Governor Tries to Defuse Union Wrath

With his deal this week to repay schools billions of dollars he had borrowed to balance the state budget in recent years, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has undercut the main argument that California’s powerful education unions have made for driving him out of office.

The pledge to restore the funds is the governor’s latest move in a clear strategy to neutralize the network of teachers, nurses, firefighters and others that has dogged him throughout his tenure and blocked major pieces of his agenda.

When Schwarzenegger backtracked last year on a commitment to pay off education money that had been diverted to other state programs, he made a political enemy of the well-funded education lobby. Union leaders cast him as a double-talking politician who could not be trusted to protect California’s schoolchildren.

Now that argument becomes harder to make: Schwarzenegger is pledging to repay over seven years more than $5 billion that education groups say they are due -- beginning with a $2-billion cash infusion this summer.

“There’s no question in my mind that there’s a political effort underway to neutralize as much opposition as possible,” said Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez (D-Los Angeles). “I don’t think the administration lives in fantasyland. They know they’re going to have strong opposition in November. But this is a way to soften the blow. And if they can soften the blow enough, they think they’re looking at the governor’s reelection.”

Other union allies say that there is no political truce with the governor and that they remain committed to Schwarzenegger’s defeat. The California Teachers Assn., one of Schwarzenegger’s main adversaries, has endorsed Democratic state Treasurer Phil Angelides for governor. There is no sign that will change.

On Wednesday, CTA President Barbara Kerr would not comment on the political implications of the budget deal, saying only: “He’s restoring the money that he owed and this is going to be really good for our schools and our communities and for public education.”

But political analysts said Schwarzenegger’s budgetary moves may gratify the union rank-and-file, quelling talk of dues hikes or other financial sacrifices that might be needed to bankroll an all-out campaign against the governor.

“He must be hoping that by doing this, it will quiet the discontent among the rank-and-file and make the leadership more amenable to not opposing him too vigorously,” said Joel Aberbach, professor of political science and public policy at UCLA.

Bob Wells is executive director of the Assn. of California School Administrators, which represents 16,000 members. His organization was among those that joined a lawsuit against the administration to force repayment of the education money. He said the agreement “brings some closure to what was a pretty ugly chapter between us.... I think for the good of the state it’s time to move on.”

Schwarzenegger’s decision to put more money into education caps a string of gestures that appear to be aimed at appeasing the groups that have caused him the most trouble. They are part of a formidable coalition that thwarted the governor’s special-election agenda last year.

One by one, Schwarzenegger has reached out to his antagonists and offered to settle the disagreements that led to the rifts.

The conciliatory steps began immediately after the November special election, when all four initiatives he embraced were rejected by the voters and his approval ratings flat-lined.

First, Schwarzenegger dropped an effort to reduce required nurse staffing levels at California hospitals. In heeding the hospital industry’s call for lower staffing, Schwarzenegger made a determined enemy of the state’s nurses.

Then he signaled that he would delay a proposal to cut back on public employee pensions, announcing that the issue needed more study. Police and firefighters were furious with Schwarzenegger’s plans to switch from guaranteed pension benefits to a private sector, 401(k)-type system.

Since hiring Democrat Susan Kennedy as his chief of staff, the Republican governor also has courted the state’s prison guards union, which is capable of plowing millions of dollars into anti-Schwarzenegger campaign ads.

Last year, the California Correctional Peace Officers Assn. raised dues on its 31,000 members to help finance the defeat of Schwarzenegger’s special-election ballot measures. At an early point in his tenure, Schwarzenegger showed defiance toward the union, which had been an influential player in prison management and policy under then-Gov. Gray Davis.

Union leaders had been frozen out of administration meetings. And Schwarzenegger’s corrections secretary, Roderick Q. Hickman, said that corrupt guards were being protected by a pervasive “code of silence” in prisons. Hickman has since left. And there now seems to be a rapprochement.

The governor’s office said top aides have been trying to improve communication with the union through meetings with its leaders.

“It is thawing somewhat,” said Chuck Alexander, the union’s executive vice president, “but it’s too early to tell where all this will lead. The only thing we’ve ever wanted was to be part of the solution, and I think they now recognize the value of our input.”

Of all the governor’s opponents, the CTA may be the most formidable. The union pumped about $60 million into the successful campaign to beat back the governor’s “year of reform” agenda last year, leading the anti-Schwarzenegger crusade.

But now that the governor is ponying up the education money, the anti-Schwarzenegger zeal so prevalent last year may not be so quick to coalesce, friends of the governor said.

“I would think there comes a point where their membership begins to question why they would continue to spend [millions of dollars] to oppose a governor who has been a friend to education,” said Rob Stutzman, Schwarzenegger’s former communications director.

Not that reelection will necessarily be easy for Schwarzenegger.

Several hundred nurses protested the governor’s fundraising practices Tuesday at the state Capitol, as part of a “clean-money” campaign.

And dozens tried to disrupt a recent fundraiser Schwarzenegger held at the Hyatt Hotel here.

“We are going to bring some heat and light” to the governor’s campaign, said Chuck Idelson, a strategist and spokesman for the nurses’ group.

Carroll Wills, a spokesman for the California Professional Firefighters, said he doubted that his group would reduce its opposition this year.

As firefighters see it, Wills said, the governor’s actions last year “kind of hit them in their guts and their professional values, and it’s a very hard thing to turn around. There is still a lot of anger with Arnold Schwarzenegger.”

*

Times staff writers Evan Halper, Jenifer Warren and Robert Salladay contributed to this report.