GOP Lawmakers Take Gov. to Task Over Appointment

Republican lawmakers scolded Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Tuesday, telling him in a closed-door meeting how seriously his support among party stalwarts is wavering.

Schwarzenegger spent about an hour with 20 members of the Assembly Republican caucus, who had asked for the meeting following his appointment of a Democratic activist as his new chief of staff.

The Republican loyalists cast the hiring of Susan Kennedy, a top advisor to former Gov. Gray Davis, as a betrayal that raises a fundamental question about Schwarzenegger: Is he a Republican, or isn’t he?

“When my quarterback throws the ball to the other team, I’ve got worries,” said Assemblyman Ray Haynes (R-Murrieta), in an interview after the meeting.

Some of the lawmakers told the governor that unhappiness over the Kennedy appointment is widespread. There are no guarantees, some said, that as the 2006 reelection campaign intensifies party activists will rally behind Schwarzenegger.

“The people who are our backbone are all saying, ‘That’s it. We’re done,’ ” said Haynes.

“We were trying to communicate to him that these are the people who man the phones in our headquarters and walk the precincts. They’re the army we have and they are very unhappy. We’ve been getting calls saying, ‘Sorry, you’re on your own.’ ”

Schwarzenegger appointed Kennedy in an attempt to reshape his administration after the defeat of the four major initiatives he endorsed in the Nov. 8 special election.

The hiring is part of a broader staff shake-up still in progress.

A former abortion-rights activist and Democratic Party executive, Kennedy holds strong political convictions, Haynes said. He added that the governor’s core philosophy is still evolving, even after two years in power.

“We don’t know where this governor comes from and is going sometimes,” he said. “I think Susan Kennedy knows what she believes more than the governor knows what he believes.”

Kennedy’s views could become “the dominant philosophy of the administration,” Haynes said. “That’s what our concerns are.”

Walking out of the meeting, Schwarzenegger offered a one-word assessment of how it went: “Terrific.” Then he got into an elevator and left.

The governor’s communications director, Rob Stutzman, said Schwarzenegger sought to reassure lawmakers that Kennedy’s role is to help him achieve his goals -- not the opposite.

He said: “The governor’s point is: ‘I should be judged by the way I govern. And this is someone who agrees with what I’m trying to do and will help me do it, and I’m going to keep governing the way I have.’ ”

Assembly Republicans had invited the governor to the meeting to talk about the party’s next steps. Assemblyman Dennis Mountjoy (R-Monrovia) said his colleagues aired “concerns with where we go now after this election,” in which Schwarzenegger was handed “his head on a platter.”

Schwarzenegger has outlined a theme for next year that focuses on rebuilding California through a multibillion-dollar bond issue that would finance improvements to roads, levees, ports and parts of California’s infrastructure.

Some who attended the meeting said the governor offered little new detail about his agenda for next year.

The governor may have trouble persuading his own party to approve such a bond and potentially add to the state’s debt.

Passage of a bond issue would require a two-thirds vote of the Legislature. The measure would then go before voters.

Mountjoy, asked if the governor could count on sufficient Republican support for a bond, said: “I doubt it.”

Without more specifics from Schwarzenegger on the size and scope of the project, Mountjoy said, “We don’t even know what we’re talking about.”