Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger got some more very good news in the form of the Public Policy Institute (PPIC) poll showing big support for him, his “post-partisan” approach, and his signature issues. But, showing the learning curve from two years ago, he’s making adjustments rather than simply rely on his renewed lofty poll ratings.
Not only do big majorities of Californians like him and the bipartisan cooperation he brought to Sacramento last year, and feel good about the direction of the state because they expect it to continue, they like his signature issues. Schwarzenegger’s environmental moves on climate change and renewable energy are widely popular. Last year’s Big Bang Bonds infrastructure deal worked out with Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata and Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, with Republican legislative leaders Dick Ackerman, Kevin McCarthy, and George Plescia also playing important roles, turned out to be a big political success. So much so that 63% say they are on board with Schwarzenegger’s call for another $43 billion in infrastructure spending. And some 70% are for his comprehensive health care concept.
But Schwarzenegger knows that keeping the public on board with the agenda, not to mention somewhat fractious legislative Republicans, means that he can’t simply move on to the next thing, as he might have in the past.
So Schwarzenegger issued an executive order this week setting up accountability standards and performance reviews for the current crop of infrastructure bonds.
It made Assembly Minority Leader Mike Villines, a conservative who has shown distinct signs of not being a post-partisan kind of guy, quite happy. He appeared with the governor and penned a column praising his actions on the conservative Republican Flash Report.
Of course, a bit more will be required. For one thing, the former action superstar needs to get a new chief of the Business, Transportation, and Housing Agency, which will be responsible for much of the infrastructure spending. Secretary Sunne Wright McPeak announced her resignation months ago.
For another, Schwarzenegger will need to make sure the legislative Democrats, and a voracious Capitol lobbying corps, rein in even their subtlest moves toward a porkfest.
As for Schwarzenegger’s health care proposal, he is working assiduously to line up needed business support. People who don’t really want the government involved in health care, for a variety of reasons, point to a decision by a very conservative federal court in Maryland as making the governor’s employer mandates moot. That court said that the particular state law it ruled on was preempted by federal legislation.
Schwarzenegger’s lawyers think it doesn’t apply to his plan. In any event, he is full speed ahead on the issue. The plan, not unlike Hillary Clinton’s plan in the ’90s, could end up nibbled to death by vicious ducks. Or it may not.
Its passage is actually fairly straightforward. If Democratic legislative leaders hold their people together, it goes to the governor’s desk for signature.
After all, the Democratic majority Legislature passed a not dissimilar plan in 2002, by then Senate President Pro Tem John Burton, which was promptly signed by Gray Davis. A two-thirds vote was not required. It was only knocked out by a November 2004 referendum, which trailed until the rather late intervention of one Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger.
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| Comments (22) |
Schwarzenegger has learned to throw some bones, that’s good.
It is too bad Schwarzeneger didn’t get it before he wasted everybody’s time in 2005.
The governor has learned a lot. He knows it’s not simply all about him. Just mostly.
Maybe Schwarzie is finally getting it. We’ll see.
He is doing a lot better.
I see twitty Bob Salladay at La Times political blog doing another snarky hit on Schwarzeneger about his body this time. It’s beyond pathetic over there.
Arnold is definitely doing better. He has vastly improved in the last two years, and he wasn’t all that bad before that.
It takes a bit to learn the complexities of how government works. You need to understand what the levers do to pull them effectively. The classic biography of Robert Moses The Power Broker by Robert Caro explains how Moses’ mastery of the art of bill drafting was one of the keys to his ability to gather and wield power. It may make your head work but details matter.
Kudos to the Governor for staying on top of bond oversight–many of us who supported them understood that we had to avoid allowing them to become porkbarrel.
I mean make you head hurt but details matter…
Hastening the further slide down into the abyss of socialism … with a big smile.
Uh,, Yeah,, Progress.. Right.
No ,, Just another Progressive with a huge Q factor leading the lemmings over the precipice.
RE: Exec Order Bond Spending Accountability
Porkbusters – California Style
Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis famously remarked that states are “laboratories of democracy” bringing new, innovative ideas to the evolution of governance and public policy. Standing this proposition on its head, recent legislative developments in Congress (of all places) have presented states with a model of government fiscal reform. Against all odds, and led on by Instapundit Glenn Reynolds and others, the so-called blogging community on the Internet, Congress this fall passed The Federal Funding Accountability And Transparency Act of 2006.
It will require full disclosure of all entities and organizations receiving Federal funds. This Act was instigated as a result of the national outrage at so-called budget “earmarks” – language in budget bills which identify a specific project, often with questionable justification, in a specific jurisdiction, like the “bridge to nowhere” in Alaska, primarily so congressional representatives can claim they “brought home the bacon”. Ergo, the name – pork. The federal government awards approximately $300 billion in grants to roughly 30,000 different organizations. Each year, roughly one million contracts exceed the $25,000 reporting threshold.
California’s numbers are not quite so vast, but the state’s new, voter approved, $42.7 billion infrastructure bond package makes for quite a tempting target for legislative legerdemain. As the Sacramento Bee’s Dan Walters recently explained, this Horn of Plenty provides an opportunity for our state’s political leaders in the Schwarzenegger Administration and the legislature to “undo three decades of neglect. And they’d better not screw it up”.
To this point, the Bee’s Editorial Page called for performance audits of bond infrastructure spending. However, while well intentioned and appropriate, they still represent closing the proverbial barn door after the cows have vamoosed. Not to mentioned that the state’s recent notorious initiatives in the audit arena have suffered from political paralysis (see Attorney General Locklear’s Oracle software licenses investigation and the State Auditor’s pathetic report on Lt. Governor-elect Garamendi’s Executive Life fiasco.
No, the state must be proactive in its oversight, and different. This time around, opening the shades of the government financial bureaucracy long before the money is spent, for viewing by not only government inspectors, but to what Reynolds classifies as an “Army of Davids”, average Joes’, the techno-citizen at large who can take on not only main stream media but also an incompetent, even corrupt government operation. Just like they did with the obscene federal earmarks.
Starting with the determination of the first earmark, opps, I mean, first truly justified project, the state will provide a description of the project, the legislative district where the project will occur, the project’s budget and schedule, and subsequently the winning vendors for the contract award; after that, show costs against budgets.
Yes, it’s time the State of California, with its ancient accounting and financial systems, and its billions of dollars in grants and other contracts, it’s time for us to take a lesson from the Feds. A new California Funding Accountability And Transparency Act of 2007 will shed significant daylight on billions in state funding and the legislators behind it, and bring much greater public understanding of how our tax dollars are being spent.
Just like the federal law, the State of California would build an easy-to-use Web database containing detailed information about all the projects, grants, funds, and contracts that the state hands out. This database would allow virtually anyone, anywhere to see how much money a state project received, where the project will occur, who sponsored the spending, who receives the grants, and who got the contract.
And, to ensure that public oversight is timely, information about project and funding approval would, by law, have to be posted within 30 days of when the state authorized the money. We need to be sure that money is spent wisely. This time, “they’d better not screw it up”, ‘cause we’ll all be watching
Call it Porkbusters – California Style.
Dec 2006 Sac UNION by JTF
This is all “socialism.” Right. From Comrade Arnold. To a right-wing extremist. lol
That’s a very good post, JT. But can we keep them a little shorter? Thanks!
Gov. Schwarzenegger has lost the silly arrogance that held him back and replaced it with an appealing confidence and “relative” humility.
As distinguished from relative humidity, no doubt.
Schwarzeneger was so arrogant after he was first elected.
Say it isn’t so.
Okay Bill, I was big for Phil and had to bust my @#$ all of 2005 fighting against ARNOLD’s signature issues. But, he has changed and I think he really does want health care for all CA’s. His proposal (rather comprehensive)proves that he’s willing to take risks to do something real. For a little while, it should be less about the details and more about the need for real, comprehensive reform despite that there are problems with his proposal. In the end, what matters is that people be able to get the health care they need when they need it, not just the health care they can afford. But if we let the debate sink to the details and pick them all apart, we lose and the obstructionists (who benefit from the status quo) WIN. So, I’m for getting more voters engaged in that debate while also working with the legislature to iron out the details that get people health care that keeps them well. That will allow us to discuss it more rationally in the public arena rather allow Harry and Louise (remember the ads of the Clinton era?) to destroy our opportunity for real change for another decade.
You people need to leave me alone.
Arnold
http://www.arnoldspeaks.com
Thanks, JAM. 2005 was a painful year. That is a complicated story.
Here is an interesting little factoid. When Arnold Schwarzenegger was getting into politics in a serious way at the beginning of the decade — well before people knew he was doing it — he was talking about doing an initiative to get his feet wet and start being a real political figure before running for governor.
This is what he wanted to do. A comprehensive health care initiative.
His Pete Wilson consultants were aghast.
The man makes way too much sense. Obviously he will be villified and cast asside by the democratic plantation owners and those that depend on government handouts as opposed to actually earning a living.
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