SACRAMENTO — With his deal this week to repay schools billions of dollars he had borrowed to balance the state budget in recent years, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has undercut the main argument that California's powerful education unions have made for driving him out of office.
The pledge to restore the funds is the governor's latest move in a clear strategy to neutralize the network of teachers, nurses, firefighters and others that has dogged him throughout his tenure and blocked major pieces of his agenda.
When Schwarzenegger backtracked last year on a commitment to pay off education money that had been diverted to other state programs, he made a political enemy of the well-funded education lobby. Union leaders cast him as a double-talking politician who could not be trusted to protect California's schoolchildren.
Now that argument becomes harder to make: Schwarzenegger is pledging to repay over seven years more than $5 billion that education groups say they are due -- beginning with a $2-billion cash infusion this summer.
"There's no question in my mind that there's a political effort underway to neutralize as much opposition as possible," said Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez (D-Los Angeles). "I don't think the administration lives in fantasyland. They know they're going to have strong opposition in November. But this is a way to soften the blow. And if they can soften the blow enough, they think they're looking at the governor's reelection."
Other union allies say that there is no political truce with the governor and that they remain committed to Schwarzenegger's defeat. The California Teachers Assn., one of Schwarzenegger's main adversaries, has endorsed Democratic state Treasurer Phil Angelides for governor. There is no sign that will change.
On Wednesday, CTA President Barbara Kerr would not comment on the political implications of the budget deal, saying only: "He's restoring the money that he owed and this is going to be really good for our schools and our communities and for public education."
But political analysts said Schwarzenegger's budgetary moves may gratify the union rank-and-file, quelling talk of dues hikes or other financial sacrifices that might be needed to bankroll an all-out campaign against the governor.
"He must be hoping that by doing this, it will quiet the discontent among the rank-and-file and make the leadership more amenable to not opposing him too vigorously," said Joel Aberbach, professor of political science and public policy at UCLA.
