Gov. Says Lawmakers ‘Acting Like Children’

Wrapping up his weekend blitz through three swing legislative districts, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger condemned lawmakers Sunday for “acting like children” but passed up an opportunity to fault the state Senate’s most vulnerable Democratic incumbent on his home turf.

The governor prepared to return to Sacramento to resume negotiations over the stalled state budget, with only a week before two significant deadlines.

On July 28, the state is expected to make its first payments of the fiscal year to schools and community colleges, and many Democratic lawmakers would like to be able to leave Sacramento to attend the Democratic National Convention in Boston.

The day after Schwarzenegger called legislators “girlie men” in remarks in Ontario, he told a crowd gathered in the food court of Stockton’s Sherwood Mall that trial lawyers, unions and other “special interests” were “dug in” at the Capitol “like Alabama ticks, and we cannot get rid of them.”

For all his recent rhetoric about “terminating” lawmakers if they continue to hold up approval of his $103-billion budget, when Schwarzenegger pointed out Stockton’s Republican mayor, Gary Podesto, to the crowd, he did not mention that Podesto was running for the state Senate this fall against a Democratic incumbent.

“Where’s Gary? He’s right over here,” said Schwarzenegger, who had attended a Podesto fundraiser in May. “Give a big hand to Mayor Gary Podesto, my very good friend, a great, great leader.”

Rob Stutzman, the governor’s communications director, said in each of Schwarzenegger’s recent trips to districts where Republicans hope to gain legislative seats, “he hasn’t identified [any Democrats] by name.”

In Stockton as well, Schwarzenegger refrained from singling out Podesto’s opponent, state Sen. Mike Machado (D-Linden).

“There’s a level of Defcon we haven’t gone to,” Stutzman said.

Barbara O’Connor, director of the Institute for the Study of Politics and Media at Cal State Sacramento, agreed.

“He’s not declaring war,” she said. “I think it’s more [of a] ‘I can do this if I want to’ threat.”

Sunday’s 13-minute speech seemed more carefully calibrated to increase pressure on lawmakers without alienating them.

The “girlie men” comments -- which Schwarzenegger borrowed from an old “Saturday Night Live” routine that poked fun at him -- had drawn rebukes from Democrats and female activists who said the phrase was sexist and demeaning.

Stutzman called the reaction overblown and said that Schwarzenegger saw no need to either apologize or repeat it Sunday. “I think everyone heard it pretty clear yesterday,” he said.

Schwarzenegger rallied the Stockton crowd by deputizing the several hundred audience members as fellow “terminators” and urged them to vote Democratic “obstructionists” out of office in November.

“Now, all of a sudden, now when we are doing the most important business of all, which is the budget, all of a sudden they’re falling back to their old ways,” he said. When the crowd jeered, he said: “That’s right, boo, that’s right.”

Like “girlie men,” the “Alabama tick” line had its genesis in Schwarzenegger’s career as an actor. The line comes from Schwarzenegger’s 1987 movie “Predator,” and is uttered by another governor-to-be, Jesse Ventura, who served one term in Minnesota. Schwarzenegger last used it in public in June, then referring to his efforts to get more federal aid from Washington.

In a telephone interview, Machado, whose Central Valley district is viewed as one of the few with close enough numbers of registered Republicans and Democrats to guarantee a close race, said the governor was justified in “expressing his frustration” and emphasized the areas on which they agreed.

Machado said he sent an aide to listen to Schwarzenegger’s remarks because “I was busy working at my farm and trying to get things ready for tomato harvest.”