BY MIDNIGHT West Coast time tonight, Arnold Schwarzenegger will have solved California's fiscal mess. Well, not solved it, exactly, but he is poised to deliver on the last of his big three recall promises. The Governator wants the legislature to sign off on a $15 billion deficit bond, which voters will have to approve next March. Schwarzenegger could get a version of that as soon as tonight, as well as a spending cap (he calls it a "never again spending limit") that gives him more control over the budget process in fiscal fights to come.
For those of you keeping score, here's where Schwarzenegger stands after three weeks on the job. On Day One, he signed an executive order overturning the tripling of the state's car tax. On Day 17, he signed a bill repealing the measure granting drivers' licenses to illegal aliens. By the close of business, on Day 19, he may have his budget fix and spending cap. Schwarzenegger promised to deliver those three items in his first 100 days as governor. He's about to pull it off in one-fifth the time.
What's the secret behind this flexkrieg? It has more to do with leverage than it does muscle. Some exerted by the governor (Schwarzenegger killed the car tax increase on his own, by executive fiat). Some exerted by voters (Democrats were staring down the barrel of a referendum next spring if they didn't go along with Arnold on the drivers' license bill). And still more exerted by political reality: lawmakers
had until tonight to pass the bond to get it on the March ballot; plus, if the legislature doesn't go along with the bond bailout, the options are spending cuts and tax increases voters simply won't abide. Schwarzenegger understood this leverage and used it to his benefit. The star of "Hercules in New York" turns out to be Archimedes in Sacramento.
Does this mean that Schwarzenegger has free license, and his opponents are in free fall? Not quite. Already, Democrats have shown a willingness to engage Arnold beyond Sacramento, which suggests there will be some semblance of a permanent campaign against the Governator. During the bond debate, state treasurer Phil Angelides, a Democrat with his eyes on a gubernatorial run in 2006, offered a counter plan to Schwarzenegger's. Angelides played the usual Democratic pity card, saying he'd rather raise taxes on the wealthy than cut services for children and the disabled. And he hastily set up a committee--Californians Against Mortgaging Our Future--to get out the message with a TV buy (among the heavy donors: Hollywood producer Steven Bing, more famously known as the sire of Elizabeth Hurley's child). Odds are California's first couple didn't care for the ad, which borrowed liberally from Maria's Shriver's uncle: "Instead of asking what we can do for our children, Governor Schwarzenegger is asking what our children can do for us."
Raise their voices they might, but the leading Democrats in Sacramento aren't in sync when it comes to impeding Schwarzenegger. Attorney general Bill Lockyer's approach: be an irritant. He's told reporters that Arnold needs to investigate and then publicly disclose his groping past. Angelides' strategy is to create a shadow government with alternative proposals. Then there's state controller Steve Westly, who prefers to take the high road (for now); he sided with Schwarzenegger during the bond debate. It's worth nothing that Westly, unlike the term-limited Lockyer and Angelides, can run for reelection in 2006. Why pick a fight with a governor whose coattails could terminate him?
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