Link: OpinionJournal - Outside the Box.
For better for worse, for richer for poorer, all of a state's people are married--at least for a while--to a governor, and the opportunities available to them depend a great deal upon the vision and courage of their leader.
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And then there is California's Arnold Schwarzenegger, whose 19-month career is easily the most visionary and strongest gubernatorial leadership performance in modern American history.
That's a bold view. And one that I happen to share. Here are the ballot measures that Californians will be voting on this Fall. They are incredibly important that they pass in order to reform this state, and rescue it from further sliding down the ever-deepening abyss of self-destructive dysfunctionality that has characterized the past 15-20 year of California politics and government. The propositions:
The most economically important is Measure 1131, which would put additional controls on state spending. Mr. Davis drove spending up by one-third in his five years in office; Mr. Schwarzenegger's proposition would limit spending increases to average revenue growth over the previous three years and give the governor the power to reduce spending if revenue decreases and the legislature fails to act to correct the deficit.
A second proposition seeks to improve the quality of California public school teachers' skills by requiring five instead of three years of work before they gain tenure and making two consecutive unsatisfactory evaluations sufficient reason to fire a teacher.
Finally comes the most politically explosive Schwarzenegger proposal--mandating the drawing of legislative district lines by retired judges. There is no question that when legislators of both parties work together to draw district lines there is political collusion to safeguard their own seats. As California economist Art Laffer (a supporter of the proposition) pointed out, among the 80 state Assembly seats, 20 Senate seats and 53 U.S. House seats up for election in 2004, "not one seat of the 153 changed party affiliation." The Declaration of Purpose of the proposition has it right: "Partisan gerrymandering, uncompetitive districts, [and] ideological polarization" govern the redistricting process.
No doubt three bipartisan, retired judges selected by lot from pool will do better than partisan, self-interested pols. But judges are no less human than the rest of us and no less inclined to follow their political instincts--Roe v. Wade being one example and the decision upholding McCain-Feingold's limitations on free speech another--so sooner or later the retired California judges will make ideological decisions in drawing district boundaries. Nevertheless this is a visionary solution to a political problem that will not be solved in any other way.
But wait, there's more.
Two other emotional proposals have already qualified for the November vote--parental notification and a two-day wait for unmarried girls 17 and under to receive an abortion, and requiring a public employee's written consent before a union can spend his dues money for political contributions.
Gov. Schwarzenegger has not endorsed the abortion measure, but it will bring a great many people to the polls on Nov. 8. An April Fox News poll showed 78% support for parental notification--and no wonder. Under existing California law 14- to 17-year-olds need parental permission to use tanning machines or to get their ears pierced. How does one then argue that a young girl's abortion requires no parental notification?
Union political use of public employees' mandatory dues is a real issue too--why should anyone required to join a union have to financially support candidates or policies that he disagrees with? If Enron or Tyco had used employee money to support their policy proposals and political candidates, the liberal left would--quite properly--have been apoplectic. But the left supports unfettered union use of state employees dues for political purposes. Indeed, the California teachers union has already slapped an annual $60 dues assessment (for up to three years) on its members to raise the $50 million it needs to fight Mr. Schwarzenegger's November ballot proposals.
The ugly fact of the matter is that the unholy nexus between public sector unions, the State legislature, and the Democratic Party, has become as deleterious a relationship as any "Iron Triangle" in the Beltway. It is high time something was done to curb the tangle of special interests, and restore a political culture of accountability and responsibility, and check the metastatic public sector.
Gov. Schwarzenegger has no illusion that California's über-liberal Democratic Party will support of his individualistic vision; it has always advocated higher taxes, greater spending, and more expansive government regulation. So his strategy is a straight-up challenge. As he said in February, Democratic legislators "can do whatever they want, but this train has left the station. They can jump on the train, they can stand behind and wave goodbye, or they can stand in front of the train . . . and you know what happens then."
Democratic state treasurer (and a likely Schwarzenegger 2006 opponent) Phil Angelides says, "This special election will be Arnold Schwarzenegger's Iraq." Most likely that means the Democratic Party will end up in the Saddam Hussein role, for when a man of strength and vision goes to war for propositions that will increase individual opportunity, he usually wins big.
Amen to that.