Posted on 04/28/2005 11:09:11 AM PDT by churchillbuff
With a new poll showing his popularity in a tailspin, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger yesterday seemed to back off his demand that new legislative and congressional districts be drawn in time for next year's elections.
GABRIEL ACOSTA / The San Bernardino Sun Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger made a stop at the California Steel Industries plant in Fontana to conduct a town-hall-style meeting on his initiatives yesterday.
At an event at a steel plant, the governor said taking redistricting authority away from the Legislature and giving it to an independent commission is more important than making sure it gets done immediately.
"I hope there can be a legislative solution to the problem and then we can work on what should be the date, whether it should be 2006, whether it should be 2008, whether it should be 2010," Schwarzenegger said.
"The key thing for us is not when is the year that we change the system, but that it be changed," he added.
Schwarzenegger has complained that the system stacks political districts with voters of one party for the benefit of incumbents. He contends that such partisan districts produce legislators from the extreme ends of the political spectrum who are not able to compromise.
Critics say the proposal is an effort by the Republican governor to chip away at large Democratic majorities in both houses of the Legislature.
Schwarzenegger is promoting ballot initiatives on redistricting, state spending controls, teacher pay and teacher tenure for a special election he is threatening to call this fall.
The governor's "reform agenda," announced with much fanfare in his January State of the State address, has proven to be anything but a smooth ride.
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Schwarzenegger this month withdrew his pension initiative after an outcry by police officers and firefighters over the elimination of death and disability benefits.
A statewide survey released yesterday showed that California voters are rapidly losing confidence in the governor's leadership and are lukewarm about his agenda.
For the first time since he was elected in October 2003, a minority of Californians believe Schwarzenegger is doing a good job, according to a poll conducted by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California. That represents a major erosion of his approval in just three months.
Throughout last year, the Republican governor enjoyed robust popularity and solid support from Republicans, Democrats and independents.
In January, a PPIC poll showed that 60 percent said they approved of the job Schwarzenegger was doing. That rating has plummeted to 40 percent in the new poll, which shows that 50 percent disapprove of the way he is handling his job.
PPIC Director Mark Baldassare said the relentless television advertising campaigns paid for by labor unions to hammer Schwarzenegger and his agenda have taken their toll.
"Very substantial resources have been put into a campaign to question the governor's leadership," Baldassare said. "He has not been able to communicate purpose and vision as he did last year."
The survey also found mixed support for two of Schwarzenegger's proposed ballot initiatives.
While 55 percent of Californians considered to be likely voters said they favor his proposal to extend from two to five years the length of time required for teachers to obtain tenure, 44 percent favored his initiative to limit state spending.
Schwarzenegger yesterday held the third of his town-hall-style meetings to outline his initiatives and field questions from an audience chosen by local business and Republican groups.
Lillian Perry, a sixth-grade teacher at Fontana Middle School, was one of four people selected to ask the governor a question.
"The children want to know why are the teachers mad at the governor," she said. "And I tell them I'm not and there are a lot who aren't."
Linda Young, a high school chemistry teacher, complained afterward about the stacked audience inside the cavernous California Steel Industries plant.
"This wasn't a town hall," she said. "It wasn't to have a dialogue and talk to those of us who have a dissenting opinion."
Legislative Democrats interpreted the governor's comments on redistricting as an indication he is willing to deal. Democratic legislative leaders have repeatedly said they are open to turning redistricting over to an independent panel as long as it is conducted after the 2010 census.
A number of redistricting experts say it may not be possible to have new districts in place next year and question whether drawing the districts based on outdated census data would lead to court challenges.
At the Capitol, an aide to Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez, D-Los Angeles, said Schwarzenegger's remarks yesterday appear to soften the governor's position.
Steve Maviglio, Núñez's deputy chief of staff, said a governor's spokesman was quoted recently as saying that a redistricting plan that would take effect next year is "non-negotiable."
Asked if there were negotiations going on, Maviglio said: "There have been some preliminary discussions of the parameters, nothing more than that. And the date is not the only problem."
Margita Thompson, Schwarzenegger's press secretary, said she did not believe the governor's comments yesterday broke new ground.
"The governor wants it as soon as possible and as soon as feasible," Thompson said.
Is anyone buying this sudden "Arnie is falling in the polls" news?
They tell him he is doing badly because [insert liberal agenda he opposes here] and then report it as news.
I hope he has more guts than this.
Thanks for posting this.
What's your take on it?
Okie doke!
We have squandered 2 years and the spirit of the Recall and lost an excellent opportunity to push for real reform.
Now , we will all have to endure more claptrap from the media and the c'Rats, all the while living on borrowed money and time... with no spending cuts in sight into the distant future.
Electing a rookie Gub and politico was the dumbest move the voters of California could have made. We needed a real 'action' figure, not a hyped up image of one flickering on the TV screens.
Is that enuf? ;-)
Wow, tell us what your really think!
It's time to pull the kiddie gloves off, imo. ;-)
You can blame the media and the left but without a silent majority of good folks sitting on their arses and not going to the polls and voting for conservative candidates, and instead letting moderates enter the fray with their huge number of "successes" at accomplishing anything, we are getting what we deserve.
Remember who had to agree to the redistricting act last go around .. both sides.
There were no guns pointed at their heads, they both served themselves as they saw fit,, now we all pay thru the nose for that travesty.. and not even Hollywood can wish that away, no matter how many times ya rework the script.
Damn it.
OK, so what is he going to back off on next??
Redistricting is THE most important of all the reforms California needs.
I am incensed at this.
The Governator has become the Equivocator...
This didn't happen by accident. Everything involved in the process of presenting the Austrian and conducting his campaign was scripted, well scripted.
One of the few mistakes Arnie made during the campaign was on the steps of the Santa Monica Courthouse right after filing his intent to run for governor. After those unscripted, revealing slips Schwarzenegger was never again allowed to speak extemporaneously during the campaign.
In fact, those very slips of the tongue were the items that caused many conservatives to pull back from the popular frenzy and gave McClintock the courage to persist in the face of the glazed eye mob.
Politically knowledgeable, citizen observers took days to determine who was behind Schwarzenegger's rather sudden, 11th hour entrance into the campaign. Even McClintocks campaign was caught off guard by the organization of Schwarzenegger's sponsors although the group was not unknown in California Republican party circles.
These eager, well funded, political moderates snatched the center of the Republican Party, grabbed a healthy chuck of the politically naive but upwardly mobile immigrant sector and reinforced and redefined just enough of the recent memories of the electorate to swamp Davis and stymie the Democrat machine in California.
"We needed a real 'action' figure, not a hyped up image of one flickering on the TV screens. "
Yeah, but the same forces would have flayed McClintock alive, he would have been like an Itchy and Scratchy cartoon on the Simpson's.
I think it doesn't matter who was there, California has to be lying in the gutter in it's own vomit before it will have a chance of waking up.
Reading the article, I'm not sure that the governor is really backing off on redistricting. Of course, he is going to make a show of trying to "work" with the hard-core Marxists who dominate the California legistlature. They will reject any redistricting reform and it will be placed on the ballot.
Although I did not vote for Arnold in the recall, I have been pleased at the way he is trying to get real conservative reforms enacted. I hope he doesn't turn into a typical Republican and wimp out at the first sign of bad poll numbers.
Says you and others, lol.. How quickly they bailed for a Q factor and certain "victory".. Now we will never know, or will we? ;)
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'I think it doesn't matter who was there, California has to be lying in the gutter in it's own vomit before it will have a chance of waking up.
That I unfortunately agree with you on, this state won't get its act together until it is in financial and social utter ruins at the hands of the leftists and GReens, the GReens that aRnie has shown no lack of love and support for, btw..
Thanks!
Trojan Horses are a dime a dozen when it comes to moderates these days.,
They do the bidding of the dems and cry if you question their actions.
The sad part is they never stymied the democratic machine, in fact, the GanGReen got a big shot in the arm as well, imo.
While I agree with your observation, the solution Arnold proffered was by no means optimal.
Well, I agree in the abstract, as long as he's actually serious about it.
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