Yesterday Arnold Schwarzenegger announced a number of changes in key senior positions in his administrations. A number of them represent great moves, and a few of them are, frankly very disturbing.
Let’s start with the great news! First and foremost, the Governor’s elevation of conservative Dan Dunmoyer to the position of Cabinet Secretary is outstanding news for all of us. Dan is capable, smart and effective. In this key position which acts as a liaison and coordinator between the Governor and all of the Agency heads will be in good hands. Undoubtedly this will be a big relief for former Assemblyman Fred Aguair, the GOPer who has been toiling out of the limelight in this role for awhile now.
In other big news for conservatives — stalwart Cynthia Bryant has been given a big promotion. For years, Cynthia has been sitting second chair to Richard Costigan in the Governor’s legislative affairs unit, working to push the Governor’s policy agenda with the Senate and Assembly. But having a strong conservative in that office has undoubtedly lead to a lot of bad bills being vetoed. The Governor has tapped Cynthia to be a Deputy Chief of Staff and to head up the office of Planning and Research, putting her in the role of overseeing policy development for the Governor. She will do a great job with this! She walks into an office being left open by another GOPer, Sean Walsh, who is moving over to the Governor’s Executive Office to serve as a Deputy Chief of Staff and senior advisor to the Governor.
Finally, the FR welcomes GOPer Chris Kahn back into an office he knows well. After years of occupying one of the most physically taxing positions in any Gubernatorial administration — Deputy Chief of Staff for Legislative Affairs — Richard Costigan finally pulled the plug and has moved off into the public affairs realm. Coming in to try to fill his shoes will be Chris Kahn. Kahn, who is a big-time Sacramento lobbyist right now, previously held this same role for former Governor Pete Wilson. Kahn also worked for several GOP members of the legislature, and is well respected by Republican members. This good will may be very important to Chris as he tries to act as a middle-man between the Governor and legislative Republicans at a time when the Governor is making noises about a possible massive government incursion into the realm of healthcare, and more regulation of California businesses under the name of environmental reform. That said, Chris’ main body of work will not be these few high-profile issues, but managing the thousands of bills going through the legislature, and helping to guide the Governor’s eventual decisions on what to do with the ones that reach his desk.
Congratulations also go out to GOPers Alice Dowden Cavillo who will be Deputy Cabinet Secretary, and to Luis Portillo, the new director of the office of Constituent Services.
These are all great appointments by the Governor, and I am sure they will all do well.
That said, there are a couple of appointments that were announced today that should give all Republican supporters of Governor Schwarzenegger the chills. They are bad news, and foreshadow some potential bad news to come.
First of all, I am sure that we all remember that when we supported Arnold Schwarzenegger for Governor in the recall election of 2003, the first decision on the ballot was weather to toss out the disgraceful pay-for-play Governor Gray Davis. Fortunately the voters of California all saw Davis and his administration for what it was, and Davis was tossed out of office, where he lives on only because of his photo in a frame on FR friend Jason Kinney’s desk. Actually, that isn’t true — it turns out that the minions of former Governor Davis have quite a beachhead in the office of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
To begin with, I am sure that every still knows that former Davis Deputy Chief of Staff and Cabinet Secretary Susan Kennedy is still Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Chief of Staff. Yes, the same one who served as Executive Director of the California Democratic Party when Bruce Herschensohn narrowly lost to Barbara Boxer (a victory that I am sure Kennedy still celebrates to this day). For the record, Kennedy is smart, funny and totally should be relieved of her duties. A Republican Governor should have a Republican Chief of Staff. Period.
Anyways, in the final days of the Davis Administration, Kennedy took an appointment from Davis to the Public Utilities Commission. When she got there, Kennedy named fellow Democrat Ross LaJeunesse to be her Chief of Staff. When Kennedy came into Governor Schwarzenegger’s office as Chief of Staff, shortly after LeJeunesse followed, being installed as the Deputy Cabinet Secretary. Now LeJeunesse has been named as a Senior Advisor and Deputy Chief of Staff to the Governor, again increasing the role and influence of left-thinkers around our Republican Governor.
But perhaps the most troubling is the increasing role and influence of former Davis senior staffer Daniel Zingale in the Schwarzenegger Administration. Zingale was brought into the Governor’s office ostensibly to be the Chief of Staff to California First Lady Maria Shriver. That said, it has been widely known that despite the title, he has been very much a part of the Susan Kennedy brain trust, and involved in much of what goes on in the Governor’s office. Now his official title is more representative of what he has been doing already — the Governor has named Zingale has been named a senior advisor to the Governor in addition to his role as Chief of Staff to Maria Shriver. If that isn’t disheartening enough — he is acting as the Governor’s point-person on healthcare reform. Good grief. Zingale is not likely to be a friend to the idea of using market principles and reduction of costly government regulations as a means to increase access to healthcare. More likely he will be in the Governor’s ear, promoting a whole-scale government intervention into the health care marketplace that will be exactly what we do NOT need.
Democrat Margaret Fortune was also promoted to be a Senior Advisor.
I have a tendency to go on about these Democrats in the Governor’s office because it really irks me. After all, Governor Schwarzenegger would not be in office today if it weren’t for the recall election, and there would have been no recall were it not for Republicans who were upset with Gray Davis. Yes, we are told time and time again that we need to have faith in our Republican Governor, and that it is he, not the staff around him, that are the decision makers. That said, it is a lot easier for me to blame the Governor’s leftward shift on some major issues on the liberal input from the staff around him, then to believe that my Republican Governor really believes that more regulation and more government intervention is a good thing.
So, I will say this one more time (it’s my broken record tour) — Governor Schwarzenegger, please please PLEASE bring in more Republicans into your senior administration, and for goodness sake, push the eject button on all of the Gray Davis retreads. Davis was recalled, and his former senior staffers should not be in positions of influence anywhere in California state government, let alone on your senior staff!
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