December 16, 2003, 8:38 a.m.
True Lies
Shades of Clintonism in California.

By Andrew Peyton Thomas

Ten years ago, Americans found themselves saddled with a new chief executive who, upon taking office, promptly set the tone for his administration. In short order, President Clinton worked exclusively with liberal Democratic legislators to bring about a historic government-spending spree; broke a slew of campaign promises and gave new dexterity to the English language; coddled left-wing interest groups; and scrambled to fend off incipient sexual-harassment allegations that ultimately culminated in litigation. There are now distinct signs that history may be repeating itself in California — except this time the chief executive is a Republican. The response of GOP leaders to these ironic and troublesome developments will determine, in no small measure, whether the party retains some measure of philosophical integrity going into the 2004 elections.

Arnold Schwarzenegger was elected to the governor's office with strong support from Republicans and conservatives, after a campaign in which he repeatedly promised to rein in state spending and decried Governor Gray Davis and Democratic legislators as "overspending addicts." Last week, Schwarzenegger rewarded his supporters by cutting a budget deal exclusively with Democratic state lawmakers — one that ratifies the prior reckless spending of Gray Davis and does nothing to prevent such profligacy in the future.

With the new governor's blessing, the legislature voted to place on the ballot a $15 billion bond measure designed to pay off the deficit run up by Davis and Democratic legislators. A week before, budget negotiations had fallen apart after Republican legislators insisted that any sort of bond bailout be tied to a firm cap on future state spending. Schwarzenegger and Democratic legislative barons instead stripped the bill of a spending cap and replaced it with a provision creating a rainy-day fund. This reserve fund would set aside money for future budget crises. However, there would be no meaningful restrictions on how future legislatures could choose to spend the funds, so that, in reality, they could spend the money at their pleasure.

Republican legislators found out about the deal long after Democrats learned of it from their leaders, who had negotiated the final points with the governor. The measure passed the California senate by only one vote, and only two Republicans voted for it (the senate Republican leader and his heir apparent). The most-powerful Democrat in the legislature, Senate President Pro Tem John Burton, praised the budget deal as "about as good a bipartisan effort as I've seen since I've been around here all these years." Schwarzenegger returned the praise by calling the notoriously partisan Burton a "great man." When Burton noted there were no Republicans present during the negotiations, Schwarzenegger joked, "Yes, there was" — referring to himself.

The Los Angeles Times pointed out with evident satisfaction that the Schwarzenegger-Burton compromise represented the first time a Republican governor had worked directly with state Democratic leaders to hammer out a budgetary compromise since 1991. That was the occasion, still infamous among California conservatives, when then-Governor Pete Wilson similarly bypassed Republican legislators and negotiated with Assembly Speaker Willie Brown to balance the budget by raising taxes.

Republican legislators lambasted the deal. State senator Tom McClintock, Schwarzenegger's main Republican foe in the recall election, said he feared that the proposal to amend the state's constitutional debt clause could "set in motion a spiral of spend, borrow and tax." John Campbell, an assemblyman who supported Schwarzenegger during the election, opined, "We might have done better toward controlling spending if we had left it where it was" a week before, when negotiations broke down over the spending cap. Another Republican state senator called the bill "a sham" that was designed only to "change the perception of the people of California" that the state's fiscal house was now in order.

Schwarzenegger hailed the budget accord as signifying "a new day for California." But in fact it marked the end of any hope that the state's fiscal crisis might lead to permanent reforms that would limit the future growth of government spending and taxes. Moreover, the governor's stunning act of perfidy toward his own party, while perhaps in his own short-term political interest, should alarm the millions of Republicans and conservatives who cheered Schwarzenegger's election.

The new governor's waffling on other fronts has made this alleged "new day" look a great deal like the old Democratic one. For example, Schwarzenegger did fulfill a campaign promise by working with the legislature to repeal the controversial state law conferring driver's licenses on illegal aliens. But in the process, he privately assured Hispanic Democratic lawmakers that he might support a new bill next year restoring these rights — as long as the legislation provides for background checks.

Schwarzenegger's sexual-harassment imbroglio also still looms, posing a long-term threat to other core Republican principles. Less than a week before the recall election, the Los Angeles Times published an expose — obviously timed for maximum impact — detailing Schwarzenegger's history of sexual mistreatment of women over the prior two decades. Partly because of the Times's past bias and dubious timing, and mostly because of antipathy toward Gray Davis, most California Republicans and conservatives overlooked the allegations and voted for Schwarzenegger.

Yet the problem is not going away, for the new governor or his political party. One woman, Rhonda Miller, claimed during the final days of the campaign that Schwarzenegger groped her while she was a stunt double working on the films The Terminator and True Lies. In an effort to discredit her a la Sidney Blumenthal, a Schwarzenegger campaign spokesman named Sean Walsh sent out an e-mail to the media alleging that Miller had a six-page rap sheet of felony arrests and convictions. It turned out the career criminal in question was a different Rhonda Miller, a fact that was not hard to determine with rudimentary research; yet some media outlets spread the misinformation. Last week, Miller filed suit against Schwarzenegger, alleging that he and his operatives orchestrated this libel.

Schwarzenegger's initial response to the sexual-harassment allegations was to promise he would hire private investigators to look into them. This was a very odd proposal: Why would he need to hire investigators to determine something he himself should know, unless his victims were simply too numerous for him to remember clearly? The proposal also recalled Clinton's propensity to enlist gumshoes such as Terry Lenzner to quietly intimidate his accusers. Now the governor has backed away from this pledge, with aides explaining that this self-investigation would only generate ammunition for his political opponents. Schwarzenegger has yet to apologize specifically and meaningfully to the women who have come forward, has made no comment on Miller's lawsuit, and, in his only public statement about his alleged harassment since his election, has dismissed the whole matter as "old news."

By virtue of Schwarzenegger's celebrity and leadership of our most-populous state, his actions matter a great deal to the Republican party and therefore conservatives nationally. The principles at stake are momentous. Should runaway government spending be permanently curbed, or should we just write up a bill for the next generation of taxpayers and continue with business as usual? Should the voters care about such issues as character and the rule of law, or only when Democratic politicians are the gropers? Are there core principles that unite Republicans beyond the common desire to win elections? Such questions will be answered, one way or another, by the GOP's collective reaction to these events in the Golden State.

It is axiomatic that politicians must be flexible on certain issues of the day. But to the extent there is any philosophical coherence to the actions to date of Governor Schwarzenegger, such a philosophy simply does not resemble the Republican-party platform. Rather, these actions are more reminiscent of the ad hoc, vaguely liberal compromises devised serially by the former governor of Arkansas.

The California budget deal represents a once-in-a-generation opportunity lost for the state's taxpayers and, more broadly, American conservatism. Schwarzenegger obviously still has time to be a successful governor. But that will happen only if Governor Schwarzenegger finds, expeditiously, a philosophical core — and one not imported from Little Rock.

— Andrew Peyton Thomas is an attorney and author in Phoenix.

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