Free Republic

Ninety percent of California small-business owners who are members of the National Federation of Independent Business gave their approval to endorse a candidate in this year's gubernatorial election, according to a survey released today. And 95 percent of the votes were for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Only 1 percent of the people who employ the majority of working Californians supports State Treasurer Phil Angelides for governor, the survey shows. Four percent of survey respondents chose other candidates. Based on the results from the fax survey conducted in June that drew 1,124 respondents, the NFIB board voted to endorse Schwarzenegger for re-election....

SACRAMENTO - When Arnold Schwarzenegger took office, he vowed to whack away at a tangle of California regulations he blamed for choking the frail state economy. In one of his first acts as governor, Schwarzenegger put an immediate six-month freeze on hundreds of pending rules and directed his staff to get rid of anything that was putting a crimp on business. Consumer groups braced for the worst. They expected the Republican governor to take aim at hard-fought protections for everything from the environment to consumers. Instead, during his first year in office, Schwarzenegger embraced the kinds of rules he railed...