Schwarzenegger, too, likes closed doors
Sacramento Bee
If you’ve been eagerly awaiting the day that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger changes the way business is conducted in the Capitol, you’ll apparently have to wait a little longer.
When Schwarzenegger was running for governor, he promised to do things differently, to stand up to special interests, to let some light into the back rooms where deals are cut. But now that he is actually governor, he’s the one behind closed doors with the power brokers, working out the details of a deal to change workers’ compensation law.
That’s not a new way of doing business. That’s business as usual.
That’s how state Senate President Pro Tem John Burton put together SB 2, the health insurance law that the state’s business leaders say is going to kill California’s economy.
That’s how electricity deregulation was put together.
That’s how Gov. Gray Davis did business, as did an array of governors before him.
Is that the way business has to be done in the Capitol? Maybe. But if Schwarzenegger has come to that conclusion, he ought to say so.
Some of the people who voted for him might actually still be expecting him to live up to his promise to be a different kind of governor. The least he can do is to let them know he didn’t really mean it.
