For quite some time, this website tracked all of Governor Schwarzenegger’s appointments — with a careful eye on partisan registration. We ultimately stopped because it was too disappointing. As a Republican Governor, I expected Schwarzenegger (like Wilson, like Deukmejian) to fill his open positions in state government with like-minded Republicans. By setting this standard for the Governor, I found myself being consistenly disappointed. The number of Democrats who have been appointed to judgeships is downright appalling. And on the plethora of non-judicial appointments, it was often the case where barely 50% of any given list (appointments typically are announced in groupings of 10 to 15) were GOPers, with most of the rest being Democrats, and a smattering of appointees to registered as Decline-to-State (one appointee wasn’t registered to vote at all!). I had one FR reader who follows things closely tell me that the numbers are even more misleading as a significant number of the Republican appointments are to positions like local Fair Boards thus ‘inflating’ the GOP numbers…
This week, the Governor released two lists of appointees, so just for the heck of it (and with the hope that things had improved in the time since I had last tallied) I would see how this week’s appointees broke down on a partisan basis…
This week the Governor’s Office put out four releases announcing appointments:
- On Monday, he appointed 3 Republicans, 6 Democrats, and 1 DTS (including a Dem to head the Dept. of Consumer Affairs).
- On Wednesday he appointed 5 Republicans, 8 Democrats, and 1 DTS.
- On Friday, he appointed 6 Reps, 7 Dems, and 3 DTS.(including a Dem. to head the Dept. of Alcohol and Beverage Control).
The totals? 14 Republicans, 18 Democrats, and 5 DTS. So only 37% of our Republican Governor’s appointees were from his own political party!
I will add that I found it especially objectionable that our Governor, who is a self-described "moderate on social issues" would appoint an former four year abortion-rights lobbyist for Planned Parenthood to be a senior point person in his administration for lobbying the legislature on behalf of his administration’s Department of Health Services. Here is the appointment language:
Deplorable.
I guess in writing this Saturday Commentary, it is my hope that the Governor will remind himself that as California’s top Republican officeholder, he should be actively seeking out and appointing Californian’s from his own party to most of these positions.
Did I mention that the new Appointments Secretary, for the Governor, like his Chief of Staff, is a Democrat? So perhaps my wishes will fall on deaf ears.. But I will still beat the drum. Because I truly feel that California would be a much better state with those in government posts who affiliate with the party of Lincoln and Reagan, not with the party of Hillary and Bill.
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