Bad guys may loose this one
“Needless to say, the thought of Chuck Reed’s pension measure being funded by an Enron trader who worked for Ken Lay (headline above) at the same company that screwed California during the energy crisis – and who robbed Enron’s employees and tens of thousands of stockholders of their retirement savings – gives Reed’s opponents a Big. Fat. Target.
Chuck Reed, the mayor of San Jose, is having a tough time with his ballot initiative that seeks to give local politicians the power to break their promises to teachers, firefighters, police officers and other public employees to provide them with a secure retirement.
In an opinion piece published this week on the site Calbuzz, Steve Maviglio, a former press secretary for Gov. Gray Davis and principal at Forza Communications and a spokesperson for Californians for Retirement Security, says the publication “Inside San Jose” exposed a $200,000 payment made at the behest of Reed to lay the groundwork for the ballot measure from a Texas-based group. “I’m not going to reveal names, because they’ll end up in your newspaper and people might cause trouble for them,” Reed told the website’s reporter.
Shedding light on Reed’s dark money, the reporter tracked it to John Arnold. Described by Rolling Stone writer Matt Taibbi as “a dickishly ubiquitous young right-wing kingmaker with clear designs on becoming the next generation’s Koch brothers,” Arnold is a Texas billionaire who made his money at Enron. Needless to say, the thought of Reed’s pension measure being funded by an Enron trader who screwed California during the energy crisis – and who robbed Enron’s employees and tens of thousands of stockholders of their retirement savings – gives Reed’s opponents a Big. Fat. Target.
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