Republicans bruise one another in state budget brawl

Sacramento

This is getting good: The Republican governor and Republican senators throwing knockout punches -- not at Democrats, but at each other.

So this must be the meaning of “post-partisanship:” intraparty pummeling.

California Republicans “have a long, colorful history of spending down their ammo attacking each other in circular firing squad formation,” writes Democratic consultant Jason Kinney in a party blog, the California Majority Report. “And, typically, I find it laugh-out-loud funny.”

But then Kinney puts on his good government face and adds: “Not today. Not when the consequences of this unacceptably overdue budget are so real and so meaningful to so many everyday Californians caught in the Republican crossfire.”

The current state budget brawl is setting records, of a sort, although not yet in tardiness. This budget, which was due July 1, still is only the fifth-latest in recorded history. The procrastination record is held by the 2002 Legislature. That year, the budget wasn’t enacted until Sept. 5.

But some milestones were laid down this week.

Arnold Schwarzenegger became the first governor in memory -- at least going back to Pat Brown -- to parachute into the district of a legislator of his own party and exhort citizens to browbeat their representative into voting his way.

Ronald Reagan -- as governor and president -- loved to proclaim: “If they won’t see the light, we’ll make them feel the heat.” But he was talking about Democrats.

Longtime lobbyist George Steffes, who was a Reagan legislative liaison, said, “We never even considered” pressuring Republicans in their districts. “This is the first time, and it won’t work. They’re already angry at him. This will just make them more angry.”

In 1991, newly elected GOP Gov. Pete Wilson privately strong-armed Assembly Republicans into passing a hefty tax increase to close a huge deficit, calling lawmakers who wouldn’t even consider it bleeping “irrelevant.” Still, he didn’t march into their districts.

No governor has been backed into a corner, however, quite like Schwarzenegger.

Senate Republicans -- all but one, Abel Maldonado of Santa Maria -- are flatly refusing to vote for a $146-billion budget backed by the governor, the Assembly GOP and Democrats of both houses. The proposal increases general fund spending by only 1% and doesn’t raise taxes. The governor further has promised that he’ll use line-item vetoes to reduce spending by $700 million, completely wiping out a nagging deficit.

Senate Republicans assert that’s not enough.

“They’re phony reductions,” says Sen. Tom McClintock (R-Thousand Oaks). He cites one example: Schwarzenegger would “save” $160 million by delaying a Medi-Cal payment for one month, shoving it into the next fiscal year.

He adds: “What the governor says and what the governor does are two distinctively different things.”

Yes, the political atmosphere at the Capitol is polluted.

The toxic air led to a second milestone this week: arguably the nastiest prepared statement by a legislator about a governor of his own party since at least four decades ago, when right-winger John G. Schmitz of Orange County was railing against Reagan.

Schwarzenegger had been in Fresno on Monday telling the locals that Republican Sen. Jeff Denham , who represents an adjacent district, “should get a lot of heat. He’s your senator, you know. So if you think of one person that can make the budget pass, Sen. Denham could do it. . . .

“Call him and say, ‘It’s up to you now. You’re our man. We sent you to Sacramento. Help us. People are suffering.’ ”

Denham has been targeted as the potential deciding budget vote -- only one more Republican needs to jump ship -- because he was elected from a relatively competitive district. But he angrily told Schwarzenegger in a press release to lay off.

“Governor . . . perhaps you are not listening,” the senator declared. “I will not be bullied, intimidated or pressured into voting for a budget with inflated revenues, unaccounted expenses or accounting gimmickry.

“Stop the theatrical performances. . . . Playing ‘Chicken Little’ and saying ‘the sky is falling’ is not productive.”

That sort of formal testiness -- not uttered privately, but in a public statement -- is virtually unheard of from a lawmaker of the governor’s party. After all, a governor has the power to sign or veto a legislator’s bills and appoint his favorite campaign contributor to the local fair board, if not a judgeship.

This “Chicken Little” governor merely has been visiting healthcare and rehabilitation centers that are running short of money because the Legislature has failed to pass a budget. He has noted that the state already has been forced to withhold more than $3 billion in payments to hospitals, nursing homes, hospices, child-care centers, community colleges and small-business vendors.

Senate Republicans respond that the Legislature should authorize emergency appropriations. Schwarzenegger and Democrats reject the notion, pointing out that this is what Congress habitually does and vowing they’re not going to copy the federal budget mess.

All this is reminiscent of what then-Gov. Reagan said about Sen. Schmitz when asked about him by biographer Lou Cannon. “Schmitz strikes me as a guy who jumps off the cliff with flags flying,” Reagan told Cannon.

“I’m willing to take what I can get. You have to take what you can get and go out and get some more next year. That’s what the opposition has been doing for years.”

Reagan was conservative but practical.

The Capitol wisdom is that Schwarzenegger’s in-your-face strategy won’t work. I think it might. It can’t hurt to focus the public’s attention on a few lost lawmakers stumbling toward the cliff with flags flying. Because a lot of people could be dragged over the cliff with them.

george.skelton@latimes.com