Posted on: Sunday, April 3, 2005
COMMENTARY
California's politics holds lessons for Hawai'i
By John Griffin
On two recent trips to California, I started pondering parallels between the situations of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and our Gov. Linda Lingle.
Both are Republicans who won election against Democratic establishments. They continue to face off against Democrat-dominated legislatures and strong unions. Neither is in the standard red-state mode of many Republicans.
The initial popularity of both governors has gone down, and some observers feel the 2004 midterm elections left questions about the length of their coattails. Yet both are up for re-election in 2006 with no strong opponents now in sight.
Still, when you think about it, the differences are greater than such similarities.
California, of course, is a vast state, our most populous and with an economy that would be fifth in the world were it an independent nation. It has had several relatively recent Republican governors, while Lingle is Hawai'i's first in a half-century. California has a strong-legislature system, while Hawai'i has a strong-executive system.
California makes extensive use of a system of initiatives and referendums. That too often lets raw voter opinion, fueled by expensive ad campaigns, replace reasonable legislative decision-making and compromise.
This sets the stage: As Hawai'i seems headed for what should be a reasonable end of its unexciting legislative session, California is poised for what political experts say could be a classic struggle with national implications.
And this looks like a far different Schwarzenegger from the newly elected governor most everyone was praising a year ago as a surprisingly good and reasonable deal-maker with the Democrats.
Reassessing Arnold (as everyone calls him) has become a cottage industry. One of the more qualified to do this is scholar-author Kevin Starr, a professor of history at USC and California's state librarian emeritus.
Writing in the Los Angeles Times, Starr said it was necessary to get beyond the cliches of bodybuilderimovie-stariturned-governor, adding: "The inner Schwarzenegger is a complex, highly intelligent and intuitive Euro-American with a sense of history and an informed taste for late medieval Austrian woodcarvings and 20th-century Mexican art, as well as motorcycles and fine cigars."
And yet he began this year in a State of the State address with a change of tactics that seemed out of one of his tough-hero movies —a multi-front declaration of war against the political establishment of Democrats and labor allies.
In effect, he challenged the legislature to pass his four-point program or else he would take it to the people via the initiative-and-referendum route.
One is for merit pay and a change in the tenure system for teachers, which pits him against the powerful teachers unions. He has also taken on the nurses union by proposing cuts in staffing ratios.
A second would change the retirement system for government workers, with new hires going into privately managed accounts akin to 401(k)s.
Another would impose across-the-board spending cuts when the legislature cannot
balance the budget, a step designed to counter previous referendums that mandate spending without providing revenue.
Most important — and being watched in other states — he would take the power to determine legislative and congressional districts away from the legislature and give it to a panel of retired judges to draw the lines. Those districts are now tailored to incumbents to the point none changed party control in 2004.
Schwarzenegger has pictured his efforts this year as a reform struggle against a corrupted and unaffordable status quo of "special interests." Journalists who have interviewed him recently say he sounded like someone who wants to defeat, not compromise with, his opponents.
Opponents charge that while the wealthy governor rails against special interests, his inclinations and policies favor rich business interests as much as those of President Bush. He has set new fund-raising records in the name of taking on the unions and Democrats.
At the same time, the Democrats and their allies in labor also are gearing up for battle armed with even bigger war chests. Some suggest that by defeating Schwarzenegger's proposals in referendums this year, he would be weakened for a 2006 re-election fight and might even decide against running.
All sides say, with varying degrees of conviction, that maybe negotiations and compromise are still possible during the current session, thus avoiding the special election and lawmaking by crude referendum in the fall.
After all, California remains billions of dollars in debt. Polls indicate voters are less concerned about Arnold's four priorities than they are about such things as healthcare, education, the well-being of children and seniors, and the cost of living.
But, unless we are just seeing a game of high-stakes political poker, California in its own special way remains heading into one of the nation's most contentious and important political showdowns.
I'm not just saying "Lucky You Live Hawai'i" to all this. We have our own problems and weaknesses. Still, there is both some comfort and something to learn from looking at the woes of others.
John Griffin, a frequent contributor, is a former Advertiser editorial page editor.
