Schwarzenegger hails Prop. 11, calls it a protest against Legislature

By Kevin Yamamura
kyamamura@sacbee.com

Published: Thursday, Dec. 18, 2008 | Page 3A

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Wednesday that legislative dysfunction led to the approval of Proposition 11, which prevents state lawmakers from drawing their own district boundaries in 2011.

The Republican governor appeared at the California State Railroad Museum in Old Sacramento along with leaders from watchdog groups and the carpenters union to celebrate Proposition 11. For Schwarzenegger, it marked a return to the stage of his famous 2003 recall campaign rally in which he called for an overhaul of California's political system.

"At that time five years ago," Schwarzenegger said, "I didn't have the foggiest idea of how difficult it would be to pass that (redistricting) initiative."

Advocates, including leaders from the League of Women Voters, AARP and the carpenters union, said the change would create more competitive state legislative districts. In theory, they suggested, such districts would send more compromise-minded legislators to Sacramento because candidates would not have to appeal to extreme party ideologies.

Redistricting proponents outspent their opposition by a 10-to-1 ratio this fall, and it won by fewer than 200,000 votes out of 12 million cast.

The lead opponent, former Senate leader Don Perata, raised $2.1 million in his political account but spent only $161,000 for the No on 11 campaign and transferred $1.5 million to his personal legal defense fund after the election. Initiative opponents believe they could have defeated Proposition 11 had Perata spent more money against it.

Still, Schwarzenegger characterized its approval as a protest against the Legislature.

"Proposition 11 passed last month because people are fed up with government right now," Schwarzenegger said. "They are sick and tired of a state government that doesn't perform."

Bob Mulholland, spokesman for the California Democratic Party, which opposed Proposition 11, called the Wednesday event "embarrassing."

"Look, five years later, the state is in worse shape than when Schwarzenegger came in, and now he's holding a political rally standing next to railroad trains," he said.

Schwarzenegger insisted the Legislature and the political system, rather than his own leadership, were to blame for the budget standoff. He said more changes are necessary. The governor last month told The Bee he hopes to follow Proposition 11 with a system in which the top two candidates in a primary, regardless of party, would face off in a general election.

"We only have to look at the current gridlock and the partisan bickering ... to know that California desperately needs more government and political reform," he said.