Shriver Woos Women’s Support for Props. 57, 58

Appearing on the campaign trail for the first time since last fall’s recall campaign, California First Lady Maria Shriver said Thursday that passage of her husband’s ballot measures, Propositions 57 and 58, would protect environmental causes and other issues dear to women from budget cuts.

Shriver’s carefully orchestrated appearance inside the Presidio, a former Army installation that is now a park, was part of a targeted effort by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s political team to boost support for the ballot measures among Democratic women. Public polls show the measures with slightly more than 50% support, but Propositions 57 and 58 remain relatively weak among Democrats and women four days before Tuesday’s election.

Shriver’s pitch to women was direct: “I stand here today first as a mother, second as a Californian, third as a supporter of Proposition 57 and 58,” said the first lady, who brought along her 12-year-old daughter Christina, the second of the couple’s four children, for a day in San Francisco. “And I think there’s no group in the state that’s more concerned about the future of our state than mothers.”

Proposition 57 would authorize up to $15 billion in long-term bonds to pay off debt that accumulated as a result of the state’s budget deficits in the last three years. Proposition 58, a constitutional amendment, would require the state to enact a balanced budget each year with a rainy-day reserve. The two are linked. If either fails to gain majority support, both fail.

Shriver took no questions, and she left detailed discussions of the ballot measures to the state’s environmental secretary.

But those involved in the negotiations in December said Shriver was one of the key behind-the-scenes advocates of the deal between Schwarzenegger and the Legislature that put the measures on Tuesday’s ballot.

Reports of her role in the political deal-making contributed to Shriver’s decision to take an indefinite leave earlier this month from her job as an NBC News journalist.

Shriver’s talk in San Francisco represented her first major appearance since she put aside her journalistic duties. Terri Carbaugh, a spokeswoman for the first lady, said Shriver would continue to speak out on issues about which she is “passionate.”

Shriver spoke Thursday inside the Presidio’s Officers Club before 20 people, most of them environmentalists and women. The group included San Francisco city Chief of Protocol Charlotte Shultz, who is married to former U.S. Secretary of State George P. Shultz. He was one of those who, along with Shriver, pushed Schwarzenegger to make a deal with the Legislature to put the propositions on the ballot.

Also on the dais was labor leader Dolores Huerta, who helped lead a protest against Schwarzenegger during a campaign event in Boyle Heights last fall.

At that time, Huerta decried what she described as the racism of Schwarzenegger’s policies.

Shriver thanked Huerta for her presence and noted that “our families go way back” to when Huerta campaigned for Shriver’s late uncle, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, during the 1968 presidential campaign.

“Yes, I protested,” said Huerta, “but this is an economic disaster we have facing us. People have to come together.”

She added that she had attended the meeting and was supporting the ballot measures at the urging of state Senate President Pro Tem John Burton (D-San Francisco).

The famously cantankerous, profane Burton was on his best behavior; he said he was feeling subdued because of a morning root canal and a warning from his daughter not to embarrass the first lady.

Burton strongly endorsed both measures, though he cited reasons far different from those of the governor.

Schwarzenegger has described Proposition 57’s $15-billion deficit bond as merely a refinancing of inherited deficits. Burton said he liked the measure because it had $3 billion in new borrowing that can go to protect health, welfare and other programs.

Burton praised Schwarzenegger’s flexibility.

“I’ve served under ... five governors,” he said, “and to be truthful, the only one I’ve known that actually had the ability and confidence in himself to say ‘wait a minute, maybe this can be done another way,’ is Gov. Schwarzenegger. Some of the other governors were either too stubborn or were not secure in themselves.”