SACRAMENTO — California voters delivered a potent defeat Tuesday to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Capitol lawmakers, dismissing a slate of ballot measures they had championed as a way to fight the state's latest deficit crisis.
Just one of the half-dozen measures passed in a special election marked by meager voter turnout: Proposition 1F, which bans salary hikes for Sacramento politicians in deficit years like this one.
Proposition 1A offered government-trimming spending limits but irked fiscal conservatives by extending tax increases. And Proposition 1B would have restored money cut from schools but was tied to approval of 1A.
Three other measures -- Propositions 1C, 1D and 1E -- had promised a quick infusion of nearly $6 billion this summer to help reduce the state's staggering budget deficit.
The drubbing came from all corners of the state. Mounting returns showed Proposition 1A, for instance, losing in all of California's 58 counties.
Schwarzenegger, who lost a similar ballot battle in 2005 and had staked a piece of his legacy on Tuesday's election, said in a statement that he respects "the will of the people who are frustrated with the dysfunction in our budget system."
Now, he said, "we will come together to begin to develop a budget solution that gets our state back on track."
Other boosters of the measures lamented the outcome, and largely blamed voter confusion. "I am disappointed," said Assembly Speaker Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles). "The message from voters is they want us to fix it. They did not understand we needed their help."
Anti-tax activists called the propositions' rejection a defeat for what they characterized as the tax-and-spend status quo.
"People aren't dancing in the street over this; they're tired and disgusted over all that's gone on," said Jon Coupal of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn. "Maybe now our governor and Legislature will get the message."
The ballot measures were conceived by the governor and legislative leaders in February as a means of keeping the state's books balanced well into 2010. But by the time voters arrived at the polls, the propositions offered only a dent in a projected deficit for the coming fiscal year that had swollen to $21.3 billion amid plunging tax collections.
The state once again faces a cash crunch so severe that it may not be able to pay bills come July. With the election wrapped up, the Legislature and Schwarzenegger will now turn their full attention to keeping California solvent.
