In many ways, the upcoming special election is Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s to lose.
An almost incalculably popular movie star, the Republican Schwarzenegger was swept into office by popular discontent during the last special election, the unprecedented recall of Democrat Gray Davis, just two years ago.
Gov. Schwarzenegger has since tapped that personal popularity — along with popular distrust of California’s ginormous state government — to push through legislation aimed primarily at addressing the state’s fiscal woes.
Using the popular vote — the ballot initiative — to either cudgel the Democrat-controlled legislature or circumvent it altogether, the governor has won almost all of these political victories.
Not surprisingly, “Arnold” — as his political campaign continues to address the governor through its JoinArnold.com website — has described his political agenda as being that of “the people,” harking back to the era of populist progressive reforms which gave birth to the recall, the referendum and the ballot initiative.
But his detractors claim the governor’s political agenda is much closer to that of the Republican party and its corporate allies. While seemingly obvious, this characterization is actually akin to “fighting words” in California’s traditionally Democratic political culture.
This year, the plot of this political drama has thickened with Gov. Schwarzenegger attempting once more to use the ballot box to augment his executive powers. But unlike the last two elections, wherein this bold strategy yielded fantastic returns, this year’s campaign might very well “bankrupt” Arnold’s political capital.
Gov. Schwarzenegger came into power by positioning himself as an enemy of governmental waste and incompetence. But unable to find much waste or to implement the structural changes recommended by his own California Performance Review Commission, he has since fallen back — or forward — into a much more cliched role: that of a Republican politician battling Democratic opponents.
Though still billed as a contest of Arnold vs. the System, of a popular action hero in mortal comabt with a faceless, monolithic machine, the actual participants in this political strugglex are much more mundane: on the right, the state and national Republican parties, backed by their usual allies, large corporations and, on the left, the state and national Democratic parties, backed by their usual allies, labor unions.
What makes this confrontation remarkable and, perhaps, even novel, is that it is being fought almost entirely by proxy, with both sides turning to the people — and the popular vote — to wage a war of elimination.
As Robert Stern, a seasoned political analyst at the Center for Governmental Studies speculates in a forthcoming interview with California Connected, this special election is almost entirely a result of the governor’s decision to back Proposition 75, a measure that would effectively hamstring the political power of the unions and, thus, in the long run, cripple the state’s Democratic party.
In the following segment, we feature the stars of both parties, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and the new face of the California Democratic party, Speaker of the Assembly Fabian Núñez, discussing the stakes and offering their version of this election.
- Proposition 76: Key Issues and Fiscal Effects, Legislative Analyst’s Office
- Governor Schwarzenegger’s State of the State Address 01/05/2005
- Talking Points for the Governor’s State of the State, California Republican Party
- “Gov. Plays it Right, Left and Down the Middle,” Los Angeles Times, via Yahoo News
- Lessons of 2004, Mark Baldassare, Public Policy Institute of California
- “Election Strategy Drove Budget Accord,” Los Angeles Times via the California State Employees Association, “Taking the governor by surprise, Democrats surrendered on the state spending plan to better position themselves for fall ballot initiatives.”
- “The Great Disconnect: Voters and their Government,” California Journal
- “On a historical scale, this batch carries weight,” San Diego Union-Tribune
- “Longtime right-wing icon takes lead on employee union measure,” The Sacramento Bee, via the Contra Costa Times, “He is an unapologetic McCarthyite and a former member of the John Birch Society whose hard-right ideology has taken him to the fringes of American conservatism. But Lewis K. Uhler also has remained very much planted in mainstream Republican orthodoxy over the past half-century, landing key positions in the gubernatorial administration of Ronald Reagan, co-writing the state’s term limits initiative and staying at the national forefront of the movement to lower taxes and balance the federal budget. Now, the 71-year-old Uhler is working as the front man - at the urging of a close contact to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger - for Proposition 75, the ballot initiative aimed at reducing the influence of the state’s public employee unions.”
- “Unions Press for Disclosure of Political Donations,” Fox News
- “Prop. 75 Could Weaken Clout of Unions,” Los Angeles Times, “The measure would require public employee labor groups to obtain consent from members before spending dues on political campaigns.”
- “Why did the teachers union drop its tax hike plan?“, Sacramento Bee
- “Unions Working a New Tactic Against Governor,” Los Angeles Times, “Labor leaders contact firms to stem donations to Schwarzenegger’s initiative campaigns.”
- “Why not hit corporate bucks along with union dues?”, The Ukiah Daily Journal
- Unions have blunted bids to curb political spending,” Sacramento Bee, “It’s one thing for a state to pass a law forcing unions to get annual written consent before spending their members’ dues money on politics. But it’s another thing entirely to make it work, as four of the five states with so-called ‘paycheck protection’ laws on the books have learned. With California voters poised to consider an employee-consent law for government workers on November’s special election ballot, only Utah is seeing its effort to check union political spending change the public policy world.”