Budget deal frees reporters, pundits to speculate rampantly


We have a budget, which will come as a pleasant surprise to Californians who are concerned about things like paying schools' electric bills but who have grown accustomed to the knock-down drag-out tardiness of the past few years' budget wrangling.

One upshot of the new budget is that it will enable a weeks' worth of news analysis pieces about what it all means vis-a-vis the 2005 special election.

Pieces like the one excerpted below.

Budget deal frees governor, Democrats to seek election compromise
(AP) After months of bickering and political recriminations, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders put differences aside and forged a bipartisan compromise over the state budget.

Whether such comity can extend to negotiations over Schwarzenegger's proposed reform initiatives and the fall special election remains the looming challenge.

Recent polls show the public has lost confidence in Schwarzenegger and holds the Democrat-controlled Legislature in even lower regard than usual. The poor standing has prodded both sides to say they want a global agreement on the initiatives to avoid a bruising showdown in November. ...


So, right out of the gate we have some pretty bad analysis. The Governor, indeed, is not alone in "enjoying" low approval ratings, but comparing the Legislature's numbers to Schwarzenegger's is unfair. The Governor's approval rating is in the toilet, and it's more significant than the Legislature's typically lackluster performance because he fell a great deal further and faster than they did.
The budget deal has caused the political dynamics to shift. By persuading Democrats to come his way on the $117 billion deal, observers say Schwarzenegger has reclaimed some of his stature as an effective leader.

"When you look at the budget overall, you can't describe it any other way than as a massive success for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger," said Kevin Gordon, an education lobbyist. "Given how low his polling numbers are, his success in negotiating this budget means that no one is ready to count this guy out."

Democratic lawmakers, meanwhile, showed they were willing to forfeit important points, such as $3 billion they believe schools are owed. That allows them to avoid the potential political liability of a protracted budget impasse.


Balls. That $3 billion is going to hang around Schwarzenegger's neck through two elections (2005 and 2006). The Democrats knew exactly what they were doing when they yielding on that point. It's the blueprint for beating the tar out of Arnold in a general election: The budget was Governor Schwarzenegger's budget; he's the one who took $3 billion out of our kids' schools; the guy has to go. It's a strategy. It's not a case where the Governor has brought the Legislature to its knees, certainly not to the extent that they ought to fall all over themselves in a mad rush to compromise on the special election ballot measures.

Bleh. There's more questionable, non sequitur analysis in the article, but I don't feel like point-by-pointing it. More of the same stuff in the News Hour yesterday, as well. Seriously, kids, just because two sentences are juxtaposed doesn't mean they constitute a sensible argument.

To the extent that we can take the possibility of negotiation seriously, it's worth mentioning that we have very little time: As John Myers at KQED's pet blog Capital Notes points out, the deadline for placing compromise initiatives on the ballot is only two weeks away.

And it's summer.

Nonetheless: At least until the deadline for modifying the ballot passes in a couple of weeks, expect to read multiple stories about the possibility of compromise. Even after that, expect to see articles about how Democrats and the Governor will horse-trade about toothless unenforceable nonsense like how intensely the Governor is allowed to advocate for a particular measure (I wax pejorative because there's already so much money lined up on either side of most of these issues that advocacy by a single politician won't amount to much, and certainly isn't the kind of point you can negotiate about and have something to put in the bank at the end of the day.)

Posted: Fri - July 8, 2005 at 07:32 AM   | Category:     |   |   | |


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