This afternoon I received a press release from my friend James Vaughn, Executive Director of the California Chapter of the Log Cabin Club (for those new to the game, this is the Gay/Lesbian Republican Organization). The release was touting the appointment by Governor Schwarzenegger
of Peter Hankwitz to the California Student Aid Commission. I have met Peter a few times before (he is pictured to the right). A Republican, he hails from the San Fernando Valley, works in the entertainment industry, and as James’ release points out, he is the 11th Log Cabin Club appointment made by this Governor. Peter, congratulations!
FR readers may have noticed that I don’t write a lot about Gubernatorial appointments anymore. It’s not that Arnold isn’t making appointments. On the contrary, there seem to be a dozen or more each week. I stopped blogging about them because he was appointing so many Democrats. I found that writing about it made me angry, frustrated or depressed.
Anyways, this exercise of congratulating Peter has caused me to once again remind myself how dumb it is to blog about the Governor’s appointments. Because I try to be more comprehensive when I can, I took a trip over to the Governor’s website, to look up the release in which Peter’s appointment was made. Usually, appointments to specific boards and commissions come in groupings, so I thought I might congratulate anyone else from the Party of Reagan that the Governor appointed to the Student Aid Commission.
Well, along with James, the Governor did, in fact, appoint FOUR other members to serve on the Student Aid Commission:
- Tomas Arciniega of Valley Center – A DEMOCRAT
- Lynne de Bie of Dixon – A DEMOCRAT
- Patricia Fong Kushida of Sacramento – A DEMOCRAT
- Bonaparte Liu of Newport Beach – A DEMOCRAT
It boggles the mind – and is depressing. Clearly out of millions of California Republicans, it must be hard to find good candidates for this important state commission…
So while I am pleased for Peter, I don’t expect him to win any popularity contests on the Commission if he sports an “Anyone but Hillary” button to his first meeting.
January 18th, 2008 at 12:00 am
Its absurd that Arnold can not find a centrist or even a liberal Republican to represent the numbers of commissions of the state of California.
Yes, Arnold wants to be liked and wants to be bipartisan. However 75/25 would be fair, while 75 percent would be the Republican share.
January 19th, 2008 at 12:00 am
Governor Schwarzenegger gets away with these terrible liberal appointments because no one is reporting them. If it weren’t for the Flash Report, we would never hear about them.
Obviously, partisanship is only one of many attributes of each appointee, but the problem is that mainstream Republicans are almost completely shut out of state government. I would argue that Gray Davis had a better record of conservative appointments. Please, someone, prove me wrong!