Governor Considers a Power Play

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, whose ambitious plans to overhaul state bureaucracy face opposition in the Legislature, is considering a change that would make it far more difficult for lawmakers to reject his ideas.

If successful, the move would amount to a dramatic shift in power toward the Republican governor, helping him surmount resistance in a Legislature controlled by the opposition.

Currently, Schwarzenegger’s call for revamping government can be rejected by the Legislature through a simple majority vote of either the Senate or Assembly.

Under the change that the governor’s aides have privately discussed, a two-thirds vote of both houses would be necessary to scuttle a proposed government shakeup. So the governor could pass a reorganization plan into law with one-third of the votes in the Assembly and Senate, where Republicans account for more than a third.

“It’d make it an awful lot harder for the Legislature to turn down a plan,” said William Houck, co-chairman of a commission that advised Schwarzenegger on government restructuring.

At issue is the California Performance Review, a proposed top-to-bottom restructuring of state government that would consolidate power within the executive branch. The plan released by Schwarzenegger-appointed panel in August would eliminate 118 of the 339 state boards and commissions, while moving many of their responsibilities to the executive branch. New departments would be created with a view toward minimizing the overlap and duplication in California’s government.

Schwarzenegger has a couple of options. He could enact the new voting requirements through a bill that the Legislature would need to adopt. Or he could go to the ballot and get approval from voters, a strategy that has worked for him in the past.

Schwarzenegger has not yet decided to press for the new voting threshold, and he ultimately may decide to leave the current rules intact. “We’re not going to comment on internal discussions,” said Ashley Snee, a spokeswoman for the governor.

Schwarzenegger’s aides are now formulating his overall 2005 policy strategy, which could involve a special election in which voters would be asked to approve a strict spending cap and a new method of carving legislative and congressional districts, as well as a revamping of California’s 200,000-person government.

Having promised to shake up Sacramento, the governor would package and promote the ballot as his defining attempt at reform -- an assault on the entrenched interests in Sacramento and a bid to discipline an unwieldy bureaucracy.

But Schwarzenegger also may push at least some parts of his reorganization plan through the Legislature, in which case the voting rules in place could spell success or failure.

Schwarzenegger’s intentions are expected to be laid out publicly in his State of the State speech, set for Jan. 5.

“The power that the special interests have consolidated in Sacramento will be taken from them ultimately,” Rob Stutzman, communications director for Schwarzenegger, said in a recent interview. “Will the elected representatives of the people participate in that? Or will the people and this governor do it without them? It’s soul-searching time -- whether the legislators here want to be part of the solution or part of obstructing an ultimate solution.”

Schwarzenegger has called for “blowing up the boxes” of state government. And the California Performance Review is his main vehicle for making that happen.

The governor and his aides are now combing through the 2,500-page report, deciding how much of it to discard and how much to push.

One panel targeted for elimination is the Air Resources Board, which has led efforts to cut air pollution -- running afoul of automakers and other industry interests in the process. Another recommendation is to combine tax collecting powers -- now divided among three agencies -- into a single office.

Democratic legislative leaders seem cool to Schwarzenegger’s plans. In the Capitol’s partisan atmosphere, the governor would have a tough time ushering in changes under the present rules, since 41 members of the Assembly are enough to torpedo his plans. Forty-eight Assembly members are Democrats.

“If you accept the premise that the governor ought to be able to organize the executive branch to carry out his responsibilities in the way he wants, I suppose you could make an argument” for making it harder for the Legislature to say no, Houck said. “It’s the difference between what a Legislature does and what a governor does. A Legislature has all kinds of authority and absolutely no responsibility for any execution. A governor has a lot of authority and total responsibility ... for every program.”

Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata (D-Oakland) recently described the California Performance Review as a hodgepodge of every good and bad idea floated in the Capitol in recent decades.

Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez (D-Los Angeles) said in an interview that he could support about 40 of the report’s proposals. There are a total of 1,200 recommendations.

“I have no idea where the governor is headed with CPR,” he said. “We can work with some of the proposals that make government more efficient. It’s going to be critical that there is input by the Legislature in this process. And I’m hopeful the governor takes that to heart and doesn’t try to circumvent the Legislature.”