Missing out on my dinner with Arnold

JOSEPH N. BELL

Dear Arnold:

I’ve got to tell you up front that I won’t be at your bash at the

Hyatt Regency in Irvine on Tuesday. I would have enjoyed watching the

Lincoln Club and the New Majority co-habiting, even from a distance,

but sending my regrets isn’t just a matter of money.

It’s true, I can’t afford even the $1,000 bleacher seats that

would probably put me somewhere in the neighborhood of Bakersfield at

your dinner. But the bottom line is that I’m into saving California,

too, but not the way the high rollers at your dinner have in mind.

You may be wondering how someone with such aberrant views got an

invitation to your party, and I must admit, I came by it second-hand.

It was offered to me by a good Newport Beach friend, a restless

Republican who has managed to make your A mailing list but not your

D-minus mind-set. He won’t be attending for many of the same reasons

-- in addition to the Fortune 500 financial bite -- that I’m going to

pass.

My benefactor asked that I not use his name, since he wants to

remain friendly with some of the honchos listed on the invitation as

event officials. But it occurred to me -- foolishly, perhaps -- that

you might like to know some of those reasons, which I have a feeling

you don’t hear very often from the members of your entourage.

Especially in light of the recent Field Poll that showed a 10% drop

in your approval rating.

The marketing pitch from “Citizens to Save California” that

accompanied the invitation to your party says that you have “set

forth a historic agenda to fundamentally reform California’s

political and governmental systems.”

The current issue of Gil Ferguson’s “Principles Over Politics”

canonizes you as “the last best hope we Californians have of ever

hoping our government will be reformed.”

Except for the wildly excessive rhetoric -- rather like Chris

Cox’s description of Republican party history -- I would agree with

both of these statements. The question is whether being reformed in

your likeness and by methods that resemble a well-heeled Terminator

script is good for the state of California.

A lot of us -- a steadily growing number, the polls are saying --

don’t think so.

Actually, the fundamental reforms that those “citizens” saving

California are hyping as a means of restoring Republican muscle in

the state isn’t new at all.

It’s as old as the town meetings that used to govern New England

communities in the 18th century. Your “historic agenda” would replace

representative government with an autocratic governor, bypassing the

state legislature to buy what he wants from the populace with

enormous amounts of private money poured into a series of loaded

ballot initiatives.

That amounts to converting the government of California into a

bloated town meeting, except for a couple of added distractions with

which the early New England residents didn’t have to cope: great

wealth to snow the voting public with one side of complex issues, and

the coat-tails of a widely recognized movie star.

In case your wife hasn’t explained this to you fully, our

government is based on a system of checks and balances in which the

three major parts -- judicial, executive and legislative -- can act

to prevent any excessive grab for power from one of the other parts.

The wisdom of this system has been demonstrated many times over --

for example, when Franklin Roosevelt tried to pack a Supreme Court

that was ruling against some of his measures, and when Richard Nixon

used federal agencies to punish his personal enemies.

There are dozens of other examples to which you have added at

least one interesting new touch: the use of your celebrity status to

raise millions of dollars of private money to carry on initiative

campaigns on behalf of issues that should properly be debated in

appropriate legislative forums.

You’re not going to use all that money to give us both sides of

these complex issues. You’re going to tell us that if we don’t come

down on your side, the state will go to hell in a hand basket and we

run the risk of being labeled “girlie men” -- the kind of tough movie

talk, incidentally, that is beginning to wear thin among us common

folk.

There are other problems with this style of governing. California

is already hamstrung by initiatives that have locked in funding that

seriously restricts movement required by changing circumstances. The

initiatives you seek would simply add to that gridlock.

They would also encourage every loony interest group in the state

that could wrestle up enough dough to buy the required signatures to

get on the ballot and maybe confuse enough voters to win.

The four issues you would submit to a state town meeting --

linking teacher pay to student performance; changing traditional

pensions to stock market accounts for state employees; turning voter

redistricting over to a panel of retired judges; and eliminating

future deficits by tying state spending irrevocably to revenues --

are legitimate issues that merit careful discussion and debate in the

state legislature.

Your threat to go over lawmakers’ heads with your initiatives only

six days after presenting your program to the legislature suggests an

urgency many of us don’t feel. If you ask us to weigh the dangers of

a dilatory legislature against the dangers of an authoritarian

governor with almost unlimited private funding, you had better be

prepared to lose.

I considered dining out every evening last week in the hope of

running in to you at one of your restaurant forays to bring the word

according to Arnold to the people.

I wanted the satisfaction of declining to sign your petition and

telling you why. No luck. So I decided to write to you, instead.

I also wanted to ask how many takers you got for the Dinner Chair

($100,000 contribution), Co-Chair ($50,000), Sponsor ($25,000) and

Host ($10,000).

And, really, Arnold, I think it’s pretty rotten that the folks who

could only scrape up $1,000 don’t get a picture with the governor.

Sincerely,

Joe Bell

* JOSEPH N. BELL is a resident of Santa Ana Heights. His column

appears Thursdays.