I don’t think Susan Kennedy is a Communist sympathizer. I don’t think she’s a spy for Gray Davis or Phil Angelides. I don’t know much about her politics, although it sounds like she’s somewhere to the left of most Republicans and somewhere to the right of most Democrats. Which, as most of the participants on this website have decided, is pretty much where her boss is.
But after reading Friday’s Los Angeles Times’ story on the payment Kennedy received from the Schwarzenegger campaign committee, I have an entirely different set of concerns than most of my fellow bloggers. My worry is less about ideology than it is about ethics. Or at least, the appearance of ethical questions in an administration that promised to clean up Sacramento when it came to power.
There’s all sorts of revisionist history about what elected Arnold Schwarzenegger in the first place. There are those who think it was his celebrity that pulled him into office, an opinion that not only drastically underestimates the intellectual capabilities of California voters but ignores the fact that Arnold’s campaign didn’t really catch fire until he augmented the bodybuilding stories and the Terminator jokes with some legitimate policy proposals. No question that the outsized spotlight on his candidacy drew Schwarzenegger much more attention than the other candidates. But as Kobe Bryant will tell you, there’s a big difference between known and being loved. And it wasn’t until Arnold began to fill in the policy blanks that he grew from political curiousity to contender.
Then there are those who believe that the voters elected Schwarzenegger because he was a moderate, a position that seems to have gained ground inside his inner circle and his family since the special election. There’s no question that his balance between conservatism on taxes and immigration and his centrism on cultural and environmental issues reflects the worldview of a lot of California swing voters, and it’s still an open question as to what the new Schwarzenegger budget does to that ideological calibration. But while his moderation on some social matters protects him from the usual Democratic attacks, the world’s strongest soccer mom theory of his success only addresses part of this larger question as well.
Much more important to Arnold’s campaign than his celebrity or his centrism was his credibility as an outsider and a reformer. In the aftermath of the various Davis Administration fundraising scandals, Schwarzenegger’s greatest strength was a genuine populist voice that promised to put an end to politics as usual in a system that disgusted but no longer surprised most Californians.
But it’s been quite a while since we’ve heard from that version of the Reform-inator.. Remember the broom he used to bring to campaign events, promising to sweep the Capitol clean? It’s hard to remember the last time he’s used that particular prop. Instead, we have stories about him paying $25,000 from his campaign account to a sitting — and voting — member of the state Public Utilities Commission.
I don’t believe that the money influenced Kennedy’s vote on any matters before the PUC. (Although a contribution to Schwarzenegger’s campaign committee from AT&T of precisely the same amount Kennedy received only a few weeks later doesn’t help the optics.) Further, the governor’s spokespersons are right to point out that the strongest criticisms are coming from an organization funded by his political opponents. And the payment to Kennedy appears to have been a completely legal transaction.
But it still looks lousy. Especially for a governor who came to office promising to clean up the state’s fetid political swamp.
Whether you support the policy agenda that Schwarzenegger has advocated since taking office or not, there hasn’t been much cleaning up of anything lately. The efforts he’s made in this direction have been half-hearted, sporadic, and unnecessarily partisanized. None of it measures up to the determination and commitment for change that we heard from him during the recall campaign.
This shoudn’t be that difficult. Schwarzenegger once seemed to be genuinely motivated by a desire to restore the public’s faith in their elected leaders. It’s difficult to believe he’s lost that belief, more likely that he’s simply been distracted by the daily emergencies that crowd the lives of most people in jobs like his. If that populist spirit still exists somewhere within the governor, now would be a good time to locate it.
Somewhere in between the public financing plan that passed out of the Asembly last week and the depraved and dispiriting status quo is a legitimate reform package. The governor’s new team would be smart to help him find it. In a political environment dominated by discussions of lobbying scandals and fundraising excesses, the timing for this type of approach couldn’t be better.
An incumbent can’t credibly run as an outsider. But there’s still an opportunity for Arnold the reformer to re-emerge. All it takes is a renewed determination to lessen the stink that eminates from the State Capitol every day and an awareness that setting an agenda isn’t any more important than setting an example.
[Flashback: John Fund of the Wall Street Journal talked about some of this in his December piece, Conan the Appeaser.]
February 4th, 2006 at 12:00 am
The public financing plan passed last week IS a legitimate reform package. Without making unsubstantiated accusations of this site’s eagerness, or lack thereof, to get a reform package passed by the legislature, you must realize that reforms that aren’t strong fail to have any efficacy. In other words, if any reform package is to work, it must have teeth. Voluntary public financing is the only way to constitutionally get away with spending limits – the only way to ensure a level playing field.
While Republicans might suffer a loss because of the nature of their funding base, this would be counterbalanced by having campaigns run on ideas instead of money. Elections will become much more competitive as they have in Arizona and this effect would be more pronounced with a strong redistricting bill.
To be sure, Republicans stand to lose much less with a version of public financing passed through the legislature instead of the Nurse’s version that will go straight to the ballot.
As a last point, I would hope that most of you agree that elections are public goods in the economic sense, i.e. they are non-rivalrous and non-excludable. So it logically follows that they ought to be publicly funded.
But judging by the annoying ads flashing before my eyes, the interests of this site are with keeping the status quo.
-Ash Roughani
February 5th, 2006 at 12:00 am
Just remember that the former Soviet Union had public financing of eletions. The proposal will do nothing towards a level playing field other than putting power into the hands of incumbents and bureacrats to decide who is worthy of running for office.
As to your comment regarding public goods (other than the inherently laughable technically erroneous nature of the comment) elections are by definition rivalrous AND excludable: that’s what the campaign is for–to exclude the ‘runner up. They are not public goods.