(Ventura County Star) So why spend $70 million in state and county tax funds for an election whose effects won't arrive any sooner than if there were no special election? Couldn't the governor just as surely give "power back to the people" a few months later?

Schwarzenegger's real reason lies less in the power politics some folks say he's playing than in California's campaign finance rules and the fact that he will himself likely be on next June's ballot seeking the Republican nomination for governor.

If Schwarzenegger and his initiatives were on the same ballot, any money spent putting his words and picture in radio, television and newspaper ads for the propositions would count as contributions to his own campaign.

(Pasadena Star News) One way to look at the escalating political war between Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Democrats which will probably culminate in a special election next fall is that it's a continuation of the Capitol's most fundamental and longest-running conflict: business vs. unions, personal injury attorneys, consumer activists and environmentalists.

Clearly, business leaders are uncomfortable with having to rely on a single governor as their protector against a Legislature they view as anti-business and yearn for the days, only a few years ago, when they could count on a solid bloc of "business Democrats' to dampen the zeal of liberal activists.

And that, stripped to its essentials, is why business groups are putting up the money for Schwarzenegger's crusade. The measures that Schwarzenegger wants would, if enacted, hamstring the legislative power of the Big 4 and there's another measure headed for the ballot, which Schwarzenegger has not yet formally endorsed, that would pose an even more direct threat to unions by limiting their ability to garner political funds from members.