FROM SACRAMENTO — In his former life, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger starred in the action-thriller "Collateral Damage." Last week, he had only a bit role in the collateral damage inflicted by fellow Republicans in the state Senate.
In the flick, victims included his wife and son. In the Senate, they include millions of battered wives, children, home-buyers, taxpayers. . . .
On screen, Schwarzenegger played "Gordon Brewer," a Los Angeles firefighter who saw his family blown up by terrorists and was out for revenge.
In Sacramento, the closest thing to a Gordy Brewer is Democratic state Treasurer Bill Lockyer, who witnessed a favorite bill being snuffed by Senate Republicans.
"This is the pro-business, the fiscally responsible party -- or at least that's what they keep telling us," Lockyer says. "And it's getting annoying. It's irresponsible and it's ridiculous."
The bill advocated by Lockyer was little-noticed and noncontroversial, but vital. It would have given the treasurer more wiggle room to renegotiate so-called letters of credit that are about to expire with banks. Without the legislation, he says, the state could end up paying banks an extra $850 million over the next two years.
"It got all botched up with a temper tantrum," Lockyer says. "What's pretty clear now is this: Senate Republicans will abandon domestic violence victims, cops, firefighters and taxpayers to do the bidding of corporate interests."
Republicans say it's more about an internal spat with Democrats.
"In order for us to achieve bipartisan agreements . . . we have to establish and maintain a level of trust that a deal is a deal," Senate Republican leader Dennis Hollingsworth of Murrieta said in a written statement. "It's not one, two or three items that we're negotiating over. It's one big item: trust."
Hollingsworth contended that "the Democratic leadership did not uphold their previous budget agreements."
But the minority leader wasn't available to discuss exactly which agreements he thought had been broken, and his staff said it didn't know.
Whatever the beef, there could be wide, unintended damage to noncombatants. The Republican weapon was blatant abuse of the two-thirds majority vote requirement for passage of many bills.
The two-thirds rule is not used merely to protect taxpayers from politicians trying to reach deeper into their pockets. It's used by special interests -- mainly big business -- to game the system; a tool handy for legislative leverage, or extortion. If you don't give us what we want, we'll withhold the votes needed for the two-thirds.
