If Governor Schwarzenegger is wondering how he has once again ended up staring down the barrel of an important piece of legislation that he really wants to sign, that was voted for by EVERY DEMOCRAT in the Assembly, and had the votes of NO REPUBLICANS, he really only needs to look in the mirror.  You see, if I were in the position of the Democrats who control the majority in both chambers of the legislature, I wouldn’t bother to work with the Republicans given the Governor’s willingness to sign legislation opposed by any, or in some cases, all Republicans in the legislature.
 
So how does legislation suffer when the Governor sends the message that he will sign bills that reach his desk with no GOP support?  Well, let’s look at the bill in question, which is legislation to move the date of the California Presidential primary from June to February.  This proposal has been talked about quite a bit, and, in fact, the Governor is on record stating his support for the idea.
 
That said, what is not in the bill?  Republicans wanted language making it clear that the State would reimburse the counties for the cost of administering another election, as this legislation detaches the Presidential ballot from the rest of the down-ticket (Congressional, statehouse and local offices), and creates another election.
 
Of course, Fabian Nunez has been nothing if not clear that a primary motivator for moving up the Presidential primary is to be able to have one more crack at a ballot measure to relax term limits, allowing himself to stay in the legislature for many more years.
 
The Governor has made it clear that he opposes any changes to term limits that are not accompanied by both a meaningful redistricting reform measure, and also some sort of campaign finance limits/lobbying restrictions measure — neither of which accompanied this bill.
 
If the Governor had a history of empowering Republicans in the legislature, by making it clear (like GOP Governor’s before him) that legislation reaching his desk bereft of GOP support was DOA (dead-on-arrival), then I think that the hubris of Fabian Nunez would be reigned in a bit, and the Governor wouldn’t be facing this bill, which signed by itself, is a bad deal for California.
 
The good news is that the Governor can start to empower legislative Republicans today, by immediately vetoing this bill on his desk, and insisting that if Democrat legislators are willing to work their Republican counterparts to place a package of bills on his desk at once — moving the primary (with reimbursement guarantees for counties), a fair redistrict reform measure (that includes Congressional districts) and some negotiated campaign/lobbying reforms, then the Governor will have achieved his state goal of bi-partisan cooperation.

I know that not every Republican legislator would support that "package" — as opposition to extending term limits runs strong in many GOPers — but probably most would.
 
But if the Governor just signs the bill as it is, not only will he be continuing this ‘bipartisan charade’ (what else do you call it when the only Republican involved is the Governor himself?) — and he will be continuing to deny legislative Republicans the gravitas that he can instantly give them by standing in solidarity with them. 
 
Governor, veto this bill.  It’s in the best interests of your party, of your state, and of your stated goal of real bipartisanship.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 8th, 2007 at 12:00 am and is filed under Blog Posts.