Free Republic

SACRAMENTO — Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is expected to announce next week he is running for re-election, sources said Thursday, as Democratic lawmakers continued passing bills that the governor plans to veto. Ignoring legislators' scramble to wrap up their 2005 session today, Schwarzenegger traveled to GOP-friendly Fresno on Thursday as he continued campaigning for his Nov. 8 special election to revamp state government. In the Legislature, bills addressing key issues to the public — such as a multibillion-dollar transportation bond — remained shelved until next year at the earliest. The developments came in the wake of polls that show Californians...

Schwarzenegger expected to announce election on redistricting, budget, schools. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is expected to call a special election Monday that he hopes will recapture the reform mantle that swept him into office in the unprecedented 2003 recall. But the governor's decision to go to the voters Nov. 8 with a series of initiatives also will unleash the forces of money and partisanship on issues unconnected to Schwarzenegger's self-proclaimed reform agenda. "It's hard to see any downside to calling the special election,'' said Dan Schnur, a Republican consultant. "At the very worst, (Schwarzenegger) comes out with the status quo.'' For...

SACRAMENTO -- After five months of failing to sway Democrats to his "year of reform," Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has directed his political staff to prepare for a special-election campaign that would denigrate the California Legislature and its union benefactors. Escalating the governor's fight, chief political consultant Mike Murphy said Monday that Schwarzenegger may endorse an initiative that could hobble the money-raising machine of public employee unions. Murphy said the governor has asked him to conduct polling and voter focus groups on a so-called paycheck protection initiative. "Arnold has not touched the Legislature with a feather yet compared to what the...

He ran as an outsider in last year's recall election, promising to change a system he said was corrupted by special-interest groups. But as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger enters his first budget-and-bill-signing season, he has raised more money than any previous California governor this early on, including predecessor Gray Davis. Since taking office last November, Schwarzenegger has reported accepting more than $12 million in contributions - twice what Davis, a Democrat, raised in his first six months in office and about 10 times the amount fellow Republican Pete Wilson raised. Schwarzenegger's appearances at fund-raisers for the California Republican Party and some...