In recent weeks the signs have mounted that we are witnessing the twilight of the Schwarzenegger administration.
One by one, the governor's grand initiatives have come apart. The box-exploding state reorganization? Abandoned. The balanced state budget? A non-starter. Government without special interests? A joke. Bipartisanship in Sacramento? Never happened.
Of his four-part 2005 reform initiative -- redistricting reform, teacher pay reform, pension reform, fiscal reform -- barely anything survives to place on the November ballot. This is probably not a bad thing, because like virtually every other policy initiative Schwarzenegger has proposed since his election, these reforms generally have been carelessly conceived and half-baked in execution.
The so-called Live Within Our Means Act, for example, has all the hallmarks we have come to expect from this administration. It purports to address a serious issue, namely the state's inability to enact a balanced budget. While claiming to provide a moderate solution, it advances the narrow interests of lobbyists, in this case Allan Zaremberg of the California Chamber of Commerce and William Hauck of the California Business Roundtable, the measure's authors.
Its provisions are so sloppily contrived that they would exacerbate the problems it claims to alleviate. While the administration rails about how much of the state budget is subject to automatic formulas, the act would place even more spending on autopilot. It would conflict with other state laws, including spending initiatives passed by the voters, raising the prospect of endless confusion and litigation during budget seasons for years to come.
Most characteristically, it's designed as a ballot initiative. This is Schwarzenegger's preferred method of governance, because it doesn't require subjecting a proposal to the battle-testing of the legislative process or to public debate. It only requires the spending of money -- which the chamber and Roundtable can provide in abundance -- and the presentation on television of Schwarzenegger's electric grin.
The governor's predilection for such remote-control governing is understandable. For all that he claims to absolutely love his job, he has never demonstrated a true enjoyment of politics as it's normally understood -- or for that matter, much aptitude for it. He doesn't project any of the qualities we see in born politicians whatever their ideological stripe, such as Bill Clinton's empathy for ordinary citizens, Lyndon Johnson's relish for horse-trading or Richard Nixon's intellectual fascination with the political process.
