The End of Arnie's Days

At Arnold Schwarzenegger's "victory" party on Election Night 2004, the governor stood onstage and basked in ballot proposal wins for Propositions 68 and 70, both about Indian gaming, and against 66, which would have changed the Three Strikes Law. But Republicans got nothing else out of him -- not one seat in the Assembly, not one seat in the Senate, no new congressional offices. One year later, it's no surprise he's again pushing his agenda via special election. But Assemblymember Jackie Goldberg (D-Los Angeles) says this particular slate of propositions is more than just another end-run around the state's elected legislators. She calls it the "corporate takeover of California."

This time, she argues, the issues on the ballot are carefully linked together and designed -- using corporate money -- to advance conservative interests and to keep Democrats away from the polls. She claims the governor even said as much in an e-mail to supporters. If he succeeds, she says, it's a "catastrophe," creating a governorship that no longer needs a legislature: "They're saying, 'Heck with this notion of democracy. It's so burdensome. It's so time-consuming. It gets in the way.'" She calls it a short-sighted act of political sabotage. Is Arnold set on a course to cripple the government?

Why do you call these propositions the "corporate takeover of California"?

Jackie Goldberg: If you take a look at who's paying for all of this, it's really extraordinarily large businesses. And they're not even all California corporations - the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has spent a quarter of a million dollars on one of them. That's in addition to the California Chamber, which tends to represent the largest corporations. You've got all the major pharmaceutical companies spending a fortune confusing the people about Propositions 78 and 79. You've got huge amounts of pharmaceutical money in Proposition 75. In fact, there is not a single one of these that isn't being financed by the largest corporations and the biggest players -- not just in California. The governor has fund-raised in New York, in New Jersey, in Florida. They're after a Tom DeLay-kinda takeover like he did in Texas.

How does Proposition 76 turn Schwarzenegger into a king?

Right now, it takes a two-thirds vote of the legislature and the governor to do a budget. If this were to pass, that's no longer going to be true. Because if eight Republicans refuse to vote for the budget, which they're willing to do if they've got a Republican governor, then the budget won't be on time and then the governor gets to decide what to put in and what to take out. Well, can you imagine a Republican assemblyperson or senator voting for a budget again, as long as there was a Republican governor? No! And if the reverse were true, the Democrats wouldn't either. This isn't partisan. This is about making any governor king.

Is the governor showing his true colors with this slate?

I have no idea who the guy is. I thought he was fiscally conservative and moderate to -- God forbid -- maybe even the L-word [liberal] on some of the social issues. But he's been singularly reactionary on all of them. I don't know if that's who he is, or if it's what his advisors tell him to do. But he's alienated all the Democrats and most of the independents.

This is a losing strategy for them. They've never been able to win a single statewide election unless they can attract large numbers of independents and about 20 percent of the Democrats. So, when you do this, you're saying, "I don't want to be governor again." Or, "My fame as an actor will carry me anyway." I don't think so. I don't mean to be nasty about this. This is sort of like Bush saying, "I'm going to do as much damage to the social programs and to the safety net and everything else that we right-wingers are trying to get rid of, as I can. I'll put in place things that will make it impossible for anyone to govern."