As Popularity Ebbs, Governor Reaches Out

SACRAMENTO —  A chastened Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger extended a conciliatory hand Tuesday to California lawmakers, as a new opinion poll showed that voters dislike the governor nearly as much as the highly unpopular Legislature.

At a Capitol news conference the governor called to spur negotiations on the overdue state budget, Schwarzenegger acknowledged that the public was upset by the bickering between him and his Democratic opponents over a policy agenda he unveiled in January.

“All of us in this building can share blame -- all of us, including myself,” Schwarzenegger said. “People make mistakes sometimes, and I think we learned there was a very clear message that we must work together. I am looking forward to that. The people ... feel good when things work well.”

A Field poll released this week showed that 58% of all Californians disapprove of Schwarzenegger’s job performance and 31% approve -- about the same point that former Gov. Gray Davis had reached after three years in office. Schwarzenegger came into office 18 months ago with soaring public approval ratings, after unseating a governor for only the second time in U.S. history.

Among registered voters, 53% disapproved of Schwarzenegger’s job performance. The Democrat-dominated Legislature didn’t fare well, either: The poll showed that 57% of registered voters disliked its performance, and 24% approved.

Legislative leaders, who last week dropped many of their objections to Schwarzenegger’s proposed state budget, appeared willing Tuesday to compromise further to ease political tensions that have led to virtual gridlock in Sacramento.

“If there is one thing we all need to do, it is humble ourselves,” Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez (D-Los Angeles) said at a news conference that followed Schwarzenegger’s. “All of us. It is not good for us. It is not good for the governor. We all need to take a step back.”

Republican lawmakers and Schwarzenegger remain opposed to the Democrats’ version of the budget, because they believe that it commits the state to programs it cannot afford. Schwarzenegger is asking Democrats to trim about $1 billion from their $116.6-billion budget.

Schwarzenegger and the Legislature have been divided over a host of other issues as well. In particular, Democrats and the public employee unions that contribute heavily to their campaigns are upset about several initiatives on the Nov. 8 special election ballot that would significantly diminish their powers.

Three initiatives placed on the ballot by Schwarzenegger’s supporters would eliminate the power of lawmakers to draw their own districts, make it harder for public school teachers to get tenure and impose a new government spending cap.

On Tuesday, the seeds of compromise seemed to be emerging. Senate leader Don Perata (D-Oakland), at his news conference, outlined the Democrats’ ideas for compromise on those issues, the state budget impasse -- and a few new issues.

A wide range of subjects are being discussed in a possible “mega-deal” that could modify the governor’s teacher tenure proposal, change lawmakers’ term limits, alter how schools are funded and delay the governor’s redistricting proposal until the next decade.

The Legislature and Schwarzenegger could put such compromises on the November ballot in the form of propositions. Those propositions would sit side-by-side with the initiatives now on the November ballot. Voters would then be asked to approve the new propositions and ignore the original ones.

Democrats are eager to change the system of term limits in California. Lawmakers and administration officials have discussed a compromise that would include changing term limits so that legislators could serve 12 or 14 years in one house. Under the current system, they are limited to six years in the Assembly and eight years in the Senate.

“There is a big interest, obviously, in this building,” Perata said. “There are members who would love to see a complete revision of the way in which we approach our job as legislators.”

The most nettlesome issue appears to be the push by Schwarzenegger and Republicans to place new spending restraints in the state Constitution.

Schwarzenegger’s supporters have put those controls on the ballot in the form of the Live Within Our Means Act, which would restrict how much the state budget can increase each year, regardless of revenues.

Democrats say the measure is written in a way that will devastate schools and other government programs. Perata said the proposal dismantles spending obligations to schools that were approved by voters 17 years ago through Proposition 98, and would “knock $4 billion out of public education. That doesn’t reform Prop. 98, it demolishes it,” he said.

Nunez, however, said Democrats could compromise on some elements of the spending restraints; he did not supply details. But he warned that they would envision a measure drastically different from what the governor has put on the table. “You can’t turn a blue state into a red state,” he said.

Some Democratic groups would like a compromise on the governor’s favored ballot initiatives so they can focus attention -- and money -- on defeating another initiative on the November ballot. Conservative activists are backing a measure that would require public employee unions to get permission from each member each year to use union dues for political purposes -- considered a potentially lethal blow to union lobbying and support for Democratic campaigns.

The governor has not taken a position on the initiative, but he could request concessions from Democrats in exchange for ignoring or working against the union dues initiative.

“When your attention is focused on one or two top-line issues, you can have a much better campaign than if you are distracted by a whole cacophony,” said Roger Salazar, a Democratic consultant.

Salazar, who views the special election as a “kind of a distraction and a headache,” said this week’s poll findings clearly registered on the governor, but he was skeptical of the governor’s sincerity. “It looked to me like those poll numbers really got to him, but I didn’t hear anything in what he said that leads me to believe he is changing his course in any way, shape or form,” he said.

The governor complained Tuesday that lawmakers were continuing to spend money on government programs without a guarantee of revenue to pay for them, and he said he would “continue talking to the people that we need to reform our budget system, redistricting and our education system.”

The Field poll showed the Legislature and the governor getting poor marks for being too confrontational and leaving little room for compromise on how California should be run. That mirrors the sentiments of focus groups conducted in recent months by Democrats, in which voters said Schwarzenegger and the Legislature should do the jobs they were elected to perform -- and not ask voters to do it for them in an election.

“They’re expecting us to do a job,” Perata said. “He should not be throwing things on the ballot willy-nilly. People expect us to govern.”

The statewide poll showed a drop in the number of registered voters who support the special election this year -- only 37% compared to 52% opposed. In February, more than half of those surveyed approved of a special election.

“If the special election were held today, he [Schwarzenegger] would be in real trouble. Neither he nor his agenda seem very popular,” said Gary Jacobson, professor of political science at UC San Diego. “But he’s got several months and $50 million to try to turn things around. He has at least a past record of being able to attract attention and motivate people on his side. I wouldn’t write him off yet by any means.”

Poll respondents showed little confidence in Schwarzenegger to tackle important policy decisions. The survey showed that 33% believed that the governor could better solve the state’s problems, compared to 44% who said they trusted legislative leaders more. The poll also showed that a majority of Californians don’t believe either side can solve the state budget deficit.

Schwarzenegger on Tuesday said he would be open to a deal resolving all of his differences with Democrats and suggested that he too was tiring of the back-and-forth.

“It’s all part of the Kabuki,” Schwarzenegger said, “which means this whole song and dance, you know, that everyone is beating on their chest ... and so on, and then eventually you will go and resolve some of those differences.”

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Disapproval

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s standing with California voters has fallen to a new low, according to a recent Field poll.

Job approval ratings:

Schwarzenegger

Approve: 37%

Disapprove: 53%

No opinion: 10%

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State Legislature

Approve: 24%

Disapprove: 57%

No opinion: 19%

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Gray Davis, August 2003 (The former governor was recalled Oct. 7, 2003)

Approve: 22%

Disapprove: 70%

No opinion: 8%

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Q: If Gov. Schwarzenegger and the leaders of the Legislature disagreed on an important state issue, whose position would you be more inclined to support?

Governor: 33%

Legislative leaders: 44%

Neither/no opinion: 23%

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All results are among registered voters.

How the poll was conducted: The Field Poll interviewed 954 California adults, including 711 registered voters, by telephone June 13--19, using random-digit dialing to select the sample. The margin of sampling error among registered voters is plus or minus 4 percentage points.

Source: The Field Poll

PAUL DUGINSKI Los Angeles Times