Thanks to the Budget, Politics as Usual Is Back

The honeymoon plainly is over between the Legislature and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

They’re not throwing gavels or bill-signing pens at each other, but evil stares and name-calling are common. The bliss has turned to bluster.

Schwarzenegger, the sweet-talking charmer, is behaving increasingly like an ordinary, frustrated governor trying to live with a headstrong Legislature. And he may be losing control.

Budget bickering will do that.

Just 16 days ago, Schwarzenegger was telling reporters, referring to budget negotiations: “Everyone is sitting at a table, laughing, struggling, working together.... There is a whole new mood in Sacramento. Business as usual -- politics as usual -- is out the window.”

That lasted about two more days, until the Legislature sauntered through the July 1 deadline without passing a budget. Or, looked at another way, until the governor failed to deliver an on-time budget as he’d promised.

Whatever. By July 5, the governor was at a restaurant off the interstate near Sacramento telling diners he still was the “Kindergarten Cop” -- an old movie role -- because the Legislature consisted of “120 children” who needed “a timeout.”

Last Saturday in Austria, where he was attending a state funeral, Schwarzenegger told Times reporter Joe Mathews: “There is a certain arrogance among the legislators ... that they feel like they can run the cities and the counties better” than local governments can.

Never mind that legislators aren’t trying to “run” local governments -- or “steal money,” as he also claimed. Democrats are trying to cut back on state allowances to local governments that Sacramento got trapped into paying 26 years ago, after voters slashed their property taxes with Proposition 13. But that’s not the point here.

The point is, as Assembly Assistant Republican Leader Ray Haynes of Murrieta says: “He is getting on some legislators’ nerves, for sure.

“A few of them are getting bent out of shape. Some of my Republican colleagues feel they’re getting insulted by him. It bothers me less, because the face of the Legislature is [Senate leader] John Burton and [Assembly Speaker] Fabian Nunez. It reflects on Democrats more than us. But it insults our guys as well because they see themselves as part of the institution.”

Haynes adds: “The problem is, if we whine too loudly, we do look like children. And he’s reflecting what most people think. You can’t say something and get away with it unless there’s an element of truth there.”

The annoying part for many lawmakers is that Schwarzenegger has been alternately playing good cop and bad cop. Calling legislators “partners” and putting them down. That’s his style: to both charm and coerce.

But it all is starting to look and sound very artificial, even the “fantastic” relationships.

“We like the partnership and the holding hands, but you can’t push around the people you’re holding hands with,” says Speaker Nunez (D-Los Angeles).

Schwarzenegger’s “Kindergarten Cop” comment was “all for show,” Nunez continues. “That may help build his persona. It may be helpful to the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie when they do that. But it doesn’t help solve the budget.”

One Democratic strategist, who didn’t want to be identified, says that normally, when budgets are gridlocked, lawmakers “are calling and asking, ‘What do I say? I’m getting the crud kicked out of me.’ This time, I haven’t gotten one call.

“It’s like, all this is on Arnold. The public thinks ‘Arnold is handling it.’ It’s on his back.”

That makes sense. The public trusts this governor, unlike the last one. So if the budget’s late, he gets some space. Anyway, it’s only two weeks late. So far.

But he needs to settle this soon. Late budgets hurt governors worse than legislators. Ask Gray Davis and Pete Wilson.

Budget brawling is not Schwarzenegger’s game. Or any governor’s. It’s a complex process that favors the Legislature with its labyrinth of committees, experienced consultants and byzantine rules.

Moreover, a budget is not a single issue, like workers’ comp, that can be used by a showman governor to whip up public pressure on the Legislature.

Notes Senate Republican Leader Dick Ackerman of Irvine: “When you get to the budget, you’ve got a thousand different interests going every which way. Most people only care about their portion of the budget. You don’t hear a groundswell, ‘We want the budget.’

“He [Schwarzenegger] may have thought everything would go through all warm and fuzzy.”

It hasn’t been warm and fuzzy even with Republicans. They, more than Democrats, denied the governor an on-time budget.

Republicans scolded Schwarzenegger for giving in to Democrats on spending for education and the poor. They pushed back against a tentative agreement he’d reached with Democrats on local government financing. They’re now holding up budget passage because of two unrelated issues: outside contracting by schools and workers’ suits against their employers.

“He doesn’t have control of this,” Nunez says of Schwarzenegger. “I think Republicans are running circles around him.”

Ouch.

The governor needs to reconcile with the Legislature -- and not let local government ever come between them again.

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George Skelton writes Monday and Thursday. Reach him at george.skelton@latimes.com. Read previous columns at latimes.com/skelton.