Daniel Weintraub: Governor takes risky '08 strategy to the polls

Having won big or lost big at the ballot box almost every year since he took office, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger intends to go back to the voters again in 2008 with perhaps his most ambitious agenda yet, even as the state's finances seem to be crumbling around him.

Schwarzenegger's high-risk strategy for the year ahead represents a hybrid of the approaches that have worked for him and those that have failed him, a mix of confrontation and collaboration that he hopes will coax legislative leaders and interest groups into joining him on the campaign trail.

So far, the governor is pushing a health care plan that would require voter approval for new taxes, a big bond measure that could reshape the state's water supply system and a political reform that seeks to change the way California elects its legislators.

Schwarzenegger has long been a fan of direct democracy. In 2002, as a private citizen and Hollywood megastar, he sponsored Proposition 49, which set aside money in the state budget for after-school programs. A year later, he was elected in an historic recall election that ousted a sitting California governor for the first time.

In 2004, his first year in office, Schwarzenegger put a fiscal package on the ballot with bipartisan votes in the Legislature, winning voter approval for a $15 billion deficit bond and a companion measure that he sold as a balanced budget amendment.

He then used the momentum from that victory to pressure the Legislature into overhauling the state system for compensating workers who are injured on the job. Democrats at first resisted his proposal but then agreed to a compromise after the governor and his allies collected more than 1 million signatures and threatened to place a measure of their own on the ballot.

Schwarzenegger concluded from that experience that he could win policy victories in the Capitol by vowing to go directly to the voters if the Legislature resisted his overtures. But a year later, in 2005, the same approach failed miserably.

The governor pushed for new budget powers, changes in education policy, limits on the use of union dues for political campaigning and an independent commission to draw political districts. But after Schwarzenegger called a special election, the Democrats and their allies in the public employee unions spent more than $100 million to campaign against his proposals. The voters rejected them all.

Schwarzenegger responded by resolving to work more closely with the Legislature. The result in 2006 was a $37 billion package of public works bonds to repair and build public schools, roads, levees and housing. That deal helped Schwarzenegger demonstrate that he could govern, and the voters embraced the package while reelecting him to a second term.

Now Schwarzenegger is eyeing the ballot yet again. This time, it is not clear whether he will have the kind of broad support that existed for his infrastructure package in 2006 or the sort of bitter opposition that blocked his measures in 2005. He will probably end up somewhere in between.

His health care measure, if it makes it to the ballot, will likely draw opposition from the tobacco industry, which would see taxes on its products increased, from Blue Cross, the state's largest health insurer, and from the California Nurses Association, a union that prefers a government-run health care system. Business groups would likely be split, with large firms that already insure their workers supporting it and smaller companies opposed.

Schwarzenegger is still trying to work out a deal in the Legislature to expand the state's water supply system and raise money for repairs to the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, through which much of California's water travels as it moves from north to south. To get that deal, he is threatening to support business and farm interests that are pushing for more reservoirs and have drafted a ballot measure to accomplish their goal.

Environmentalists, meanwhile, have joined with Senate leader Don Perata to draft a competing measure they are threatening to put on the ballot.

If both measures move forward, the voters could very well reject them after a costly and confusing campaign. In a sense, then, Schwarzenegger is using the business-backed measure as a threat not because anyone thinks it will pass but because it would be an effective tool to block the Democrats' plan.

Schwarzenegger has also endorsed an initiative drafted by political reform groups, including California Common Cause, to take the job of drawing district lines away from the Legislature. The measure is similar to the one the governor backed unsuccessfully in 2005. While this one has broader support initially, it is unlikely to pass without the backing of the Democratic Party, or at least the leadership in the Legislature.

Schwarzenegger is still hoping to win such an endorsement or persuade lawmakers to place a plan of their own on the ballot.

No matter how these battles turn out, it looks as if voters can expect another busy year in the Capitol in 2008, and another big bundle of measures on the ballot in February, June and November.

About the writer:

• Call The Bee's Daniel Weintraub, (916) 321-1914. Readers can see his blog about health care at www.sacbee.com/healthcare.