Budget’s Late Again, but at Least They’re Getting Along

This is New Year’s Day in the state Capitol, the dawning of another fiscal year, the “real deadline” for passing a budget. Once again, the Legislature has failed to fulfill its duty. And this time, it doesn’t matter a whit.

Something else has been happening that’s more important than an on-time budget. These legislators actually are getting along -- with each other and the governor. The venomous rhetoric has been muted.

The food fights have stopped. In fact, the Legislature’s most powerful Democrat, Senate leader John Burton of San Francisco, has been whipping up cappuccinos and carrying them downstairs to the Republican governor.

It’s still a political playing field, but no longer does it resemble a spoiled children’s playground. Politicians are arguing over public policy, but sparing the partisan potshots.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the legislative leaders are negotiating constructively, not corrosively, and this hasn’t happened here in years.

Yes, they’re missing their deadline. Indeed, they’re pushing off their toughest budget decisions into future years. California has a thicket of other complex problems -- energy, water, land use, transportation -- that the politicians also have been sidestepping. But we shouldn’t get too hung up about any of that, for now at least.

Because this is the key: Before any of these polarizing problems can be solved, the governor and the lawmakers have to be talking straight with each other, trusting each other. That’s the first step. And they’re taking it.

As Rob Stutzman, the governor’s spokesman, notes: “It’s not an end, but it’s a nice means.”

“When you build this type of good faith,” says Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez (D-Los Angeles), “it breeds a more constructive atmosphere that’s conducive to problem-solving.”

There are at least three reasons for the mood shift:

* A change in political dynamics.

Power is now divided, with a Republican governor and a Democratic Legislature. So Republican lawmakers have a stake in helping their party’s governor succeed. When Gray Davis was governor and Democrats controlled both branches, Republicans felt isolated and became bomb-throwers.

“Their role was to say, ‘No,’ and make Gray Davis look bad,” says Assembly Budget Committee Chairman Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento). “If Gray Davis had presented the budget Arnold Schwarzenegger did, I guarantee you their reaction would have been very different. Now they’re part of the game.”

* An early decision to punt the budget, to delay the toughest moves until at least 2005, a nonelection year.

Schwarzenegger ruled out an immediate tax increase, which analysts believe eventually will be needed to honestly balance the budget. He backed off some proposed cuts in services for the disabled and the poor, and will retreat even further in the final budget. He promised more state spending in the future for education and local governments in return for deep cuts now.

All sides winked at each other, cooked numbers and borrowed billions to “balance” the books, reducing pain and minimizing the contentious issues.

Schwarzenegger gave Republicans a victory up-front with his early no-tax pledge. “That’s a home run for us,” says Assembly GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield, although he still was fighting several proposed “fee” hikes Wednesday.

Burton says cutting services for the disabled and aged poor was never a real issue: “There was nothing to talk about. I just wasn’t willing to do it.”

“Everybody realized we were not going to get out of this [deficit] in one year, so don’t even try,” says Senate GOP Leader Richard Ackerman of Irvine. “It’s going to take two or three years.”

* The biggest factor in climactic change: Schwarzenegger himself.

With Govs. Davis and, “to a lesser extent,” Pete Wilson, “it was, ‘My way or the highway,’ ” says Burton. “If you didn’t want to do something, they’d get uptight. [Schwarzenegger] says, ‘Well, what are you going to do?’ He doesn’t think [our] saying ‘No’ diminishes his manhood.”

Says Sen. Sheila Kuehl (D-Santa Monica): “You cannot not like this governor. He won’t let you.”

Kuehl recalls Schwarzenegger bounding out of his Hummer in the Capitol basement to give her a bear hug. “Senator,” she quotes him, “I just found out you were on TV. I’ll bet I’m the only one in the Capitol who knows that.” Kuehl didn’t have the heart to tell him that, no, practically everyone in the building knew she’d played Zelda Gilroy in the early ‘60s TV show “The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis.”

Like many in the Capitol, however, Kuehl so far sees more superficiality than substance in Schwarzenegger.

He gets kudos for pushing through workers’ comp reform. But some other “accomplishments” -- rescinding drivers’ licenses for illegal immigrants, cutting the car tax, getting voter approval of a $15-billion budget-bailout bond -- are considered low-hanging fruit.

People have a wait-and-see attitude. But meanwhile, Schwarzenegger deserves credit for altering the atmospherics. His upbeat confidence and charm, and arsenal of carrots and sticks, have been effective antidotes against the Capitol’s venom.

The budget will be late. But the climate will be cool. And any passage by mid-July, in golf parlance, will be a gimme-putt.

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George Skelton writes Monday and Thursday. Reach him at george. skelton@latimes.com.