CA: Policy disputes, miscommunications marred Gov's. special election effort

When Arnold Schwarzenegger was elected in 2003, Republicans were hopeful he would restore the credibility of their party. Since Pete Wilson's reelection in 1994, the party had been in steady decline for nearly a decade-losing every single statewide office, and mired hopelessly in the minority in both legislative houses.

Schwarzenegger built early momentum during his first year in office. But after the November 2004 election, Schwarzenegger and his advisors hatched an ambitious agenda, which would be laid out in the State of the State address in January 2005. The agenda would amount to a declaration of political war on many core Democratic constituencies including teachers, public employee unions and Democratic legislative leaders.

But the effort sputtered from the beginning, and things didn't improve as the weeks passed.

For starters, his political foes, led by the nurses association and widows of police and firefighters, demanded policy decisions. That was followed by the well-funded teachers' union, which attacked him mercilessly in a multimillion-dollar TV campaign for a breaking promise to repay $3 billion to schools. His redistricting-reform initiative was rife with drafting problems, got rewritten, and then got rewritten again. He was slammed as a special-interest fund-raiser--and, indeed, he was taking in far more money than his ousted predecessor Gray Davis ever had.

In the meantime, because of a recent ruling by the Fair Political Practices Commission, the Schwarzenegger political team was barred from taking control of the campaign operation, and the rush to meet tight signature-gathering deadlines led to a harried attempt to get solid ballot initiatives written.

"We did not have the ability to be in absolute control," said Schwarzenegger communications director Rob Stutzman, referring to the FPPC ruling. Stutzman was careful not to lay blame, but acknowledged that some of the initiatives had drafting errors, calling the initiative writing process a "disjointed process."

The governor called a special session to address four key issues: a mechanism to deal with falling budget revenues before the start of the next fiscal year, changes in the state pension system, merit pay for teachers and changes in the state's redistricting process.

The governor planned to use the threat of going to the ballot to pressure legislators into cutting a deal. But as he talked about wanting a legislative compromise, Schwarzenegger simultaneously hit the campaign trail and prepared for a potential special election. It was this dual track--talking compromise while using his political weapons--that raised the first danger signals, angering legislative leaders who felt slighted by Schwarzenegger.

This strategy had another flaw: State law effectively prohibited Schwarzenegger and his political team from overseeing the campaign effort.

The FPPC had ruled that any candidate-controlled committee would be subject to state fundraising limits outlined in Proposition 34. Schwarzenegger's team knew a special election would cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $50 million, and the FPPC ruling would have limited them to raising that money in $23,000. That was a virtual impossibility.

To get around the fundraising limits a new committee was formed. The Citizens to Save California brought together a group of the governor's political allies, all of whom were seasoned California political hands.

CSC's board consisted of six initial members: Jonathan Coupal from the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association; Chamber of Commerce President Alan Zaremberg; Small Business Action Committee President Joel Fox; Rex Hime, president of the California Business Properties Association; Larry McCarthy of the California Taxpayers Association; California Business Rountable President Bill Hauck. Later, Janet Lamkin of the California Bankers Association joined the board.

The team hired its own fundraiser, and its own political consultant, Rick Clausen, and began preparing for a possible November election.

"I know that many people think it was really just a technicality, and that the governor and his team were essentially in charge of CSC, but that absolutely was not the case," said Fox.

"We were allowed to talk to the governor, and we did consult him," said Zaremberg. "As we developed our plans, we were constantly communicating with the governor to get a feel for what he would support, and where he wanted to go."

In essence, Schwarzenegger was preparing for a political war against a well-financed, and well-organized group of foes, centralized under the leadership of the teachers union and political consultant Gale Kaufman.

Meanwhile, inside and around his administration, supporters of the governor were not in total agreement about what a special election package should look like. His political team was prohibited by state law from taking the reins of the campaign. And many members of the CSC board did not actually believe that it would actually come down to a November vote.

Zaremberg and Fox both say they wanted to begin the signature gathering process on a series of initiatives to give Schwarzenegger leverage in his negotiations with legislative leaders.

"We thought this would be like workers' comp," said Fox. "We wanted to be able to begin gathering signatures on these initiatives to help give the governor the leverage to broker a deal in the Legislature. The governor was very clear from the beginning that was his preference - to work something out with the Legislature."

CSC was obligated to put together an initiative package that was sellable to the public, and real enough to legislators to serve as a threat to get leaders to the negotiating table.

But there were some disagreements among the committee, and with the governor's team. Back in 2004, Coupal had joined with Sen. John Campbell to propose a state-spending limit. After the state of the state address, Schwarzenegger introduced his own proposal to limit state spending. The Schwarzenegger proposal was not a hard spending cap, but did give more mid-year budget cutting authority to the governor.

"The problem with the [administration's] spending limit was that it called for cuts across the board," said Fox. "There were concerns that a number of programs, particularly higher education, would be squeezed."

Another big debate inside the CSC was whether or not to directly take on the teachers' union. The governor had shied away from formally endorsing the so-called paycheck protection initiative. And while teachers unions were already angry at the governor for his January budget proposal, which did not pay back any of the $3 billion they say the governor promised public schools back in 2004, many Republicans were wary of directly taking on Proposition 98.

Ironically, while the Campbell-Coupal measure was viewed as the more stringent "hard cap" on state spending, it was the Schwarzenegger proposal that called for rewriting Proposition 98, the constitutional formula which guarantees that public schools will receive no less than about 40 percent of the state's annual budget.

Quickly, there were two camps inside CSC - the Campbell-Coupal camp pushing for the "hard cap," and the Hauck-Zaremberg camp, which worked off the model introduced in the legislature by Gov. Schwarzenegger.

As the two sides went back and forth, the governor, and his finance director Tom Campbell, were kept in the loop. But ultimately, the governor could not control the final language of the initiative.

"I sort of came down in the middle," says Fox. "And ultimately, what we ended up with was something in between the governor's plan and the John Campbell plan."

"Obviously, the governor's support was going to be critical," says Zaremberg. "But no, he was not in a position where he could say, 'This is the plan. Take it or leave it.'"

While some in the administration characterized that inability as an obstacle, Zaremberg says ultimately, it lead to a better piece of legislation. "I think the process really did help us craft a more effective measure," he said. "We all wanted essentially the same thing, we just had different ideas about how to get there."

Stutzman said the problem with Prop. 76 was that it was a complicated initiative that voters may not have completely understood. Stutzman said running a No campaign against such a measure is "the easiest thing to do."

Ultimately, CSC decided to go with a plan that tackled Proposition 98 head-on, guaranteeing a massive political reaction from the teachers' unions. CTA ultimately financed the bulk of the campaign that lead to Proposition 76's defeat.

Fox says Proposition 76 was seen as the centerpiece of the special election package. The six members of the CSC board had their expertise in state spending issues. On some of the governor's other issues that became parts of the governor's package, CSC was less involved.

In the end, Stutzman said, voters rejected the entire idea of Schwarzenegger's special election. He said that the governor would now turn away from using the ballot initiative as a political weapon, and focus on incremental change through the legislative process.

"Voters said they wanted their elected officials to solve the state's problems," Stutzman said.

Nothing was really thought through and everything looked rushed. And no one on the "Yes" side thought about how the other side would react to reforms that threatened their perks and power. All you can do now is learn where you erred and try again. A better approach is to enact reforms piecemeal rather than all at once.

(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie.Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")

It won't happen. Any one who thinks the Democrats are going to build up a mortally weakened governor in an election year is dreaming. There will be more gridlock, which suits me just fine.

(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie.Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")

LOL! The public unions own the Democrats and after having witnessed their power on display Tuesday, no Democrat worth his salt is going to double-cross them. Bad news for Californians, good news for the unions.

(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie.Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")

Same here. Its funny how the Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight sent out mailers after the election. And McNuts was the worst idea ever. I would never vote for anything he endorsed even if they were good ideas. So I didn't go and vote. I don't owe him any loyalty and I certainly don't want to see him as the GOP presidential nominee in 2008.

(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie.Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")

Regarding prop 74 (changing teacher tenure). The reason why the teacher's union (CTA) wants quick tenure is that it allows lousy teachers into the system. Lousy teachers equals lousy results equals an education crises which equals the need to hire more teachers which equals more union members which equals more membership dues so that they can pay off the loans they borrowed against future membership dues and used the money to fight prop 74. Its insane and assinine.

I agree its about them rather than about the children. But you don't tweak the system - you shake it up. Half-way measures like Prop. 74 are doomed to fail.

(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie.Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")

People were voting out of emotion and reaction rather than on the content of the propositions themselves. We held a "populist" election and got a populist outcome.

I listened to Tom Sullivan's radio program yesterday. It's a good show in that it draws commentary from a broad segment. The reactions among the Democrats (the one's that aren't screaming lunatics) and more moderate voters come down to these:
1) Many liked the measures in the propositions but voted against them because they resent a Republican getting the win and therefore being politically empowered. Anti-Bush, reactions against 2000 election stuff.
2) Resentment over having a special election in the first place. (Waste of money. Sacramento not doing it's job. Spending millions on an election, when the state is in debt, etc. )
3) Fear of the loss of job security and worker's rights. Resentment that public employees are "looked down on" by the private sector. Fear of having this idea institutionalized.(Perception of class warfare.)

I'm not saying this is rational, it's just the expressed opinions.

I like Schwarzenegger, because I think we need people with big agendas and ideals in government from time-to-time. But ideals and realities often clash.

I'm in a wait and see mode, but I think we may have witnessed the high-tide of partisan political reaction.

They fear Republicans, they love Big Government and they detest conservatives like they're Typhoid Mary. Brace yourself, its gonna get ugly here.

(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie.Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")

I thought that most voters cannot relate to the idea of "tenure"...I am sure that most people have jobs where they could be let go any time for any reason...

I guess most people don't mind about teacher tenures after all...I was wrong. People don't seem to have resentment against public employees...yet.

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