NewWest: Arnold Strategy Unfolds With Minimum Wage And Environmental Appointment Moves

New West Notes ^ | 5/19/06 | Bill Bradley

[NormsRevenge]

Arnold Schwarzenegger now has the former top aides to his two would-be Democratic rivals working for him. It’s all part of his strategy of “buying off the ticked off,” as an Arnold friend puts it.

Yesterday the governor moved unilaterally to take another major Democratic issue off the table by raising the minimum wage. Today he appoints lifelong Democrat and environmental favorite Linda Adams as his new secretary of the California Environmental Protection Agency. With the retirement of veteran air quality warrior Alan Lloyd from CalEPA, there had been concern in environmental circles that the secretaryship would go to a more pro-business type, concern that increased when Schwarzenegger appeared to back off some from his ambitious greenhouse gas emissions program at his climate change summit in San Francisco City Hall last month.

But Adams, who was legislative affairs secretary for former Governor Gray Davis, gets major credit for helping win the landmark 2002 bill by LA area Assemblywoman Fran Pavley to sharply cut vehicle tailpipe emissions of greenhouse gases. Schwarzenegger has vowed to defend the legislation in court against automakers and the Bush Administration even as he promotes a more expansive greenhouse gas program, and Adams will now play a leading role in all that.

At the private reception following Davis’ 2002 signing of the bill on a bluff overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge -- replete with Robert Redford and beaming environmentalists -- the for once ebullient governor was effusive in his praise of Adams, one of his favorite staffers. She served later for a time as director of the Department of Water Resources. She did some consulting with Schwarzenegger’s California Performance Review, winning respect from conservatives there who found her “respectful and persuasive,” then was chief of staff to Controller Steve Westly for a year before going into consulting and taking a Schwarzenegger appointment to the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board.

While this move shores up Schwarzenegger’s bona fides on global warming, a key issue in his positioning, his end run around the Legislature to raise the minimum wage will shore up his labor bona fides in the wake of his unsuccessful war with labor last year. Team Schwarzenegger says the $1 an hour increase will put $2 billion a year more in the hands of the working poor.

As he did with his big solar energy bill, taking it to the Public Utilities Commission for enactment when thwarted last year by the Legislature, Schwarzenegger is turning to another commission to enact the minimum wage increase, the moribund Industrial Welfare Commission. The Legislature defunded it in 2004. But it still exists, and Schwarzenegger will revive it with an infusion of funds from its parent agency.

Legislative liberals want their own more expansive minimum wage legislation, with automatic increases every year geared to inflation. They blocked Schwarzenegger’s bill, which does not have the automatic increases, so -- as predicted on April 26th -- he has turned to executive action to win an increase and remove an issue to be used against him in the fall.

These moves, along with the dramatic increase in education funding in his new budget, the infrastructure bonds package, and other moves still in the works are all part of a strategy to take the wind from the sails of the “anti-Arnold” movement that was so effective in last year’s special election.

Of course, Schwarzenegger undoubtedly also enjoys the phenomenon of having, essentially, the former chiefs of staff for both his Democratic gubernatorial rivals working for him now instead.

Linda Adams’ colleague in the Governor’s Office of Gray Davis was, of course, Susan Kennedy, now Arnold’s chief of staff. Kennedy was executive director of the California Democratic Party in the early 1990s, working for then state party chairman Phil Angelides.

Having both Kennedy and Adams on his team now gives Schwarzenegger unique insight into both candidates who would succeed him. It’s a classic psych-out move reminiscent of the former Mr. Universe’s dominant bodybuilding days.

[Red Badger]

Herr Uber Guber iz gubernatin'..........

[SmithL]

This story is taken from Politics at sacbee.com.

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End run on minimum wage issue

Governor asks a dormant panel to approve $1 hike after Legislature balks.

By Andy Furillo -- Bee Capitol Bureau
Published 12:01 am PDT Friday, May 19, 2006

Stymied in the Legislature, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Thursday called on the all-but-moribund Industrial Welfare Commission to approve a $1 minimum wage increase, a move that had Democrats and Republicans accusing each other of playing politics with the working poor.

In a petition submitted Thursday, Schwarzenegger asked the commission -- which the Legislature de-funded two years ago -- to take up his proposal for a two-step minimum wage increase that would raise the bottom-level pay scale from $6.75 to $7.75. The action came after the state Senate's Labor Committee on March 29 bottled up his minimum pay plan because it didn't contain an indexing formula Democrats wanted for future increases.

The Legislature passed and Schwarzenegger vetoed a $1 minimum wage bill last year that contained the indexing formula, which business groups abhor. Schwarzenegger this year came back with his own minimum wage proposal, but was again checked by Democrats who submitted another proposal linked to the cost of living.

By circumventing the disagreements that have engulfed the issue in the Legislature, Schwarzenegger would be pushing through a plan that his administration estimates will put $2 billion more a year into the pockets of California's 1.4 million lowest-paid workers.

"My reason for making the request is my belief that the current minimum wage is inadequate," Schwarzenegger said . . .

http://www.sacbee.com/content/politics/story/14257156p-15071929c.html

[SierraWasp]

Yawnnnnnnnnn...

[NormsRevenge]

Yawnnnnnnnnn...

I concur. :-)


Nap time here too. lol

[SierraWasp]

Well... It was just my way of waking you from your pleasant slumber without startling the living heck out of you. You were snoring pretty loud and I thought maybe you should turn over on your other side, Ha Ha ha!!!

[SierraWasp]

"It’s all part of his strategy of “buying off the ticked off,” as an Arnold friend puts it."

Since you're awake... Isn't this just charming? I wonder what he's got for guys like me that aren't just "ticked off," but in a cold boiling pist off rage at the non-stop De-Republicanising/Liberalising of CA's government and policies!!!

He's not only not stopping it, he's building a ever larger magnitude cresendo that's getting harder and harder to remove once he's gone!!! (and I pray it's soon!!!)

[VeniVidiVici]

Good to see his rivals are so principled.