Crime against democracy

As a Californian, I look at the Bush administration offering aid money to the states recently hit by hurricanes, and I can't help but feel a little bitter.\nThree years ago, Bush gave my state the cold shoulder in the midst of an energy crisis, for which one of his biggest campaign contributors was partially responsible. In the end, the administration ignored the pleas of publicly elected officials and consulted the private sector to decide America's energy policy. For this error, the men and women in Bush's administration are enemies of democracy.\nAccording to the Los Angeles Times, one-eighth of our nation's population has chosen to squeeze itself into the state of California. The demand for resources, like water, electricity and gasoline is very high. Unfortunately, because environmental regulations in that state are so strict, it is almost impossible to build new power plants. Additionally, older plants are forced to shut down as their pollution emissions exceed acceptable limits. Because of this predicament, California has to buy energy from other states, and it makes these transactions through energy traders like those who worked for Enron.\nMaybe you know where this is going.\nIn 2001 Enron started gouging California, increasing prices by more than 1,000 percent, for no legitimate reason. The truth was Enron rewarded its energy traders for closing as many deals for as great a profit as possible, with all sorts of perks, benefits, vacations and such. They manufactured excuses to increase prices -- like sending surges on power lines, effectively making those lines useless. After extracting an extra charge to "perform repairs" on the lines, Enron stopped the surge so energy flow could resume as normal.\nPrices were so high and electricity was so scarce, California couldn't keep the lights on. With rolling blackouts, there was no way to keep cool, and some Californians died in the summer heat. Businesses could not guarantee they'd be able to serve their customers, and they had to either shut down or leave the state.\nIn the midst of all this, a number of senators and representatives from California wrote letters to the president begging him to intervene and impose a federal price cap on electricity sales -- pleading for the lives and livelihoods of their constituents. Their pleas fell on deaf ears.\nMonths later, after news of the Enron scandal broke, word got out that Dick Cheney was meeting with Enron officials while making decisions about America's energy policy.\nWhat is fundamentally wrong here is California's senators and representatives are supposed to represent the people of California. Our government claims to be, after all, a representative democracy. By ignoring these elected officials, the Bush administration chose to neglect the voice of one-eighth of the population instead favoring the voices of a few wealthy businessmen.\nAlthough wealthy businessmen do have the freedom to share their opinions with the government, they should be allowed to do so only through proper democratic channels. If Ken Lay wants to share his opinion about energy policy, he should send his elected representative a note, just as I have a right to send one to my own.\nWhen public officials fail to serve the public, catering instead to private interests, they assault on the democratic system that placed them in power and should be impeached.\nNow I look at the president offering a helping hand to the Southeastern states when he never offered one to my state. I know it's an election year, and the Bush campaign will try to help the states hit by hurricanes to win more votes.\nIf the public wants to entrust its votes to an administration that would rather the public didn't have a vote, they can go right ahead and do that. Throw your vote away.