A fourth measure that Schwarzenegger has embraced -- Proposition 75 -- would require public employee unions to obtain annual permission from members before using their dues for political purposes.
The ballot package, Schwarzenegger said Monday, was needed to shake up an ossified political establishment in Sacramento.
"Here is California, the fifth largest economy in the world, that almost goes bankrupt because we have a failing system,'' Schwarzenegger told supporters at a diner in Chico. "It is a system that makes Sacramento spend, spend, spend, and borrow, borrow, borrow, and then in the end, they want to raise your taxes.''
If Schwarzenegger's intent was to summon the spirit of Johnson, however, the early 20th century reformer and scourge of moneyed interests might not recognize what he had wrought.
When all the election bills are toted up, campaign spending this year will top $250 million -- it the most expensive initiative campaign in California history.
Much of the spending has come from the pharmaceutical industry, which sponsored a measure, Proposition 78, to create a voluntary drug-discount plan. A rival measure with a tougher enforcement mechanism, Proposition 79, has been promoted by consumer activists.
In addition, forces opposed to Schwarzenegger, led by organized labor, have spent more than $100 million to beat him at the polls. The governor has raised and spent more than $50 million on behalf of his measures, including more than $7 million from his own pocket.
The two other initiatives on the special election ballot, Propositions 73 and 80, deal with abortion and electricity regulation, respectively, and have drawn considerably less notice.
The governor spent the final day of the campaign skipping from Chico to Roseville to San Ramon to Fresno to Corona to Orange to Del Mar.
At the Riverside County Young Republican headquarters in a Corona strip mall, Schwarzenegger made calls to five voters. A volunteer dialed the numbers and handed the receiver to the governor. "I'm sorry that I bothered you,'' he told one woman. "I wanted to make sure you go out and vote."
Protesters continued to dog him, as they have throughout the year.
About 100 demonstrators gathered outside the Cozy Diner in Chico, the governor's first stop of the day, holding signs calling for a "no" vote on his slate of measures. The passenger in a city firetruck drew applause as he rode past, using a loudspeaker to voice opposition to Proposition 75, the union dues measure.
