They’re Unlikely Pals in a Town Full of Pols

Driving back to his hotel in Tel Aviv after an exhausting day in Israel earlier this month, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger decided he needed to make one more call.

“I really miss you,” he said as he got on his cell phone. “I can’t wait to see you again.”

“You got the wrong number,” came the gruff reply from 7,000 miles away. “I think you’re calling for Maria.”

It was no wrong number. Schwarzenegger was calling the profane and prickly leader of the state Senate, Democrat John Burton.

In a capital where festering grudges can sabotage policy, Schwarzenegger recognized early on that he couldn’t afford a feud with the man controlling the Senate majority.

Budget deals, workers’ compensation overhauls, government reorganization -- the guts of Schwarzenegger’s agenda -- flow through Burton. And no single lawmaker in Sacramento is more central to the governor’s defining priority this summer: a state budget approved on time with no new taxes.

Schwarzenegger has prepared mightily for the moment, courting the 71-year-old Burton with a zeal that evokes a school-boy crush. Flowers for his birthday. Gifts back and forth. Conversations in Burton’s halting German. Late night runs for Wiener schnitzel.

It’s now at a point where the governor’s office purposely blocks out time in Schwarzenegger’s day for Republicans so there are no cries of favoritism.

“You don’t have Burton down five times in three days without also having the Republicans come down,” said an aide to Schwarzenegger, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The friendship now faces a key test.

Schwarzenegger last week released a $102.8-billion budget, and he will need Burton’s cooperation to get it approved.

The governor said his spending plan might be painful in places, but it’s necessary. Burton is unconvinced. Cuts to welfare programs are “unworthy of the state of California and unworthy of a governor that does have great compassion,” Burton said after the governor made public his budget. “My mother didn’t bring me into the world to pick on poor people to fix a problem they did not create.”

But Burton has reasons to deal as well. With Gray Davis gone, he is the most influential Democrat in Sacramento. And he is in a strong position to barter for Schwarzenegger’s help in protecting social programs and preserving legislation he pushed through the Legislature last year that will require many businesses to provide health insurance to their workers.

The law faces a ballot fight this fall as business groups seek to have it repealed, and Schwarzenegger’s position could determine the outcome.

But so far, the governor is keeping his views on the referendum to himself. “It would be a big mistake to get into that at this point,” he said.

“They have something very much in common. Arnold Schwarzenegger wants to get things done and John Burton wants to leave the building with a legacy,” said Bill Whalen, research fellow at the Hoover Institution and speechwriter for former Gov. Pete Wilson.

They knew little about each other when the governor took office. A pair of mutual friends helped make introductions: actors Tom Arnold and Jamie Lee Curtis, both veterans of Schwarzenegger movies.

“When I met him, he laid out very clearly how he operates: that he sometimes screams and I shouldn’t take it personally,” Schwarzenegger said. “That’s just his personality. And obviously, in the beginning there was a relationship that still had to be shaped and formed.”

Others are more skeptical of Burton’s motives, saying California’s career politicians are typically cozy with celebrities, a group that includes the governor’s wife, a celebrity in her own right.

“There are a lot of people on our side of the aisle that ... love to stand up with Arnold and bask in the glory and show up with Maria Shriver,” said Garry South, political consultant to former Gov. Davis, who had notoriously sour relations with Burton.

Davis “didn’t offer that kind of celebrity,” South said.

There were no guarantees Schwarzenegger and Burton would hit it off. Schwarzenegger ran as an outsider. Burton is the ultimate insider, having been in and out of the Legislature since the 1960s. Schwarzenegger is a camera-ready creature of Hollywood. Burton is a product of San Francisco -- in need of a tape-delay to bleep out gales of profanity.

The night in August when Schwarzenegger announced his candidacy on “The Tonight Show,” Tom Arnold had Burton on one phone line, Schwarzenegger on the other. He went back and forth, delivering messages between the two.

“John said it’s going to be a disaster,” Arnold recalled. “And Arnold said it’s going to be the best thing ever.”

“I feel like a matchmaker,” Arnold continued. “To me, they’re kind of the same guy: Rough on the exterior and soft on the inside.”

It helped that Burton took a liking to the governor’s chief of staff, Patricia Clarey.

At an early meeting to talk about the budget, Burton got up and walked out. Shades of the past. Clarey scurried after him, hoping to flag him down before feelings hardened. They went upstairs to Burton’s office for coffee, working out a cover story so the press wouldn’t conclude that things had blown up: the participants had divided into “working groups.”

“We’ve pretty much done a couple of ‘working groups’ since then,” Clarey said with a chuckle.

Now when Burton walks by Clarey’s office, he tosses gifts onto her desk.

Shriver also played a part. Burton campaigned for her father, Sargent Shriver, the vice presidential nominee in the 1972 election. The first lady has gone on outings with Burton together with her mother, Eunice Kennedy Shriver. (Burton was made to promise he wouldn’t swear in Eunice’s presence.)

“The Burton family and Kennedy family go back a long time. So we’ve hit it off,” said Burton, whose late brother, Phil, served in Congress for 19 years.

That Burton is schmoozing so much with Schwarzenegger worries some Republicans.

Burton has eclipsed the three other legislative leaders from both parties, assuming the dominant role in talks with the governor.

In elevating Burton, Schwarzenegger left a diminished role for Sen. Jim Brulte (R-Rancho Cucamonga), who said in an interview that he is unruffled by the friendship. It is only natural that Burton and the governor would find each other, Brulte said.

“If you’re the governor, you want to negotiate with the leader of the other party,” he said. “With all due respect to [Assembly] Speaker Fabian Nunez, Sen. Burton is the leader of the Democratic Party in Sacramento. Sen. Burton has a decades-long record of delivering votes, many of them tough.”

At both ends of the spectrum, people are watching the courtship with a view toward who has the upper hand. Each side believes it is prevailing. With Schwarzenegger showing a pragmatic bent -- constantly re-evaluating his position in search of a compromise -- there is evidence both ways.

“My view is that Schwarzenegger is seducing Burton and not vice versa,” said Steve Moore, president of the Washington think tank Club for Growth and also a member of a group that reviewed findings of the governor’s audit of state finances. “I think he’s gotten as much out of Burton as one could possibly hope -- and even exceeded expectations on the budget and workers’ comp.”

Sen. Jackie Speier (D-Hillsborough) sees it differently.

“The fact that John has a good working relationship with the governor is of great advantage to us. He likes this governor as much as he disliked the last governor.”

That much was on display in recent workers’ comp negotiations, said Burton. Amid all the arcane talk, they got absorbed in a playful back-and-forth about which of the two is history’s greater figure. Burton remembered it as two guys who enjoy messing with each other. And that’s part of the reason the two keep at it.

The senator told the governor, “You’re a great man, you know that?”

Schwarzenegger: “No, you’re a great man.”

Burton: “No, you’re a great man.”