You would think that a governor would try to step in on July 16 when a budget is due July 1. And you would think he would be doing everything he can to manage the prison crisis given the rapidly approaching deadline when judges may cap the number of inmates. But you're just not post-partisan (or lazy as hell, you choose).
last week closed with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's attention thousands of miles east as he ventured to Florida for a turn before the cameras and a $25,000-per-table Republican party fundraiser.
To Capitol insiders, the trip was the latest troubling evidence that despite the many big issues before him, the governor's interest in the nuts and bolts of governing has ebbed. Splashy announcements remain his trademark, but after the cameras pack up, Schwarzenegger has often not followed through. As a result, key parts of his agenda are foundering.
I think my biggest problem with those paragraphs is the word "ebbed." When was he EVER interested in governing? Sure, he likes magazine covers, and getting to wear anything with the California state seal on it, but actually GOVERNING. Not his style.
The governor waited until July 9 to bring the four legislative leaders into his office for a "Big 5" budget meeting — the forum he and other governors have used to keep negotiations moving. The leaders from both parties emerged to announce that little got done. No more meetings have taken place.
"We're all starting to say, 'Mr. Governor, phone home,' " said state Senate Majority Leader Gloria Romero (D-Los Angeles). "We've got a budget impasse. We need you to engage."
Republicans too are warning Schwarzenegger that his legacy is at stake.
"He clearly has a case of wanderlust," said Bill Whalen, a Republican political consultant. "While it is good and swell to go around the world and talk about global warming, being governor of California is very much a pothole job. It is about dealing with matters both large and small."
The Republicans are obviously being willfully moronic about the budget, claiming that they don't have to show what $2 billion dollars in programs must be cut but just that it has to happen. The Governor, however, might be even worse, showing no leadership at all in sleepwalking through Sacramento, stopping to pause at wildflowers while the impasse continues. You'd think he'd be embarrassed at this, just like you'd think he's be embarrassed at trying to cut mental health services for the homeless (actually, he probably had nothing to do with that, I'll bet a staffer typed it up). But then you wouldn't be as post-partisan and awesome as the Governator.
Dan Walters wrote a story today saying that governance is the overriding issue in California. That certainly becomes a lot tougher when there isn't a governor.
As for getting help from Governor Schwarzenegger to help get the needed six Republican votes, Nuñez says, "I don't know that the Governor, to be quite honest with you, has the wherewithal to be able to garner Republican votes at this point."
