Californians Hobson’s Choice: Barbara Boxer or Carly Fiorina

By Joe Guzzardi
September 21, 2010

Californians struggling with a $20 billion budget deficit, a 12 percent unemployment rate and one of the nation’s highest levels of home foreclosures find little comfort in the November Senate race.

Voters can choose between Carly Fiorina, a wealthy establishment Republican political neophyte or her formidable three-term Democratic incumbent opponent Barbara Boxer who is indebted to those same establishment types.

Hard to believe though it is in this painful economic period, Boxer and Fiorina are avid supporters of the non-immigrant H-1B work visa that has displaced thousands of Americans through out Silicon Valley and across the country.

Since it was created nearly two decades ago, the H-1B program has adversely affected America’s most well educated workers. Unscrupulous employers looking for cheap and vulnerable labor have bent the H-1B visa rules to fill jobs with eager foreign-born workers.

Those who bear the greatest burden from increasing reliance on the H-1B are tech workers who, at best, have suffered from depressed wages or, at worst, lost their jobs to overseas replacements. Older, more experienced tech workers with advanced degrees are particularly vulnerable.

Despite ample evidence that the H-1B is hurtful to American workers, for nearly 20 years, Boxer has voted for every proposed Congressional increase in the numbers of visas issued.

Fiorina would love the chance to do the same. In 2004 Fiorina told Congress: “There is no job that is America’s God-given right anymore. We have to compete for jobs as a nation.”

Actively promoting what she calls the “California Agenda,” Fiorina formed the egomaniacally named “Carly Fiorina Enterprises” to focus on globalism or, as she calls it, to “build a bridge” between Silicon Valley and the Beltway.

Fiorina’s intends to use her extensive political connections on Capitol Hill to help the foreign-born worker dominated technology industry. In short, Fiorina wants more immigration and no cap on H-1B visas.

Boxer has attacked Fiorina’s jobs record. Referring to the 30,000 employees Fiorina laid off during her six year tenure as Hewlett-Packard’s Chief Executive Officer, Boxer launched an add with this comment: "And while Californians lost their jobs, Fiorina tripled her salary, bought a million-dollar yacht and five corporate jets … Carly Fiorina. Outsourcing jobs. Out for herself."

But Boxer remains understandably silent about her own voting record that mirrors Fiorina’s enthusiasm for foreign-born workers. At various times during her Congressional career, Boxer has voted to double and even triple the caps on non-immigrant visas despite empirical evidence that there is no American worker shortage.

Among Fiorina’s most daunting challenges is to overcome her corporate elitist background. As Californians struggle to pay their daily bills and watch their home equity disappear, Fiorina after earning nearly $180 million at HP walked away with a severance package estimated at between $20 and $40 million. After she was forced out, shareholders sued, claiming that the board of directors should have let them determine her final pay package.

Even though working class Californians are disgusted by corporate excess, Fiorina opposes President Barack Obama’s proposal to limit executive pay to $500,000 annually.

But Boxer has one negative that may be insurmountable: she’s a Democratic incumbent running in a fiercely anti-incumbent atmosphere. Don’t underestimate her, however.

In Boxer’s 2004 election against former California Secretary of State Bill Jones, she racked up a record 6.9 million votes, the highest in Senate history, on her way to a landslide 60 percent win.

Since voters have no compelling reason to vote for Fiorina, except that she’s neither a Democrat nor the incumbent, I expect Boxer to prevail. One thing Boxer has proven over her nearly three decades in Congress is that she knows how to survive.

Joe Guzzardi has written editorial columns—mostly about immigration and related social issues – since 1990. He is a senior writing fellow for Californians for Population Stabilization (CAPS) and his columns have frequently been syndicated in various U.S. newspapers and websites. He can be reached at [email protected].