Jokes In The Staff Room

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger assembled California's statewide elected officials in the Ronald Reagan Cabinet Room for an informal and unusual meeting today. This crowd almost never gets together in the same place. At the meeting, Attorney General Jerry Brown said he had  sliced down this legislative package by two-thirds, because "I think we need fewer laws.''  According to a pool report from the event:

"I calculated that since I was sworn in as governor there have been 25,000 more laws,"  said Brown, elected governor in 1974.

To which, state treasurer Bill Lockyer, the former attorney general, replied: "Mostly cleaning up the laws that you signed.''

Guffaws.

Brown: "That's the point.  I know what it is. I signed --  I can tell you, half of them weren't necessary.  I just did it to please the Legislature. I didn't want to be vetoing all their bills."

Read the entire pool report after the jump.

Kate Folmar, San Jose Mercury News:

The governor held his first, post-election meeting with all the statewide constitutional officers this afternoon in his elegant Cabinet room.

Schwarzenegger sat at the head of the large conference table. His crutch was propped on a sidebar behind him. Cookies and juice were available, but almost no one took any.

To the governor's right were Lieutenant Governor John Garamendi, Controller John Chiang, Treasurer Bill Lockyer, Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner (the only other Republican elected to statewide office).  To his left were Secretary of State Debra Bowen, Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell and Attorney General Jerry Brown.

Various staffers for all parties were arrayed around the table, including the Schwarzenegger Chief of Staff Susan Kennedy, Senior Advisor Daniel Zingale, Cabinet Secretary Dan Dunmoyer, Communications Director Adam Mendelsohn and Press Secretary Aaron McLear.

Your pool was ushered in after the electeds (presumably) said hello and chatted about the weather.

The governor thanked everyone for coming and said the meeting had taken awhile to plan, in part because of his ski mishap before Christmas.

"I think I was told by several of you that this was usually not happening, that governors don't meet with all the constitutional officers and all this,'' the governor began. "But I feel, I think, this is very important. I think this is the dream team, I call it -- all the constitutional officers that are going to work together to make the state great.''

He extolled the virtues of what he likes to call "post-partisanship,'' and let the other statewide officers know to ""use our office if there's anything we can do to, you know, help you in your performance. Whatever it is.''

"I'm very fortunate that he people have elected a great team, a great team that I see here,'' he continued. ""I love it. I think there will be unbelievable things that we can do together.''

Then he opened the floor to the others present:

Garamendi, a former insurance commissioner, praised as ""exceedingly important'' the governor's focus on health care this year. He likes the idea of covering everyone and creating a purchasing pool to help the poor obtain coverage.

"That must happen in California,'' Garamendi said. ""We're wasting an extraordinary amount of money.''

He also lauded Schwarzenegger's ""leadership on climate change - thank God.''

Chiang said that he and Lockyer are focused on creating a citizen's oversight panel for the $43 billion in infrastructure bonds that voters approved last November. "It's absolutely critical that those dollars are spent wisely.''

Lockyer: "I'm your banker. So when you need me, we'll help you pay for things.'' Laughs all around.

Schwarzenegger: "I love it.''

Lockyer reiterated what Chiang said about bond oversight.

Poizner said that one of his top priorities was preparing for the next natural disaster waiting to hit California.  "When it comes to: Are we ready for the next Big One? We know it's coming and we're not ready.'' He cited a recent Little Hoover Commission report that said California was less prepared than Louisiana had been pre-hurricane Katrina.

Brown, a former governor who is now the state's top lawyer, said he wanted to make sure California's new greenhouse gas standards were drafted well enough that they would stand up in court. He mentioned that the auto industry is already fighting a bill that would require their industry to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Brown also mused about whether it could be possible to settle some of numerous lawsuits over California's correctional system. "It's an avenue where settlement should be looked at.''

The attorney general then launched the funniest exchange of the 18-minute meeting, mentioning that he had sliced down the Attorney General's legislative package by two-thirds because "I think we need fewer laws.''

"I calculated that since I was sworn in as governor there have been 25,000 more laws -"

Lockyer: "-mostly cleaning up the laws that you signed.''

Guffaws.

Brown: "That's the point. I know what it is. I signed --  I can tell you, half of them weren't necessary. I just did it to please the Legislature. I didn't want to be vetoing all their bills.''

"Let's hear about education,'' the governor said.

O"Connell said he is getting mostly positive feedback on the governor's most recent budget. And he's excited about an ""adequacy study'' coming out soon about what it really takes to provide a good education for all students. He said he's terribly concerned about the achievement gap between rich and poor, native speakers and English-learners and racial groups.

"We need to target our resources,'' to areas of need, O'Connell said.

The governor said California needs to build $36 billion in new schools over the next decade to keep up.

Bowen said that she wasn't the governor's lawyer or banker. She likes to think of the Secretary of State as the "guardian of your democracy.''

""I love those titles that everyone gives themselves,'' Schwarzenegger said. "This is really great.''

Bowen brought up a Florida decision to stop using touch-screen voting and shift back to paper ballots, she called for training high-school students to become active voters (provided they're legal citizens) and she said wanted to coordinate with the governor to implement the federal Real ID Act.

She said she's concerned about the state of California's archives and the lack of standards on maintenance of email records.

"'This is great,'' Schwarzenegger said. Let's keep in touch, meet periodically. He said he was excited to have a lieutenant governor who was "going to be my partner.'' Even though some people say the lieutenant governor is sometimes treated like a "non-position, but in fact it is a very important position.''

He wanted everyone's input, because of their experience. Thus ensued a discussion about which if the people at the table had the longest state service. Garamendi thought he was up there, serving longer than Lockyer, but not Brown.

If you're counting continuous service, Lockyer said, he was number one, followed by Board of Equalization member Bill Leonard and then O'Connell.

The governor opened up the meeting to brief questions from the pool.

Q (paraphrased): You support moving the presidential primary back to February 2008. Some local officials say, let's do it all by mail. Oregon does it, Washington does it, millions of Californians already vote absentee. What do you think?

A: "I think I'll have to look into it. We have to talk about that, what the pros and cons of that. If it is less expensive, maybe it's a better way of going. But, we'd just really have to look into it.''

Q: You know they have had concerns about money in the past?
A: "There are always concerns about that, but I think in this particular case, we can have such an unbelievable impact on California if we move up the presidential primary and really make California a major player. I think if we are part of the decision-making and really pick the right person, I think that means hopefully more money for the state of California and I think that's what we want to accomplish. ''

He said California has such a stake in federal funding, immigration and health care, so
"we need to be part of he decision-making rather than an after-thought.''

Q (paraphrased): You said last month that you hadn't met new House Speaker Nancy Pelosi yet, hadn't formed a relationship with her. Have you now?

A: ''Well, I have not spoken to Speaker Pelosi and I'm look forward to building a great relationship with her because I think there's a lot of things that we can do together.''

Q (paraphrased): Is that something you're hoping to do when you go the National Governor's Association meeting in Washington, D.C. in a few weeks? Do you hope to meet with her then?

A: ''I hope so, yes.''