Here was my Thursday:  two kids with fevers, the water heater went out, my husband is out of town and I nearly got a concussion when I knocked my head on a header board in our basement.  I’ve been grumpy all day (I’m writing Friday’s commentary on Thursday night) but it is not because of these personal problems…it’s a Sacramento problem and his name is Arnold Schwarzenegger. 

The rap on the governor has always been that he’s a Chamber of Commerce Republican: socially more liberal than the rank-and-file party members, but rock solid on the economy and job-killing legislation. 

Well, here’s what the Chamber of Commerce had to say about the governor’s deal with the Democrats on the global warming bill:

"The California-only, mandatory climate change regulations that will emanate from AB 32 (Núñez; D-Los Angeles/Pavley; D-Agoura Hills), will have severe, long-term consequences for the state’s economy and consumers and do virtually nothing to improve the global environment. The rush to push the legislation through the process with only hours left in the session despite serious flaws and major shortcomings that will impact the state negatively for years to come is an irresponsible way to implement public policy.

"AB 32 will drive good companies and good jobs out of California to states or countries that do not have similar restrictions on businesses. It will trigger significant increases in consumer and business costs for things such as electricity and fuel. And it will do next to nothing to affect emissions on a global scale so long as countries such as and continue their sky-rocketing emissions growth."

In case you missed is:  AB 32 will have SEVERE, LONG-TERM consequences for the state’s economy…and do VIRTUALLY NOTHING to improve the global environment.  So much for our Chamber of Commerce Republican governor.

Schwarzenegger was in a great position to veto the bill the Democrats wanted to send him.  He could have let them pass their overreaching bill and then blocked it with a veto message saying that he wanted to sign the bill but that there were major flaws in the way the program was created.  He should have held out for a bill next year which took a market-based approach and kept the control of the program within the Executive Branch. 

No one can convince me that Schwarzenegger needed to agree to this bill in order to get re-elected.  He’s 13 points ahead of Angelides, the mainstream press mocks the Angelides campaign on a daily basis and he had already signed a bunch of liberal bills (not to mention signing the greenhouse gases compact with Tony Blair).  How much more statesman-like would the governor have appeared if he held his own press conference outlining his economy-friendly principles and reminding the public that the Democrats don’t understand how to balance the economy and environment, starting with Phil Angelides?  Schwarzenegger can never again say that he equally values the economy and the environment.  Well, he can say it, but it won’t mean anything.

Anyway, he did not need to agree to this bill.  But if you read the article LA Times ran Thursday describing the way the deal came together, you get a sense that the governor was simply overeager to get something done on this. 

"Until Wednesday, a deal appeared elusive. In fact, Nuñez had scheduled an afternoon news conference with environmentalists to announce that the Legislature would proceed with the bill — without the governor’s support.

"But just before the news conference, Nuñez told the environmentalists that the governor’s chief of staff, Susan Kennedy, had called him to say Schwarzenegger would sign the bill after all.

"Administration officials said later that the governor acted after his staff assured him that the final version met his goals.

"The symbolism of who was in the driver’s seat at the end was made clear at the news conference, where Democratic lawmakers and environmentalists gleefully announced the deal while a lone Schwarzenegger press aide stood outside the room to distribute a written statement by the governor."

What’s the point of having a GOP governor if this is the kind of public policy we are going to get?

At the Republican convention two weeks ago, the governor, looking for the audience to yell NO, asked the conventioneers these questions:

What do we say to more government spending?

What do we say to more government control?

Humm…what is AB 32 if it is not more government control and more spending?  The Air Resources Board will get 100 new staff positions and an additional $20 million to run the job-killing program.

I’m sure that the governor is going to spend his time between now and the election alternatively reminding the environmental groups that he is the nation’s most aggressive government regulator when it comes to global warming and trying to make the GOP forget that he helped the Democrat legislative leadership bring a huge number of their key policy priorities to reality.  You can just hear the campaign strategists talking, “Look, Fleishman and the Flashreport-type of Republicans are going to whine and complain for a while, but once their memory fades and we keep reminding them how bad Angelides is on taxes, they’ll come back to us.” 

Maybe it’s just because my head is still aching and my kids are still sick that I’m wondering if I really can vote for the guy in November.  Many of us GOPers actually can distinguish between rhetoric and action and are not suffering from early-onset Alzheimers.  The governor’s convention speech was all fine and dandy, but his actions over the course of this legislative session tell me much more about what kind of governor I can expect in the second term.  As Geena Davis said in The Fly, "Be afraid.  Be very afraid."

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This entry was posted on Friday, September 1st, 2006 at 12:00 am and is filed under Blog Posts.