Dear Friend,

Arnold Schwarzenegger has been a disaster for California and we should expect nothing less than Schwarzenegger’s third term with Meg Whitman.  

We know what electing a naïve political “outsider” who will “run California like a business” means for our future.

But late Thursday night – the reality could not have been made clearer.

After all the TV cameras and journalists had gone home, Schwarzenegger took an axe to several important bills that would enhance transparency at our public universities, combat the HIV/AIDS epidemic and fund critical domestic violence shelters.

Schwarzenegger sided with Sarah Palin and well-heeled donors by vetoing SB 330, which would have subject all aspects of our public universities to the state’s public records act – despite strong bipartisan support and endorsement from California’s major newspapers.

Schwarzenegger, like George W. Bush, ignored public health experts by vetoing legislation to allow pharmacies to sell sterile needles to adults without a prescription. 47 states have amended their laws in light of overwhelming evidence that criminalizing access to sterile syringes led drug users to share used ones, and that sharing syringes spread HIV, hepatitis B, hepatitis C and other blood-borne diseases.

Schwarzenegger continued a disturbing trend on women’s issues, vetoing legislation to allow local communities to raise a fee to fund domestic violence shelters.  After eliminating all funding for domestic violence shelters two years in a row, he has now forced battered women and their children into a choice between homelessness and returning to their abuser. These victims literally cannot survive another year with this Governor.

Friends, we’ve seen this movie before. The “political outsider” who chooses to listen to the “powerful Sacramento interests” he promised to ignore over and over again. Meg Whitman will be Arnold’s third term – and she is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to buy this election.

Jerry Brown needs our help — Will you join me in supporting Jerry Brown today?

With your help, we can finally elect a governor who will do right by the people he was elected to serve.

Sincerely,

Senator Leland Yee