Arnold Schwarzenegger

A gubernatorial spokesman predicts a "total meltdown" in the Capitol if there's not a deal for a new California budget  by Saturday, the deadline for adding measures that would be part of any compromise to the November ballot. At Blockbuster Democracy, we're adopting "Total Meltdown" as a way to distinguish California posts from news from other states.

In Total Meltdown news...

DON'T TAKE PERATA'S WORD: The Senate Democratic leader said a deal was close. It wasn't.

DIFI SMACKDOWN: Democratic U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a rumored candidate for governor in 2010, went to Sacramento yesterday and criticized legislators for failing to put a $9.3 billion water bond on the ballot. She's right, of course. The state badly needs the infrastructure, and the bond represents a compromise reached by her and Gov. Schwarzenegger. But folks on the left and right hate it, and the California legislature's mantra right now might as well be: "Let's make the perfect the enemy of the good."

WE DECIDE, YOU VOTE.  The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors reversed itself and voted to put a sales tax on the ballot to fund transit programs. But then the board voted to register its opposition to the package. Yes, it's confusing.

In February, Californians voted to ratify four of the state's compacts with indian tribes that operate casinos. The public vote was part of a referendum forced by union leaders who argued that the compacts did not have enough protection for workers. But supporters of the compacts, including tribal and legislative leaders and Gov. Schwarzenegger, told voters the compacts would produce big money that would help balance the budget. As the Press Enterprise shows in this story, that hasn't happened.

The Sacramento Bee columnist Dan Walters says so in this column that is being talked about this week. But Walters offers no actual evidence or examples of this tendency, other than a quote from Schwarzenegger about the virtues of changing one's mind and a comparison to Jerry Brown that's pretty meaningless.

Walters' analysis is conventional wisdom in Sacramento. The problem is it doesn't fit the facts--at least on matters of policy. In reporting a book on Schwarzenegger, a massive briefing binder with all of Schwarzenegger's intended policies from the 2003 recall campaign fell into my possession. To flip back through the book today is to be struck by how utterly consistent Schwarzenegger has been. He's still pursuing the policies he promised: an enlightened environmental centrism, regulation that favors business, infrastructure investment, protection of local government funds, redistricting that takes the legislature out of the process, and a spending limit and rainy day fund.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and other California Congressional Democrats this week declared their opposition to Prop 11, the redistricting reform initiative on the state's November ballot. Yes, the initiative's prospects are bleak, but this particular endorsement is worth examining. Pelosi announced her opposition in a letter to Gov. Schwarzenegger, a major backer of the initiative. That letter (posted here on the California Majority Report, a Democrat site that also opposes the measure)  is highly -- and unintentionally -- revealing about Pelosi, her thinking and the out-of-touch mindset created by California's gerrymandering, which protects incumbents of both parties.

Schwarzenegger today clarified his earlier remarks and said he's sticking it out in California 'til the end of his governorship, according to the Sacramento Bee. That squares with what he's long said, and closes the door on a departure for an Obama administration, a door he seemed to open in an interview broadcast Sunday on ABC News.

Your blogger promises to take deeper breaths in the future.

That's what Aaron McLear tells the Sacramento Bee. Apparently, Schwarzenegger was discussing his options for early 2011, after he leaves office.

That sounds plausible, and matches hundreds of prevoius statements about Schwarzenegger's desire to serve out his term for taking any new challenge.

But if I were Garamendi, I'd still think about a transition team.

Gov. Schwarzenegger used an appearance on ABC's "This Week" Sunday morning to hint that he has interest in leaving his current job to serve in Barack Obama's cabinet as some sort of energy-environment czar. The McCain-endorsing governor also talked about an Obama presidency as a fait accompli--he referred to "when," not "if," the Illinois senator is president. I suspect you'll see an effort in the hours and days ahead by the governor and his aides to try to back away from what he told interviewer George Stephanopoulous and talk about his commitment to Californians. They'll note that he called the discussion "hypothetical" and was merely explaining his desire to serve American governments of either party. But I defy anyone to watch the show or read the transcript and tell me with any confidence that this governor intends to serve out the rest of his term, which runs through the end of 2010.

Here's the exchange. Stephanopoulous showed a clip of Obama praising the governor's environmental "leadership."

STEPH: "Newsweek" reported he might want you to be his energy czar. Would you be interested?

SCHWARZ:: I don't think about taking on a national role. There's so many challenges we have in California.

STEPH: If he were president and he called?

Here are details on the compromise, $9.3 billion bond that Gov. Schwarzenegger and Sen. Dianne Feinstein want the legislature to add to this November's California ballot. The bond would fund water storage and restoration of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. But the governor's efforts to secure such a bond in recent years have been frustrated by partisan and geographic rivalries.

Josh Gerstein -- the California-based national correspondent for the New York Sun and, for my money, the best reporter alive -- last night mentioned to me a discrepancy between what Gov. Schwarzenegger said Wednesday during a press briefing in Big Sur on the fires there and what the gubernatorial transcript said he said.

One word was different, but oh, what a word! That word is "ballsy."

Schwarzenegger, in response to a question, was describing the mindset of people who remain in their homes and defy evacuation orders.

According to Gerstein and what I hear on the recording distributed by the governor, Schwarzenegger said: "I am going to stay in my house and I am ballsy and all those things."

The transcript says: "I'm going to stay in my house and I'm boss and all those things."

As someone who has transcribed literally hundreds of hours of Arnold Schwarzenegger talking, I have sympathy for the transcription service. His syntax and accent is all his own, and not always easy to understand. But this sounds very clear to me. You be the judge: The video is available here.

The governor of California said an extraordinary thing Monday. July 1 is the beginning of the new fiscal year, so the budget is now officially late. There's a $15.2 billion shortfall. But when the governor was asked about why he wasn't pushing legislators for an on-time budget, Schwarzenegger replied, "Well, first of all, I don't know at what stage they are in at this time."

This ignorance is inexcusable. Yes, legislators pass budgets and governors sign them. Yes, Schwarzenegger has had success in the past leaving negotiations on key matters, including the budget, to lawmakers. Yes, he's been criticized publicly in the past (including my your blogger) for getting too deeply into the details of the budget. But managing the budget is arguably the most important gubernatorial duty. If it's not #1 in importance, it's in the top 3. And Schwarzenegger is the only official in the Capitol elected by all the people. Legislators represent their districts. He's supposed to represent the interests of all of us. If he doesn't know exactly what's going on in the budget process, how can he represent us?

What's more, this governor has campaigned around the state for a rainy-day fund and a lottery borrowing proposal as part of his budget plan. He should be closely monitoring the twists and turns of these talks to advance his budget reform plans.