Is California better off with Arnold? Point: Bill Bradley

According to Bill Bradley,a former senior advisor in presidential and gubernatorial campaigns, publishes NewWestNotes.com., California is better off with Arnold Schwarzenegger than it was before the dramatic 2003 recall of Gray Davis.

I know both governors well, and like them. The reality is that the pre-recall situation had become so toxic that Davis was unable to govern. His 2002 reelection was won in a highly negative political environment against an unqualified Republican, with a smaller-than-expected turnout of Democrats and independents. Then came the surprise announcement of a massive budget deficit. The former governor, who was in trouble with Capitol factions and lacked Schwarzenegger's ability to appeal to the public, has acknowledged since his defeat that Schwarzenegger has a number of notable accomplishments that he would likely have been unable to achieve.

First, Schwarzenegger stabilized the state's finances by winning voter approval of the multi-billion-dollar deficit bonds Davis and the Legislature put together to keep state government running. Schwarzenegger's Propositions 57 and 58, which voters approved in the 2004 state primary, made the deficit bonds constitutional; otherwise, the state's finances could have been shattered by a legal challenge. Schwarzenegger then passed a major workers compensation reform package which, while decidedly imperfect for workers, helped many businesses.

After a rightward detour into his 2005 "Year of Reform" special election (his initiatives addressed legitimate concerns but not well, especially from a marketing standpoint in this blue state), Schwarzenegger got to working on some issues he had talked enthusiastically about with me and others in 2002 and '03 while considering and preparing his run for governor.

He accelerated the state's renewable energy requirements even beyond the nation-leading level approved by Davis. Then, working with Democratic legislative leaders Fabian Nuñez and Don Perata, he pushed the biggest bonds investment package in history to rebuild the state's crumbling infrastructure and a landmark program to cut greenhouse gas emissions and combat climate change that is a model for many states.

The Bush administration has predictably done everything possible to block California's climate-change actions, so Schwarzenegger and former governor-turned-attorney general Jerry Brown fought it out with the White House in court. In any event, the next president, whether it is Barack Obama or John McCain, has pledged to allow California's climate change program to proceed.

Schwarzenegger also pushed long and hard last year for a universal healthcare program. Perhaps he pushed too long for it. Despite putting together an impressive coalition, he couldn't overcome the issue's intractable politics. He's also working to achieve the needed next steps on water.

Nevertheless, even with these accomplishments and others, there is one big thing Schwarzenegger has definitely not solved. That's California's chronic budget crisis, fed in part by his first act as governor: the extraordinarily popular decision to cut the car tax, which, nevertheless, could and should have been more than offset by a combination of increased revenues and reforms.

On the budget, Schwarzenegger is confronted by two extraordinarily stubborn opposing political factions and one bizarre legal quirk. The combination of the three factors creates fiscal entropy in the closed system of the Capitol.

The two factions are the ultra-government faction (principally public employee unions and other advocates for expanding government), which dominates legislative Democrats; and the anti-government faction (far right ideologues and the anti-tax lobbies), which dominates legislative Republicans. The bizarre legal quirk is the nearly unique requirement of a two-thirds legislative vote to pass a budget, which California shares with only two other states, both quite small.

Schwarzenegger has made many proposals, but they haven't taken flight. Meanwhile, he has been whipsawed from year to year by the demands of the ultra-government and anti-government factions.

Will this outsized figure who made the unlikeliest of journeys from small-town Austrian boy to global sports and movie superstar and, now, governor of America's largest state be undone by this chronic fiscal crisis? I don't think so.

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