Many Expect Less Partisanship

Hundreds of times in the five-year reign of Democratic Gov. Gray Davis, Ray Haynes has stood on the Assembly floor and spoken like the true conservative he is.

Assemblyman Haynes has beseeched Democrats who dominate the Legislature to cut spending and free business from government’s tentacles. More than 95% of the time, Haynes says, Democrats did the opposite.

But as Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger prepares to be sworn in next month as California’s governor, Haynes (R-Murietta) is practically giddy, predicting the dynamics of the Legislature are about to change.

At last, he and others say, the Legislature will be forced to move beyond the partisan bickering, ideological deadlocks and Democratic arrogance that have so often stymied or silenced the minority party and led to damaging delays in passing budgets.

“I’d resigned myself that I was going to be irrelevant until the day I left the Legislature,” Haynes said, “and this is like a new lease on life for me.”

In separate interviews with 34 lawmakers this week, a consensus emerged that Sacramento Republicans will soon have a stronger hand in the legislative horse-trading over how bills get amended, which ones advance and which are left to die quietly.

With Schwarzenegger able to veto legislation, Democrats will have to compromise to win Republican support, even for bills they could pass easily alone. Hanging over their heads is a warning Schwarzenegger had made repeatedly: If the Legislature bucks his wishes, the Republican governor will go directly to voters with an initiative -- and his movie star popularity.

“Things will be very different. It will be much more balanced,” said Assemblyman John Campbell (R-Irvine). “Republicans will have more power, even though they didn’t win any more seats.”

Or, as Democratic Assemblyman Joe Simitian of Palo Alto said, “Come the new year, every Democratic legislator in Sacramento has to start asking himself: What will Arnold Schwarzenegger sign or not.”

Since Schwarzenegger ousted Davis in the Oct. 7 recall, Democrats have sounded a conciliatory refrain. They promise to work with the new governor because, they say, that’s what voters want. Polls during the campaign showed voters held the Legislature in as low esteem as they did the governor, and blamed both for the fiscal crisis that had helped precipitate the unprecedented election.

“Anybody who doesn’t listen to the message of the recall election does so at their own peril,” said Assemblyman Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento). “People expect us to solve problems and not engage in needless partisanship.”

Sen. Jackie Speier (D-Hillsborough) called Schwarzenegger’s transition team -- which includes many Democrats -- “good news for Californians.”

“What we’ve heard from the electorate is: They’re sick of the old, they’re sick of politics as usual and they want to get their money’s worth out of government,” she said.

Democrats hold a strong majority in both houses, with 48 of 80 seats in the Assembly and 25 of 40 seats in the Senate. They have repeatedly passed bills on strictly partisan lines, overriding Republican concerns.

Many bills that passed with this kind of lopsided support were signed this month by Davis, including one to allow illegal immigrants to get driver’s licenses. The bill got no Republican support in its final votes in the Assembly and Senate. Schwarzenegger has said he will ask the Legislature to overturn it in a special session he has called for next month. Republicans have begun a referendum campaign to ask voters to repeal the law.

“If you’re the Democrats, you don’t want to look irrelevant,” said Assemblyman Tim Leslie (R-Tahoe City). “If one of these key issues like workers’ compensation or driver’s licenses gets put up on the ballot and passes, you’re going to say, maybe we don’t want to go through that bloodbath again.”

One of only three members of the Assembly to have served under a Republican governor, Leslie said he hoped Schwarzenegger would follow former governors Pete Wilson and George Deukmejian in considering how Republicans had voted on a bill before deciding its fate.

Many Democrats said they simply don’t know what to expect from Schwarzenegger, a Republican who married into a Democratic dynasty but has no political experience beyond his support of a 2002 initiative to pay for after-school programs.

“The election was long on glitz and short on substance,” said Assemblywoman Hannah-Beth Jackson (D-Santa Barbara). “So, it’s really hard to know what he’s planning beyond the platitudes that he’s going to clean up government and make it work better.”

Some Democrats insist they won’t be star-struck by the incoming governor’s global celebrity. “I don’t think so,” snickered Assemblywoman Judy Chu (D-Monterey Park). But others confess that they may ask Schwarzenegger for his autograph on more than their bills.

“There’s a sense of excitement,” said Sen. Gloria Romero (D-Los Angeles). “There will be some Kodak moments. I have family calling: Have you met with Arnold yet? When are you going to meet with him?”

Romero said she was sure that colleagues would get some snapshots in. “This is somebody we’ve seen on the big screen in everything from ‘Terminator’ to ‘Kindergarten Cop.’ ”

Still, some Democrats warned, Schwarzenegger could kill any spirit of cooperation by threatening to work to unseat Democratic lawmakers in an effort to win Republican majorities in the Assembly and Senate.

“The thing that will make it difficult very quickly are the politics,” said Assemblyman Mark Ridley-Thomas (D-Los Angeles), “namely, if they are intensely interested in ... putting him on the road to start taking Democrats out.”

Given the state’s precarious fiscal condition, both the governor’s agenda and his relationship with the Legislature will revolve in the early days largely around the budget.

Some moderate Democrats expressed hope that a Republican governor would save lawmakers from budget deadlock.

To raise taxes or pass a budget requires the support of two-thirds of the Legislature, making Republican votes necessary with this Legislature. This year, Republicans refused to support the tax increases that Democrats sought while Democrats opposed deeper cuts in health and social services programs, triggering a stalemate that ended 44 days after the constitutional deadline. The final plan cut government spending and relies heavily on borrowing billions of dollars with bonds that have since been challenged in court.

Democrats who tend to vote in line with business interests, such as Assemblyman John Dutra (D-Fremont), said they hoped Schwarzenegger would consider raising taxes to balance the budget, despite his anti-tax stance in the campaign.

If the Legislature tackles issues of great concern to business -- such as cutting more costs in the workers’ compensation system and rewriting a law that has been abused by a few attorneys to generate quick settlements from hundreds of small-business owners -- then Schwarzenegger should be willing to reconsider taxes, Dutra said.

“I think he should be open-minded as to the entire question as to what is necessary to resolve the budget crisis,” the assemblyman said.

More liberal Democrats said they eagerly awaited the Jan. 10 release of Schwarzenegger’s budget plan, and they expressed skepticism that he could do all he had promised as a candidate without devastating programs that help the elderly, the disabled and the ill.

Schwarzenegger’s budget begins with an inherited $8-billion shortfall, although some officials have suggested that it could quickly grow to as much as $20 billion if various debt financing methods are voided by the courts.

He has promised to repeal a vehicle registration fee increase that generates about $4 billion that the state sends to local governments for police and fire protection, libraries, parks and other services -- and promised to find state money to continue funding those services. Schwarzenegger also has vowed to protect school money, which accounts for nearly half of the budget, and not to raise taxes.

“My sense is that Gov.-elect Schwarzenegger will have no choice but to present a balanced budget,” said Assemblyman Fabian Nunez, using Democratic code words for a budget that includes tax hikes. “He would be the perfect person to deliver the message to Republican constituencies.”

Haynes dismissed that notion as “the siren song of the tax-and-spend crew in Sacramento.”

“Democrats are saying Schwarzenegger is the only reasonable person who can convince these intractable Republicans to raise taxes,” he said. “If he does that, it’ll destroy him politically.”

Not all Democrats said they held out hope that Schwarzenegger would seek higher taxes.

“It’s not going to happen,” said Assemblywoman Patricia Wiggins (D-Santa Rosa), so Democrats “should keep their mouths shut.”

She and several others in her party wondered whether Schwarzenegger’s moderate stance on issues such as gun control and abortion eventually would bring him trouble from fellow Republicans -- maybe more than he would get from Democrats.

Leslie, one of the more conservative lawmakers, said he finds Schwarzenegger’s support of abortion rights troubling, but the lawmaker has reconciled himself to the moderate social positions.

“We supported him because he’s going to be a great backstop for us to stop some of this terrible legislation,” Leslie said.

Many members of both parties said that, if Schwarzenegger bothers to visit and call lawmakers to discuss legislation, he can’t help but get more goodwill than the notoriously aloof Davis.

“I’m expecting it will be hard ... if he’s making any effort, to be less well-liked than his predecessor,” said Assemblyman John Longville (D-Rialto).

So far, the next governor has done more to reach out to Republican lawmakers than to Democrats. He met with the entire Republican legislative caucus for an hour Wednesday to discuss an agenda for a special legislative session next month. Several Republican lawmakers, including Haynes, said they had spoken one-on-one with him about policy. Most Democrats said they had met him only briefly, when he campaigned last year in Sacramento for the after-school initiative.

Assemblywoman Rebecca Cohn (D-Saratoga) said she recently placed five calls to Schwarzenegger’s staff. None has been returned. As one of the few moderate women Democrats in the Legislature, she said, “I would have thought he would be interested in developing relationships there.”

But Sen. Dean Florez (D-Shafter), who has a reputation for breaking with Democrats and seeking the spotlight, said the governor-elect had called him Monday to talk about eliminating government waste.

Florez said he doubted that Schwarzenegger could win over Senate liberals on cuts to health care and help for the needy.

“But does he need to? Or does he need to win over four or five folks who might in essence work with some of our Republican colleagues to get some things completed?” Florez asked. “I think he’s really going to have to target those people.... He gave me a call, and that’s more than the last governor did.”