The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has entered the fray on the proposal to rebuild the
state’s roads, levees and schools, paying for a TV ad praising Gov.
Schwarzenegger’s economic record.
Sacramento Bee
Business interests took their infrastructure game plan to the airways Wednesday, with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce paying for a TV ad to tout Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger‘s record and his proposal to revamp the state’s highways, schools and levees.
The 30-second spot that will appear statewide prominently features the governor in his “I say build it” State of the State speech. It began airing on the same day Schwarzenegger and Democratic and Republican legislators engaged in daylong meetings to try to get an infrastructure plan on the ballot.
Secretary of State Bruce McPherson had set Friday as the deadline for a June primary election. But in a question-and-answer session Wednesday with the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce at the Sutter Club, McPherson backed off the hard-and-fast date, saying the governor and the Legislature could extend the deadline on an emergency bill with a two-thirds vote.
McPherson declined to answer questions afterward, repeating his luncheon statements that approving a ballot measure after Friday “complicates the situation,” but that “it’s up to the governor and the Legislature” if they want to go beyond the deadline he set.
Schwarzenegger’s legislative affairs secretary, Richard Costigan, told the audience that “we think the framework has come together” to get an infrastructure bond deal moving.
In a signal of a possible floor vote on a plan, the state Senate rescheduled its floor session today from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., which would give the involved parties more time to work out a deal.
The Republican governor’s proposal calls for $71.5 billion in voter-approved bonds that would provide the foundation of a $222 billion, 10-year plan.
Legislative Democrats had settled this week on a $30 billion program to be paid over two election cycles that contains more rail transit than the governor offered and a housing component that was not included in the administration’s proposal.
Although Schwarzenegger and the Democrats are believed to have agreed to a $47 billion bond deal, Assembly Republicans have continued to hold out for proposals that would pay for the bulk of the plan out of the general fund budget, streamline the environmental review process and eliminate contracting provisions that they see as favoring unions.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, meanwhile, moved into the infrastructure debate by establishing an independent expenditure committee that produced the ad. The spot begins by hailing Schwarzenegger’s economic record — “He cut the deficit and helped create 400,000 new jobs” — before taking the clip from the State of the State address and outlining the transportation and education components of his infrastructure plan.
“Less traffic, better schools and no new taxes,” the ad concluded. “So California can compete.”
Chamber spokesman Eric Wohlschlegel did not say how long the ad will run or how much money the Washington, D.C., group is devoting to its California campaign. He said the ads were not cut with Schwarzenegger’s re-election in mind.
“What we’re really focused on is the business community and their ability to do business in California,” Wohlschlegel said. “One in eight American consumers lives in California, and we believe there are a lot of opportunities for business in California that are not being realized.”
Besides infrastructure, Wohlschlegel said, the chamber also is focused on other issues “critical to business that we believe need to be highlighted.” They include maintaining the workers’ compensation changes Schwarzenegger pushed through two years ago, preventing “shakedown” lawsuits and making the state’s labor laws and regulations more business-friendly, according to the chamber’s Web site.
Jamie Court, president of the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights, said the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is serving as a cover for “publicly hated industries like big oil, insurance and HMOs.”
“This is a surreptitious attempt to launder money for industries that want to buy support in the statehouse, but don’t want those candidates to have to smell bad in an election because they’re hanging out with polluters, price-gougers and other repugnant industries,” Court said.
During last year’s special election campaign called by Schwarzenegger, the chamber contributed $500,000 to the losing initiative that would have required public employee unions to get their members’ annual written consent before spending any of their dues money on politics.
Gale Kaufman, a political consultant closely aligned with Democrats and labor
who managed the campaign to defeat the special election initiatives, said she doubted whether the chamber’s ad campaign would help the governor’s infrastructure plan.
“Voters usually look askance at outside interests coming in here and telling us what to do,” she said.
Republican strategist Wayne Johnson said Schwarzenegger “obviously is going to be the prime beneficiary” of the chamber’s ad campaign. But it is a “truism,” Johnson said, “that re-elections are won in the governor’s office, not in the campaign office.”
At the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce lunch at the Sutter Club, Fran Inman, senior vice president of the Majestic Realty Co. and chair of the group’s transportation committee, said the outcome of the infrastructure bond package is “extremely important” to business interests in her part of the state.
“We’re just thrilled that it has risen to this level and is the hot issue, because we’re running on empty,” Inman said.
Inman said “the encouraging thing is that there are meetings going on and something I think is in the works.”
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The Bee’s Andy Furillo can be reached at (916) 321-1141 or [email protected]
