Free Republic

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, in his final days as the state's chief executive, selected two of his administration's top lieutenants to oversee California's health benefit exchange, the new marketplace from which the uninsured and small businesses will be able to buy health coverage. Schwarzenegger chose Susan Kennedy, his chief of staff, and Kimberly Belshé, his cabinet secretary for health and human services, to fill the influential posts on what will be a five-member oversight board. Schwarzenegger had until Sunday to make the appointments, and neither selection will need consent from the Legislature - a deal contained in the state law establishing...

Why hasn’t Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger replaced controversial movie director/initiative promoter Rob Reiner as chairman of the California Children and Families Commission? That’s the question that has many, especially Schwarzenegger’s fellow Republicans, perplexed. Reiner has stepped away, taken a “leave of absence” from his post at the so-called “First Five Commission” in the wake of revelations about its highly questionable spending practices under his leadership. But he intends to return to the chairmanship after his Proposition 82 universal preschool initiative is voted on in June, even though his term in office expired in 2004. Many Republicans thought they understood Schwarzenegger’s motivation...

As dismay grows in his own party and among many observers over Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s seemingly surprising embrace and defense of left-liberal Democrat Rob Reiner and his tenure as chairman of the California Children and Families Commission, it is becoming evident that some of Schwarzenegger’s highest ranking appointees and advisors have long been involved with the controversial commission and the movie director/initiative promoter himself and have played key roles in the direction the program has taken. “The First 5 Commission,” says one Schwarzenegger friend using the Reiner commission’s nickname, “and Reiner himself have been much closer to the governor...

SACRAMENTO - California's capital is packed with more than 1,000 lobbyists, but when people want to make something happen in Sacramento, they often turn instead to Bob White, a genial Republican maestro who helped elect Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. White has an advantage lobbyists don't. While registered influence peddlers must reveal whom they work for, White calls himself a strategist who doesn't directly push for changes in state policy. That legal distinction allows White to conceal who his corporate clients are, even though he and members of his consulting firm, California Strategies, go to bat for them by exploiting a loophole...