What surprised me about my one-day visit to Sacramento last week was realizing how far away it is from the Palisades, and I’m not talking about miles. Physically, from what I could see, the state capital is booming. There is major construction going on at the airport, the convention center was packed mid-week, and the bar in the lobby of my hotel was hopping at 2:30 in the afternoon. Traffic downtown was so bad it was easier to walk than to take a cab. While I found that the “suits” were not interested in talking about crime (they don’t have to: the CHP is everywhere), downtown felt as if it was on high alert, brimming in anticipation not of a terrorist attack but of an Arnold sighting at any time. Tourists visiting the capitol building, some from as far away as Japan, wanted to know if the governor was busy working in his office on the main floor. So did I. “Unfortunately, he was not in Sacramento that day, but in L.A. attending the World Affairs Council gathering, where he met with Vice-President Dick Cheney and Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge. The governor reportedly asked both of them for more federal funds for California, at a time when President Bush is trying to rally support for his own agenda, including more defense funding and his proposed immigrant “guest worker” registration program. Invited to participate in the California Newspaper Publishers Association’s annual Governmental Affairs Day, I had the opportunity to get the latest scoop on Arnold and what is apparently going on from several sources, including recently elected Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, Senate Majority Leader Don Perata, and Los Angeles Times political columnist George Skelton. Issues on their mind were term limits, redistricting, Proposition 56 (which would give legislators more budget power), and the governor’s Economic Recovery Bond (Proposition 57 on the March 2 ballot.) By the end of the day I felt like a capital insider. Not only did I have the early results of a poll indicating that the public is against the governor’s proposed bond initiative (44 percent No, to 35 percent Yes, with 21 percent undecided), I also knew where Arnold stays when he’s in town (the Hyatt across from the capitol), where he works out (the Capitol Gym), where he likes to eat (the Esquire Grill) and what he usually orders there (grilled salmon, $18). In his morning address to the 200 journalists who attended the CNPA event, Nunez (D-Los Angeles), who was elected speaker after only one year in the Legislature and officially takes over that position February 8, said the measure he uses when assessing government cuts is: “Is it fiscally and socially responsible? These are the questions that need to be asked every time.” While he did not explain how he reconciled that philosophy with the proposed 40 percent increase in some university fees, he did say that he found the new governor to be “very practical” and praised Schwarzenegger for wanting to “find a common ground” in a legislature dominated by Democrats. Perata (D-Oakland), who was elected in 1998, said that shortly after Schwarzenegger took office he welcomed him with three gifts: some wine, cigars and the Sopranos cookbook, recognizing Perata’s “Italian” roots. He amused the crowd when he quipped that he was the “powerful” chairman of the appropriations committee “until we went bankrupt!” On a more serious note, he said that as far as he could see the state has been “trying to manage growth” for the last 25 years, “ever since Proposition 13” diminished government coffers. On the question of term limits, Perata said we are now “all being governed by people who are either coming or going and everyone is looking for their next job,” which he did not view as a good thing. However, he did admit that term limits are what provided the opportunity for him to run in his district. What does he think should be done about them? “They should be longer. People like it once they get here [in Sacramento], whether they like to admit it or not.” Currently, an assemblymember can serve a maximum of three consecutive two-year terms, while senators can serve two consecutive four-year terms. The 120 elected officials in the legislature (40 are senators) all serve on working committees where issues are debated and voted on. Sometimes their work is overruled, either by the governor or by public initiatives, which Perata sees as a questionable process. He disdains “politics reduced to bumper stickers” and he does not think that “budget by the ballot box,”referring to the governor’s attempt to go directly to the people on the bond issue, is the best way to govern. Perata also said he is dubious of polls. “I don’t need a poll. I know what my constituents think. They tell me all the time.” On the proposed initiative that would allow budgets to be passed by a 55 percent legislative majority rather than the two-thirds now required (Prop. 56) Perata said he is “charmed by the thought that the public would want to give us more power than we have now” but “I don’t think it’s going to happen.” Senate Republican leader Jim Brulte (R-Rancho Cucamonga), a 12-year veteran of the Legislature, gave an analysis of why he thinks Gray Davis was recalled, saying that it basically came down to leadership, specifically the lack of it. His advice to Schwarzenegger: “Lead and the legislators will follow. And know when to say no, even to your own people.” Asked if he thought Republicans could take over both the Senate and the Assembly in the next decade, Brulte said: “Yes, it is possible.” He also thought redistricting should be taken out of the hands of legislators, which he sees as an inherent conflict of interest. Assembly Republican leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakerfield) gave an interesting account of his first year in office. “What do you think they debate in Sacramento?” he asked. “Abortion? Guns?” He then recounted how he was surprised to find himself participating in protracted discussions on such things as cross-dressers (“Don’t ask!”), parrots (“You don’t want to know”) and the benefits of feng shui (“Don’t ask about that either”), which brought laughs from the audience. In the afternoon discussion on the state of California politics, the Times’ George Skelton, who has covered the Legislature for more than 40 years, was asked what was different in Sacramento since Governor Schwarzenegger took office. “What’s different is that it’s interesting. People are interested in state politics for the first time in many years. Even legislators are asking for autographs.” Skelton said that Schwarzenegger, like Ronald Reagan, can draw crowds wherever he goes. And like Reagan, the new governor knows how to take direction. “When his strategist says, ‘Let’s pay a visit to the local church,’ the governor says ‘At what time?’ Gray Davis would have said ‘What do you want to do that for?’ Davis never wanted to go anywhere.” Skelton thinks that Schwarzenegger’s popularity could be shorted-lived, depending on what happens on March 2. “Selling voters on $15 billion in long-term borrowing to pay for current government spending is going to be an uphill battle, considering that 44 percent are against the bond issue,” Skelton said, referring to the poll released that day to the media by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California. “Is he going to sell the bond issue on Oprah?” asked Skelton. “In town hall-style meetings like he did during the election? On talk radio? What he needs is the support of Democrats.” Skelton said that, so far, he has had less direct access to Schwarzenegger “than to any other governor. I know that whatever he wants to do, he wants to do well, but I don’t know what his real priorities are. Does he have a plan B if the recovery bond fails in March? I don’t know. His entire political credibility is tied to his cuts and his pledge not to increase taxes. Whether he will or not remains to be seen. The problem right now, in this town, is that you can’t get two people to tell you the same thing. It’s difficult even to get figures verified. ” When I asked Skelton what he thought Maria Shriver’s role should be, amid reports that she has been working both behind the scenes in Sacramento while still trying to carve out a new role for herself at NBC, he suggested that of “a good wife. The governor needs her. And she wants to see him succeed.” Skelton noted that while the economy is already better than when Schwarzenegger took office, “the key for him is what happens on March 2.” This week, in fact, the governor himself was quoted in the L.A. Times as saying that if Proposition 57 and 58 both fail to pass, there will be “Armageddon cuts. Cuts in services that we don’t want to make.” Senate Majority Leader Don Perata (D-Oakland), speaking last week at the California Newspaper Publishers Association’s annual Governmental Affairs Day in Sacramento. Los Angeles Times columnist George Skelton has covered state politics in Sacramento for over 40 years.
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