A bit of buzz resulted last week from the news that Republican members of the Assembly wore name tags in a caucus budget discussion with the Governor. It may have been off-handedly amusing to those who devised the idea, knowing full well the Governor himself would find it as such, especially after his apparent recent admission that he has little contact with GOP legislators.
Yet, the name tag idea wouldn’t have been conceived at all, had the reality of the matter not existed. It’s likely the Governor doesn’t know all of the GOP legislators by name or by face. Or, at least, not their interests and concerns.
The episode is ironic, given this Governor’s start.
Hark back to mid-November 2003, a couple of days after Arnold Schwarzenegger was sworn in as the 38th Governor of California. A Republican legislator stopped in with a request for the chief executive’s receptionist. The lawmaker explained that when some of his Sacramento guests returned home, they left their inaugural passes with him, asking if there was any way he could arrange to get them autographed by Schwarzenegger.
After all, Arnold may have been the new Governor, but to most he was still a Hollywood star with international fame.
Schwarzenegger’s receptionist said she was sure the request could be accommodated, then surprised the Assemblyman with a question. Would he also like to set a meeting with the Governor? Why, sure he indicated, thinking he would of course meet Arnold in some setting in time, but not one-on-one, at least not now, when media interviews and a huge learning curve were probably taking up much of the time. The receptionist’s response took him aback: “Ok, how about 2 p.m. today? And, would you like to bring anyone else with you?”
That afternoon the Assemblyman and another GOP colleague spent about 45 minutes in the Governor’s office, in a wide ranging conversation. Arnold was equally engaged, friendly, personable and fascinating, while interested in their concerns. He listened to their ideas and expressed an honest commitment to seek change in Sacramento.
Toward the end of the meeting, one of the two visitors mentioned that his chief of staff had also requested an autograph. “Where is she?” the Governor wanted to know. In the reception area he was told. “Why didn’t you invite her in?…what’s her name?” he reacted. He then strode out of the office, through the “horseshoe” of the inner sanctum and out into the reception area. Seeing the seated woman, he walked up to her, called her by name and asked, "May I have your autograph?"
Arnold Schwarzenegger may have been an actor, but none of this was an act.
In those first several weeks, he reached out to all, Democrats and Republicans alike in the same manner. Getting a chance to meet him myself a few months later and seeing him in action, as well as hearing story after similar story, I was for a time convinced that he might truly have an impact on real change in California, through sheer power of his personality.
The Governor’s declaration to "blow up boxes" may have sounded to liberals like conservative saber-rattling, but it was based on the need for real, common sense efficiencies and reform in a spending-minded bureaucracy run amuck. If anyone could convince the Democrat-controlled legislature to move on such an agenda, it would be this bigger-than-life persona, who strove to engage every one of them as a friend, while treating them as an equal.
If that didn’t work, he would go on the road with his reforms, using his personality to convince the citizenry to pressure their legislators for change. Lastly – if needed – he would give the people the chance to vote on the agenda themselves, if the legislature wouldn’t act. It was pure philosophy, driven by personality – his personality.
Yes, the GOP legislators told their listeners that Arnold couldn’t act as an "Army of One," but in their hearts they knew that the opportunity for change was imminent, not simply because they had a Republican governor, but because they had Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. And, if change would result because of Arnold’s star power, so be it.
Through much of 2004, Schwarzenegger’s approval rating hovered at 65 percent, the highest for any California governor in 45 years, even more than ever once achieved by Ronald Reagan.
All of that seems so long ago now.
For Schwarzenegger, somewhere along the way the reality of special interest driven gridlock hit home, no doubt topped off by the November 2005 special election defeat of his fiscal reform measures. Labor spent a goldmine to defeat the change agenda and to tarnish Arnold’s star. His approval ratings fell into the forties, with a 2006 re-election bid just around the corner.
When things get tough in politics, all too often philosophy takes a far distant second to personality. In this case, it seems, any effort to “blow up boxes” was traded for a greater concern over other boxes – those with the ballots. So-called “post partisanship” was the answer, and by any measure that meant dealing nicely with the powers-that-be instead of fighting them over reform. One of the greatest single individual philosophical reversals in the history of California politics was in play.
Republican legislators were seemingly the powerless minority in this newfound scenario, an annoying obstacle to a “non-change” agenda of continued government growth through spending, bonds and tax increases. Who needs to engage the GOP on such matters? Who needs to invite them in for an afternoon meeting and hear their concerns? (If you can count to 27 and 54, you may know the answers to those questions.)
We’re now nearing 80 days into a record-length budget impasse. If the Democrats weren’t adequately engaging the Republicans in budget debates until recently, it may have been based on the belief that the Governor had the power to swing enough GOP legislators toward a “compromise” plan centered on tax increases. Yet, one typically needs to establish a relationship before they can wield such influence, if at all.
Alternatively, had the Governor engaged individual Republicans in recent months – as he did when first elected – he might have seen their collective resolve some time ago, resulting in an earlier realization that it would take spending reforms, not tax increases, to move a budget along. By all appearances, it still will.
Either way, it has to begin somewhere. As Shane Goldmacher wrote of Schwarzenegger in Sac Bee’s Capitol Alert last week, “He could start by learning their names.”
Thank goodness the Internet makes such tasks easier.
###
Care to read comments, or make your own about today’s Daily Commentary?
Just click here to go to the FR Weblog, where this Commentary has its own blog post, and where you can read and make comments.