Politics and personalities hinder budget

For all of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s cheery talk of newfound “post-partisan” collaboration among Californian lawmakers, this month’s impasse over state spending shows that fractious political jockeying, personal distrust among leaders and individual electoral ambitions still can derail business at the Capitol.

Senate GOP leader Dick Ackerman’s reluctance to sign off on a state budget, now 28 days overdue, has been hardened by his need to appease disgruntled conservatives in his 15-member caucus.

That group’s resolve has also stiffened compared with previous years as some of its members seek better jobs that rely on the party base’s support.

And Schwarzenegger’s ability to negotiate a compromise, which has never been great, has waned further as he has staked his second term on an alliance with Democrats, leaving legislators from his own party feeling abandoned. It hasn’t helped that Democrats earlier this week called the GOP holdouts guilty of “fiscal terrorism.”

One of the more amiable Republicans, Ackerman (R-Irvine) narrowly survived an attempt to oust him last year by promising to be less accommodating to the Democratic legislative majority, which has relied on a few GOP defections to assemble the two-thirds support needed to pass the state’s spending plan.

“The problems we had before, we didn’t have unanimity,” said Sen. Jim Battin (R-La Quinta), who challenged Ackerman last year. “A deal was made and a deal was delivered with the bare minimum votes. When it was done differently, as Dick said he would, we’re now very comfortable with his position.”

Other political calculations have also moved the GOP caucus to the right. Sen. Jeff Denham of Salinas has been one of the moderate members of the caucus to stay popular in his swing district, but he is now shifting rightward to appeal to primary voters as he seeks the party’s 2010 nomination for lieutenant governor.

That leaves Abel Maldonado of Santa Maria as the only moderate in a caucus that was once seen as more liberal than its counterpart in the Assembly. Senate Democrats need two GOP votes to pass a budget.

Making things harder, several Republican senators hoping to succeed Ackerman as leader when his legislative term ends next year are taking less conciliatory positions to appeal to caucus conservatives.

Normally, governors are expected to prevail on legislators from their own party, but so far Schwarzenegger has had no such luck. He alienated many Republican lawmakers -- as well as the party activists they listen to -- by his enthusiastic partnerships with Democrats last year, when they increased the state minimum wage and approved new regulations on emissions that contribute to global warming.

“The governor overtly ignores them,” said Republican political consultant Allan Hoffenblum. “He is an action guy who wants to get things done. Nine out of 10 times he needs to work with the Democrats to do that. Now all of a sudden the governor needs Republican votes, and he doesn’t have the lines of communication open to get them.”

Schwarzenegger’s assurances that he would use his line-item veto authority to cut hundreds of millions of dollars in spending that Republicans find objectionable in the budget -- if GOP lawmakers would only vote for one -- have been spurned by Ackerman’s caucus.

“The problem is he is saying ‘trust me’ to a caucus of senators who have been getting run over by the governor’s Prius for the last year,” said Jon Fleischman, a GOP activist and publisher of the Flash Report, an influential conservative blog.

Denise Moreno Ducheny (D-San Diego), the chairwoman of the Senate Budget Committee, said Schwarzenegger’s efforts at mediation seemed to push the Republicans further from a deal.

“Oddly, last year, because the governor was up for reelection, they were much more willing to overlook their differences with him,” Ducheny said. “This year, obviously, every time the governor tries to say something to help, it sends them off to a much more intransigent stance.”

In the minds of many Republicans, Schwarzenegger has also squandered one of his chief means of leverage: campaigning for legislators who advanced his agenda.

When Maldonado and former Assemblyman Keith Richman, another moderate Republican, ran for statewide office last year, Schwarzenegger rebuffed their requests for help. Both lost in the primary.

So although there aren’t many examples of the benefits of aiding the governor, Sacramento is littered with the political corpses of Republicans who folded too quickly.

The Assembly Republican caucus last year ousted its leader, George Plescia of San Diego, after he agreed too hastily to a public works borrowing package that many in the rank and file did not like.

“Plescia learned the hard way,” Fleischman said.

In 2002, two stray Republicans who signed off on a budget found themselves maligned, marginalized and undermined by their GOP colleagues for the duration of their terms. Democrats, including then-Gov. Gray Davis, rewarded them with state jobs, but a series of factors, including the 2003 recall, left them out of work in less than a year.

But GOP dynamics are not the only reasons the budget has remained unfinished. Relations between the two Democratic leaders -- Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata of Oakland and Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez of Los Angeles -- have been deteriorating steadily, and the two chambers do not consistently work in tandem.

Thus, the budget the Assembly passed a week ago Friday was one that neither party in the Senate had agreed to. Assembly members left town, hoping the Senate would sign off on their $145-billion spending plan as a fait accompli, but the presumption irritated senators, who loftily refer to their chamber as the “upper house” and have been known to disparage the Assembly as “the zoo.”

None of this might have mattered if the state’s finances had continued to improve, as they had for most of Schwarzenegger’s tenure.

But instead, revenue has been dropping all year. The governor’s budget proposal in January projected an $800-million deficit, but by May that had grown to $1.5 billion.

Though legislative budget negotiators from both houses brought that down to $700 million last month, concerns over the state’s worsening finances stiffened GOP resistance.

It is unclear how this standoff will end. Democrats have rejected a package of cuts the GOP offered, which included reductions in welfare spending, parks maintenance and several small projects they value.

Everyone agrees that so far, the 15 GOP senators are holding firm. “The caucus is much stronger as a whole” than in previous years, Ackerman said.

With the GOP rebels unbending to pressure from the governor and emboldened by support among activists, there are no obvious ways for Schwarzenegger and the Democrats to make them give in.

“Their entire world is 50 people: the 15 people in their caucus and the 35 people posting on the Flash Report,” said Jason Kinnery, a Democratic consultant. “They’re a permanent minority party that only cares about achieving success within their little sandbox.”

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