Governor May Ask Voters for ‘Revolutionary’ Changes

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Tuesday that he wanted a “revolutionary kind of change” in state government and might be forced to bypass the Legislature and take to the ballot a plan to streamline what he called a dated and creaky bureaucracy.

But he said there was no urgency to act on his proposal to make the California Legislature part-time. On the day a statewide opinion poll showed public opposition to the idea, he said it might require considerable study.

Finishing a two-day conference of 10 U.S. and Mexican governors from states along the border, the governor said his intent is to make government “more efficient and more inexpensive” so that it “can serve the people better and faster.”

“Fast action,” Schwarzenegger said. “How can we streamline it all so we don’t have to wait for driver’s licenses for hours? Lots of things people are frustrated about, and no one has really looked at it for a long time.”

Schwarzenegger spoke to three reporters for about 45 minutes in the nonsmoking presidential suite at the Eldorado Hotel, smoking a big cigar after he and his colleagues had co-signed an agreement pledging to make the border safer and strengthen commerce and trade.

As a friend from his movie career, director Walter von Huene, stoked a roaring fire, Schwarzenegger criticized the Legislature for what he called its subservience to the state’s powerful prison guards union, and he voiced reservations about a bond issue on the November ballot that would underwrite $3 billion for stem cell research.

Schwarzenegger spoke after a statewide Field Poll showed his popularity at 65% -- an approval rating that stood firm although Schwarzenegger had failed to deliver an on-time budget as he had promised.

The governor said his popularity is shown by the turnout he gets in shopping malls, where he typically goes when he wants voters’ help in political skirmishes with the Legislature.

He said nearly 3,000 people came to the Ontario mall where he referred to legislative opponents as “girlie-men.” He now refers to that appearance as the “girlie-men mall” event.

“No one leaves the building without purchasing something,” he said. “So that’s why the shopping mall managers are in absolute heaven.... They want me to have a little problem in Sacramento. Because they know I go out there to the shopping malls and they have again booming business.”

The governor’s comments Tuesday dealt in part with the recommendations last week of the California Performance Review, a task force that made sweeping recommendations to streamline government.

With a public hearing on the plan set for Friday in Riverside, Schwarzenegger said he was slowly wading through the 2,500-page report. Though he said he does not yet have an opinion on the report, he predicted that a dramatic overhaul of California’s government would result.

Some of the recommendations assembled by the governor’s task force would consolidate decision-making in his hands by wiping out scores of boards and commissions whose responsibilities would slide to the governor under the proposal.

Schwarzenegger denied that he would be amassing power at anyone’s expense.

“It’s not a hostile takeover or anything,” he said. “It’s not a power grab, as you guys have written. That’s total nonsense. That’s not the intention at all. The only power grab there is that the people ought to grab power.”

Anticipating resistance, Schwarzenegger is planning to sidestep the Legislature.

“Some things will not be passed by the legislators, so I will make a laundry list and put it on the ballot,” he said.

He criticized some lawmakers for denouncing the plan even before they had absorbed its hundreds of recommendations.

“I only heard complaints from those people who have never read the report in the first place,” Schwarzenegger said, adding that Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez (D-Los Angeles) hadn’t “even seen the report. And he already said this is a power grab.”

“People have a difficult time giving up anything.... It’s just a habit. So what we’re going to do is take those things directly to the people. But in any case, by the time it’s all over there will be revolutionary kind of change and remake of government. And it will be updated, basically. That’s the way it should be.”

Having called for converting the Legislature to part-time status, Schwarzenegger said Tuesday that that goal was not so pressing, and that there was no specific timetable to make it happen. Making the Legislature part-time would be a challenge for Schwarzenegger to pull off this year. A Field Poll released Tuesday said voters opposed the idea of a part-time Legislature, 52% to 33%.

And Schwarzenegger this year faces other political fights that could prove expensive and distracting -- including his campaign to defeat initiatives on the November ballot that would undermine an agreement he signed with five Indian tribes to bring in more casino revenue.

Still, Schwarzenegger said he talked about the idea of lawmakers working part time with two governors at the conference: New Mexico’s Bill Richardson and Texas’ Rick Perry.

“This is a discussion that, if one really goes down that road, I have to look at pros and cons and people have to look at pros and cons of that, and then maybe take it seriously,” Schwarzenegger said. “But we’re far away from any of that. Right now we have to figure out one thing: How do we make government more efficient.”

That said, Schwarzenegger voiced disdain for lawmakers in their treatment of the California Correctional Peace Officers Assn. contract. Schwarzenegger was criticized for signing a contract that extracted some salary concessions but granted the union new protections and benefits costing millions of dollars.

He said lawmakers undermined his attempts to negotiate with the union by refusing to repudiate wage increases, as he had called for in his revised budget in May.

“What did they do? They voted against it,” he said. “Maybe because they’re being funded in their campaigns and stuff like that? Maybe. I’m not accusing anybody of anything. But I can tell you one thing. They didn’t vote for it.”

Asked about Proposition 71, the stem-cell research measure on the November ballot, the governor voiced skepticism about it but declined to take a position. He said he favors stem-cell research, but worried that California could damage its credit rating by taking on more debt.

“We are bonded out,” he said. “We are at the limit of bonds. And therefore we should be fiscally responsible.... We always have to look at the bigger picture here. Is this the best way of going?”