SACRAMENTO — His popularity is high, his reelection chances bright, but in the state Capitol, a quiet consensus had emerged about Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's first year in power -- that in the end he didn't want confrontation, preferring ersatz reform and quick compromise to bruising political fights that might jeopardize his bipartisan appeal.
With a single speech last week, Schwarzenegger sought to eliminate that impression for good. He proposed an array of ambitious changes, provoking the most influential interest groups in Sacramento and picking fights where the outcome is simple: He can win big or he can lose embarrassingly.
Schwarzenegger is to release his budget Monday, but in keeping with the new tone, he dismissed it in advance as not good enough. It won't stop the state from spending more than it takes in; it won't prevent a deficit next year that "will be even worse," the governor acknowledged.
So in his State of the State speech, he called for enduring, if painful, solutions. He wants restraints in place that would trigger across-the-board budget cuts when spending outpaced revenue. That's the same sort of strict spending limit he touted in the recall campaign but later abandoned in the face of Democratic resistance.
Last week's speech called for scaling back pension benefits by switching to a 401(k)-style retirement plan in which state workers could no longer count on a set payout when they left government.
In a concession that partisanship and gridlock in Sacramento persist, he said he wanted to usher in, essentially, a different kind of Legislature.
He proposed a constitutional amendment to strip lawmakers of the power to carve their own districts, giving that authority instead to a panel of retired judges whose overriding goal would not be the protection of incumbents.
Schwarzenegger aides said that step would introduce more competition to legislative races, perhaps bringing more moderate lawmakers to Sacramento.
"They managed to get through the [last] year, basically, by borrowing a lot of money.... He was Gray Davis with muscles," said Joel Aberbach, a UCLA political science professor. "Now the state is faced with a continuing deficit that's quite large. One way to interpret this is: He's finally facing the realities, and he has a set of proposals that at least is the beginning of an effort to come to grips with the problem."
