The club is gone. For most of the last two years, Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger constantly warned state legislators he would
”
go over their heads, directly to the people
”
if they didn’t kowtow.
The club is gone. For most of the last two years, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger constantly warned state legislators he would “go over their heads, directly to the people” if they didn’t kowtow.
When he didn’t get his way in Sacramento on a host of issues from personnel appointments to proposals he called reforms, he did what he promised and took watered-down versions of some of his ideas straight to the voters this fall.
In fact, no California governor ever identified more closely with a series of ballot initiatives than Schwarzenegger did with Propositions 74, 75, 76 and 77.
But all lost in last Tuesday’s voting, and the margin was close only for one.
How directly did the governor sponsor these measures? For three of them – 74, 76 and 77 – his own California Recovery Team political fund and his personal political team featuring on-leave chief of staff Pat Clary and communications director Rob Stutzman, actually ran the campaigns. For the fourth, the Proposition 75 attempt to limit labor unions’ political use of member dues, Schwarzenegger’s early and enthusiastic endorsement meant both a steady flow of campaign cash and his presence in some advertisements.
Schwarzenegger called the entire package reform, but apparently most voters did not buy the notion that these measures meant real reform. Change, maybe. But not reform.
For one thing, changing the probation period for teachers’ tenure from two years to five, as Proposition 74 aimed to do, would not change much about how teachers are hired and retained in a day of teacher shortages. Voters also suspected – helped along by some timely teachers’ union commercials – that this kind of change might lead prospective teachers to seek other work and thus cause the average number of students in classrooms to rise.
When it came to Proposition 76, voters opted not to give Schwarzenegger and his successors in perpetuity the power to make unilateral cuts in state budgets after they’ve been adopted. Again, teachers’ union commercials played a key role, pointing out the measure would give Schwarzenegger the power to cut public school funding below the levels now required by state law.
In a way, the battle over this proposition was about trust. Schwarzenegger essentially asked voters to let him exercise his will without significant impediments whenever he deems a budget crunch imminent. But he’s a governor who promised educators he would refund money he borrowed from their entitlement in 2004 – and then did not do it.
His appeal for trust also came in the immediate wake of revelations that he accepted money to promote muscle magazines and then vetoed a bill banning nutritional supplements that are their biggest advertisers from high school campuses.
Which meant he was saying “Trust me,” to voters at the very time when they were least likely to acquiesce.
Then there was Proposition 77, aiming to switch the redrawing of legislative and congressional districts from the Legislature to a panel of retired (and presumably objective) judges. From the moment this measure qualified for the ballot, voters greeted it with yawns just as they did 22 years ago when then Gov. George Deukmejian called a special election to consider something similar.
It’s a measure that made sense; a reform California plainly needs if elections are to become competitive again, rather than mere charades where members of one party hold onto particular districts with virtually no challenge.
But Democrats quickly sold voters on the notion this was merely a political ploy by the increasingly political Schwarzenegger, aimed to deprive them of their legislative majorities. Since voters weren’t very interested to begin with, most voted no.
In fact, most voted no on just about everything. By doing so, they were also voting no on Schwarzenegger, who vocally staked his populist reputation on the outcome, along with millions of his personal dollars.
Can he recover? Some say he surely can, noting he still draws standing ovations almost everywhere he goes. It would be madness to say a comeback is impossible, given Schwarzenegger’s personal magnetism and money. But maybe there was a reason California elected a series of three uninspiring, non-charismatic, strictly-business governors between the era of Jerry (Gov. Moonbeam) Brown and Schwarzenegger.
If so, that can only bode well for state Treasurer Phil Angelides and Controller Steve Westly, the equally gray figures now seeking next year’s Democratic nomination to run against Schwarzenegger.
Tom Elias is author of the “The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It.” Contact him at [email protected].
