 2003 reported that Parra had eventually taken the tidy sum of $358,000 from “trial lawyers”. Not a bad haul for her first election.

In the more recent past, our “Lucy” has switched horses in terms of who provides her the big buck contributions. Stanford University’s “The Cardinal” reported that the 2006 election had Parra collecting over $700,000 from Democratic Party county committees outside of her district, and as far away as San Diego to help her barely win in her tightly contested re-election race last fall. Stanford’s authors pointed out that under the terms of Proposition 34, which in 2000 set up many of the California campaign finance rules that are still used, parties (including local party committees) are not subject to the same contribution and donation limits as other groups, such as political action committees.

They can raise unlimited funds from a group or individual, but can only donate $27,900 from each entity to a particular candidate. Therefore if ten donors each give a local party $100,000, the party can only give $279,000 to any one candidate. Donors use this loophole to circumvent the $3,300 contribution limit, they say. And I say, if anyone can exploit a loophole, it would be Lucy, uh…, Nicole.

Before we leave the subject of huge political contributions to Nicole Parra, let’s cover the tribal gaming casinos. In an October 23, 2006 article in the Bakersfield Californian, Vic Pollard reported that “Indian tribes and Democratic leaders have poured almost $1 million into the effort to re-elect Assemblywoman Nicole Parra in the last three weeks, leaving her Republican opponent, Danny Gilmore, well behind in the money chase.” The article went on to say, “in overnight contribution reports since Sept. 30, Parra's campaign committee has received almost $545,000 from Democratic Party sources. That is in addition to $422,000 in independent expenditures in support of Parra reported last week by a consortium of Indian gaming tribes, apparently for broadcast and direct mail advertising services.”

Truth or Consequences?

I find this interesting because as I recall, Charlie, aka Dean Florez has received a lion’s share of criticism for some of his interactions with Indian tribes. Well I say to that, it sure wasn’t for taking $422,000 of their money! Oh, in spite of all this money and outspending her opponent almost 3 to 1, Parra almost lost this election too, winning by a scant number of votes against a retired CHP officer with virtually no political experience and who only spent one-third the money of Parra.

We need to stop viewing serious politics in the Central Valley as a spectator sport. We’re not at the Saturday night Fresno Bulldog football game where the stakes are a possible berth in the BCS.

This E.coli 0157H:7 food safety issue and politics is about real life and there is “real life” serious fighting going on here for our food safety. The stakes are the lives of people like that 2-year old child who trustingly accepted a fresh spinach smoothie from his parents and then died of E.coli 0157H7 created kidney disease. That’s not the same as a football score most will forget in a few weeks. This isn’t a playing of WWE Friday Night Smackdown; this is about the health of your family and friends.

Those parents of that child and those around them will never forget it either. You’d think even Nicole Parra, Senator John Denham and Congressman Sam Farr could understand that too. One would hope…

How many more times are we going to let Nicole “Lucy” Parra pull the “public interest” football?

Frank Pecarich retired from the Washington, D.C. headquarters of the US Bureau of Reclamation in 1987. During his 26 year federal career he worked as a soil scientist with the USDA on the now- published Soil Survey for Monterey County. He lives in Ventura County.

Related articles that have been published by the California Progress Report by Mr. Pecarich can be found under the topic of Food Safety . http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/food_safety/index.html