Progress on State Budget Stalls as Talks Give Way to Rancor

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s weekend blitz ridiculing California Democrats brought state budget negotiations to a halt Monday as partisan tensions escalated in the Capitol and legislators said a final agreement could be weeks away.

Senate leader John Burton, a Democrat from San Francisco, said relations with the governor had become strained and that Schwarzenegger “crossed the line” when he told crowds they should “terminate” lawmakers. The GOP governor called them “children” and “girlie men” and promised to raise millions of dollars to defeat Democrats.

In a matter of days, a budget agreement thought to be within reach has devolved into a shouting match and a national spectacle over the “girlie men” comments. And a central Schwarzenegger goal -- an on-time budget without the “summer slam-fest”-- has eluded him amid a tone more combative and partisan than at any point in his eight-month tenure.

Democrats said the governor -- speaking at public rallies in shopping malls and a pizza restaurant -- had injected campaign rhetoric into what could have been bipartisan talks on the $103-billion budget.

“It is just unbecoming the governor of the greatest state in the union,” Burton said. “It’s a great disappointment to me. We work very hard. We try to get along together. We do get along personally, although the envelope is being pushed a bit.”

Schwarzenegger’s strategy of challenging the Legislature through attempts at public humiliation carries risks, according to some political analysts. Unlike in the first battles of his term, the governor is not trying to persuade the public to pass ballot measures or sign petitions for an initiative.

When it comes to the budget, it is the insiders -- California’s legislators -- who decide. And many are claiming to be insulted by the governor’s provocations.

“This is part of a negotiation strategy to make sure the legislators understand his strength,” said Elizabeth Garrett, director of the USC-Cal Tech Center for the Study of Law and Politics. “And there’s a veiled threat in this: ‘I can use this to help you, and I can use it to hurt you.’ Why he would do it at this time is a little bit perplexing.”

Schwarzenegger is stepping up the campaign this week. The governor plans more rallies in the next few days where the message may be equally combative.

A political aide said the governor was preparing a mass mailing targeting swing districts represented by Democrats that would grade lawmakers based on their allegiance to Schwarzenegger’s legislative agenda. An anti-Schwarzenegger lawmaker would be given a failing grade. The mailings would include pictures of individual lawmakers. Sample report cards have already been drawn up.

“He’s not going to back off of them,” said Rob Stutzman, the governor’s communications director.

The “girlie men” phrase was quickly picked up and replayed by cable news shows, opening a debate over whether the governor’s remark was offensive or funny. The reference comes from an old “Saturday Night Live” skit. In a parody of Schwarzenegger, actors Kevin Nealon and Dana Carvey played “Hans” and “Franz,” beefy bodybuilders with thick accents and little patience for flabby men.

Schwarzenegger is not expected to repeat the “girlie men” reference, though aides are not apologizing for its use. “It effectively communicates that politicians are acting like wimps and being pushed around by special interests,” Stutzman said. “And the language that the governor chose has ensured that probably twice as many Californians heard him as probably would have” if Schwarzenegger had used some other phrase.

Democrats faced a political dilemma because of the governor’s comments: Should they remain silent and wait for the governor to begin work again on the budget, or unleash their own verbal assault against him?

Unlike Burton, Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez (D-Los Angeles) was more circumspect in his comments about the governor. He said the state risked a cutoff of services if it misses a payment to community colleges and local governments because of the budget impasse, and offered a phrase that is a favorite of Schwarzenegger: “Failure is not an option.”

The state budget is nearly complete but is stalled because cities and counties want a guarantee that the state won’t raid their funds in the future. Democrats say they already have offered local governments the highest protections in the nation -- a guarantee that money can be borrowed, but never taken, by a two-thirds vote of the Legislature.

In addition, two relatively minor issues have brought negotiations to a standstill. Republicans want to repeal a 2003 law that made it easier for employees to sue employers for labor violations, and reverse another law that requires all school bus drivers to be paid union-scale wages. Schwarzenegger raised both issues in January, but said little about them until last week.

The governor left the Capitol and launched the weekend road show because of mounting frustrations, aides said. Schwarzenegger was unhappy about a news conference that Nunez held last week, and he was annoyed by Democratic attempts to drive a wedge between himself and Republicans, according to one gubernatorial aide.

Democrats say the governor is willing to brand unions and trial lawyers as special interests, but won’t acknowledge that businesses and the Chamber of Commerce are themselves special interests. Sunday, in a speech in Stockton, the governor offered this promise: “We will stop them from catering to the trial lawyers that create the frivolous lawsuits rather than catering to the businesses.”

With little work done on the budget Monday, Democrats also plotted their own strategy for challenging the governor and forcing GOP lawmakers to bend.

Both parties, for instance, are eager to attend their respective national conventions in Boston and New York. If Republicans succeed in delaying a budget vote before the Democratic convention next week, then Democrats are threatening to keep Republicans in California during the GOP convention in late August.

Republican leaders in the Legislature said it’s Democrats who are being obstructionists to getting a budget deal passed. Senate GOP leader Dick Ackerman of Fullerton said the heated rhetoric should not be surprising to Burton.

“Do I understand his hurt feelings? No,” Ackerman said. “People say a lot of things during negotiations and campaigning and it shouldn’t upset anyone, especially John. I think the governor made clear he wanted to get his budget as close to on time as he could, and if people weren’t going to negotiate and cooperate in good faith he was going to take it to the people. That’s exactly what he did.”

It was clear Monday that Burton would be the public face for Democrats’ anger. The Senate leader, who often brings gifts for the governor and his staff, began his news conference by lugging a cappuccino machine into the room with a sign tape on it: “Closed until further notice.”

“You can’t kick somebody in the groin and then say, ‘Come let us reason together, let us do this, let us join hands and sing ‘Kumbaya,’ ” said Burton, who is leaving the Legislature this year after four decades in politics. “It doesn’t work that way in life, it doesn’t work that way in politics and it doesn’t work that way in the Capitol.”

Others said the governor had embarrassed himself over the weekend with the reference to the “Hans and Franz” skit.

“I never knew the governor of California was elected to go to shopping malls and do 15-year-old skits from ‘Saturday Night Live,’ ” said state Sen. Debra Bowen (D-Marina del Rey). “Remind me again, was the governor a kindergartner or a cop in that movie?”

Burton reminded Schwarzenegger that Democrats will be in control next year as well, no matter what he threatens, and Democratic leaders will be in a less jovial mood to deal with him. Burton said Schwarzenegger “cannot be both the executive and legislative branch,” and the Legislature won’t be on “bended knee” before him.

“We did not bow down to Gray Davis. We are not going to bow down to Arnold Schwarzenegger,” said Burton, acknowledging that the governor has the right to campaign against them. “And when it is all over, there will be a Democratic majority in the Assembly and in the Senate, and the governor ought to figure out how to start working with us like we worked with him on issues of great importance.”

A strategist for Assembly Democrats said the governor’s threats to unseat uncooperative members would “have absolutely no impact at all.”

“Democratic and Republican lawmakers really want to do a job: Vote on a budget real soon,” said the strategist, Gale Kaufman. “Anything that distracts from that is nothing short of partisan politics. Whether it is me doing it or my Republican friends doing it, it doesn’t help get a budget passed. Any campaign-type gimmicks won’t work at this point.”

Times staff writers Evan Halper and Jordan Rau contributed to this report.