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Sacramento Bee Columnist Daniel Weintraub

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September 13, 2003

The bogus bill

After his San Diego “Ask Arnold” event, I asked Schwarzenegger exactly what was missing from the workers compensation overhaul the Legislature passed this week. In other words, if he were governor, what would he have demanded that lawmakers did not produce? He declined to answer, falling back again on his general talking points and insisting that the package adopted by lawmakers was not sufficient, but refusing to say why it was not sufficient.

Here is his entire answer:

“What is the number one thing you want to accomplish in workers compensation? You want to take 10 billion dollars out of that whole thing, so that we can lower the rates. We have to lower the rates to half in order for businesses to survive. There’s no indication that it will do that, that it will even save one penny. Experts have already said next year the costs will increase to 80 billion dollars. So I think it is one of those things you see quite frequently now before elections: Let’s patch it up quickly. It’s a bogus bill. It’s pre-election kind of work. And it doesn’t accomplish anything…There is again a lack of leadership there. Because they saw the last five years where we were going. They saw the increases in workers compensation. If they would have been out there and listened to what the people are saying, what the businesses are saying, they would have started working on it already two years ago. And fixed the problem. What you have to do is listen to the business leaders, and listen to the people that own the little shops, the little vendors. They just cannot take it the way it is right now.”

I tried to follow up, asking him again what he was proposing that the Legislature had not done. He declined to answer again.

“The whole thing doesn’t work. It is patched together, thrown together, it’s bogus. We have to start fresh. The first thing I will do is have a special session of the Legislature and demand we have workers compensation reform and really lower the costs so that people can survive in the business. That’s what this is about.”

This is not new, of course. We know by now that Schwarzenegger is not a policy wonk. He intends to lead with broad strokes while delegating the nitty-gritty to others. And I don’t expect him, or any candidate, to be able to recite chapter and verse on every issue discussed in the Legislature. But Schwarzenegger has chosen to make this issue the centerpiece of his economic plan. I would expect his staff to follow the negotiations, compare them to his proposals, and find at least one specific, major reform that he wants to see adopted and then brief him on that issue so he can respond to a question like this. And I would expect the candidate to insist on it.