Petrelis Files

(CA insurance commissioner John Garamendi, Democrat.)














CA Dem Garamendi Lies About Sodomy Votes?

I've never been one to give Democrats a pass simply because they're the lesser-of-two-evils when it comes to gay and HIV issues, a stance that drives many of Democratic Party friends crazy.

In my view, one of the biggest dilemmas facing American democracy is the corrupt two-party system, a system controlled by Democrats and the GOP to keep out Greens, Libertarians, Socialists, other third parties and independents from full participation in the political process. For all the lip-service Democrats and Republican pay to competition in general, and in endorsing a strong marketplace of ideas, both major parties are all too content to maintain their duopoly.

As a registered Green Party voter, I can't hold my nose and vote for a lousy Democrat, like Nancy Pelosi or Gray Davis, and I always get the feeling from Democrats, when they screw over gays, that they take the gay voter for granted and don't expect the community to hold them accountable. After all, too many Democratic leaders believe, the gays won't leave the party to join the openly antigay GOP or vote for their candidates, so there's little incentive for Democrats to always and consistently defend gay rights.

Today's Bay Area Reporter newspaper features a page-one story about one such Democrat -- John Garamendi. He currently serves as California's insurance commissioner and wants to be elected in November as the state's lieutenant governor. Seems as though Garamendi did not side with us gays in the 1970s when sodomy repeal was pending in the legislature:

From the BAR:

Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi, now running in the Democratic primary for lieutenant governor, did not vote for the repeal of sodomy laws 30 years ago when he served in the state Assembly, despite a Los Angeles gay Democrat's claim to the contrary in a letter sent to LGBT political clubs that were considering candidate endorsements.

Eric Bauman, chair of the Los Angeles Democratic County Central Committee and a top aide to Garamendi in the Department of Insurance, sent out a letter on February 11 in which he implies that Garamendi voted for Assembly Bill 489 and "stood up for a group of people who had few champions ..." in 1975 when the bill, which decriminalized state sodomy laws, was up for a vote.

In fact, then-Assemblyman Garamendi, who represented a conservative area outside of Sacramento, voted against the bill authored by then-Assembly Speaker Willie Brown not once, but twice, according to the Assembly Journal.

AB489 ultimately passed the legislature and was signed into law by then-Governor Jerry Brown. It decriminalized sodomy and adultery between consenting adults. [...]

But Robert Oakes, a member of the Stonewall Democratic Club in Sacramento, told the B.A.R. that he is still waiting for the retraction regarding the misinformation about AB489 contained in Bauman's letter. [...]

At an earlier club meeting in February, Garamendi was present, Oakes said, adding that he was asked about the February 11 Bauman letter.

"He took a duck," Oakes said, adding that Garamendi said he could not remember every vote he had cast while in the legislature.

"We were told by his campaign that it would issue a retraction. That has yet to happen," Oakes said Tuesday. [...]

Former San Francisco Supervisor Leslie Katz, now chair of the San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee, was one of several local LGBT leaders who signed a February 21 letter to "LGBT community leaders" alerting them to the issue.

"Recently, at a Sacramento Stonewall Democratic Club meeting, Insurance Commissioner Garamendi, candidate for lieutenant governor, took credit for taking a risk in his district by casting a tie-breaking vote ...," Katz's letter began. It then went on to state that Garamendi voted against the Brown "consenting adults" bill.

Katz told the B.A.R. that she and others, including Oakes, sent the letter because they felt the community was being misled. [...]

Imagine that. Democrats misleading gay voters, and a Democrat in the most liberal of states, California! Our gay community, as a whole, and individuals, should support alternatives to the two major parties, like voting Green, and in the process, forcing the Democrats to actively compete for our votes and stop treating us as battered spouses or domestic partners, too fearful of leaving an abusive relationship.