Fixing California: Is Arnold Schwarzenegger finally getting a clue? (or: isn't it about time?)

At the very tail end of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's appearance Sunday on KNBC's "News Conference," he acknowledged to host Conan Nolan that the state's governance structure has something to do with the financial crisis. Legislative term limits? "They've failed," he said, acknowledging that they've produced a woefully inexperienced Legislature. "I'm against them."

The initiative process? One of several "dysfunctional" elements of state government.

He didn't venture far beyond that, arguing that the Legislature's two-thirds supermajority requirement for budget bills should be kept, though he said he hopes that redistricting will reduce the extremism on both sides of the legislative aisle.

But for most of the 30-minute interview, Schwarzenegger showed no sign of climbing down off the rhetorical high horse he has occupied for the last six years.

Schwarzenegger, who inaugurated his administration with $15 billion in budget borrowing and never met a budget gimmick he didn't like, said of the Democratic-controlled Legislature that "they like to go and borrow, they like to use gimmicks."

Amazingly, he suggested that the budget deficit could be balanced by "streamlining" government programs: "We can deliver our prison system in a much better and cost-effective way; there's billions of dollars there. ... Take the fraud out of the home supportive services ... it's riddled with fraud."

This is ancient stuff. He must never have read about his own big fraud-slaying plan, the "blowing up the boxes" California Performance Review, which labored mightily in 2005, and brought forth a mouse. Nor did he explain why, if the solutions are so obvious, he hasn't addressed them in six years.

But for the most part, the governor portrayed the fiscal situation as a crisis to be solved between now and July 1, not in its true light: A structural problem decades in the making.

Watch all three segments of Sunday's interview, and you'll wonder where the years went.

-- Michael Hiltzik

Comments

[Doug]

We must get rid of the two-thirds supermajority requirement if we are going to make any progress.

[Matt Jarvis]

Dang. I saw the headline and those first quotes and thought that he might get it, but he doesn't quite.
The partisanship is inevitable, and term limits and redistricting may help, but they're tinkering at the margins. Sometimes, you have to realize that reform of a democratic form of government can only get you as far as the people are willing to go. And California has a sizable minority that simply refuses to see reality and cooperate with the majority. You've got to kill the 2/3rds rule.

[nedra]

What we must do is reverse the power of the Gov. to reverse decisions of the Board of Parole Hearings and allow some of these indeterminately sentenced inmates sitting in California Prison be released who have met rehabilitation standards and served sentences designated by the law with MEPD's well surpassed. The prison system is a drain and some Lifers are the clog. We aren't suggesting that ALL be released but there are those who should be and the Board finds them suitable but the Gov and his Legal Affairs office reverses their decision requiring another judicial step for justice.

[dakota]

The 2/3 majority rule has saved us form countless tax increases and must remain. Even with this rule, CA is at or very near the top in ALL taxes: gas, sales, income business, property. The issue is not the 2/3 rule, but the legislators (Democrat majority for 50+ years) who can’t stop spending and are beholden to their puppet master union controllers.

What CA needs to do is get rid of lobbyists, remove every single current legislator, make the new government part time (heck they only "work” 135 days a year anyway), new rule only 5 bills pre legislator per year – to get rid of all the junk pet bills.

[Andrew]

I am very happy for the 2/3's rule and the Central Valley (even though I live in the Bay Area) for shielding us from the constant tax increases the Democrats would enact on the MIDDLE CLASS. Already, the tax rate in the state is the highest if you make more then 40k a year. I feel so rich at 40k a year that I probably deserve it. Who can survive in CA on 40k a year? These Democrats have got to stop their spending. It's runing our State.

[riposter]

The 2/3's requirement for raising taxes is mostly just applicable to politicians. General revenue taxes can be raised by a simple majority of the voters. However a large majority of voters chose NOT to raise (by extending) taxes in the May 19 election.