Governinator v. California Legislature: Compromise or Special Election

California Governor Arnold Swarzenegger and a number of union groups have turned in petitions for an expected fall election. The San Francisco Chronicle has the story here:

Unions backing initiatives to re-regulate electric utilities and provide pharmaceutical discounts said Friday they have begun turning in petitions to qualify the proposals for a special election that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger may call for November.

Meanwhile, supporters of Schwarzenegger’s measure to cap state spending said they delivered nearly 200,000 signatures to election offices in 23 counties Friday and plan on turning in nearly 800,000 more signatures early next week — far more than they probably need to also qualify for the likely fall election.

Schwarzenegger has two other measures that also appear to have the signatures needed to qualify for the ballot — a proposal to give authority for drawing legislative districts to a panel of retired judges and an initiative that would lengthen the time it takes public school teachers to attain tenure.

Anti-abortion groups have submitted signatures for a ballot measure that would require notification of parents before a minor is allowed to get an abortion. And anti-tax activists said they have close to 1 million signatures backing a measure that would prohibit unions from using member dues for political purposes without written permission.

Attention now turns back to the Capitol, where Schwarzenegger and the Legislature’s Democratic majority will attempt in the coming weeks to work out compromises that can be adopted without a costly ballot battle.

The governor has said that he will need to make a decision by mid-June whether to call the special election.

Allan Zaremberg, president of the California Chamber of Commerce and co-chair of a group helping to qualify the governor’s three ballot measures, said Friday that he does not rule out a compromise being worked out.

Zaremberg said last year the governor employed a similar strategy in getting the Legislature to negotiate on changing the workers’ compensation system, noting that an agreement was not reached until after more than 1 million signatures had been gathered in support of a proposed ballot initiative.

The Alliance for a Better California, which includes the California Teachers Association, Service Employees International Union and California Professional Firefighters, reported Friday that it had begun turning in the first of 625,000 signatures for both the energy measure and the drug discount proposal.

Both initiatives need valid signatures of at least 373,816 registered voters to qualify.

Two of the governor’s proposals are constitutional amendments — redistricting and the spending cap — requiring 598,105 signatures of registered voters to make the ballot. The governor’s teacher tenure plan requires just 373,816 signatures.

In a related development, a state appeals court has upheld Schwarzenegger’s right to continue raising unlimited amounts of money to promote his ballot agenda while a lawsuit is pending over state regulations that would restrict that activity.

The state’s Fair Political Practices Commission has appealed a ruling from a Sacramento County superior court judge that shot down a rule seeking to limit how much a contributor can give to a ballot committee controlled by a candidate.

The commission asked that the limit on donations of $22,300 be imposed while the case remains on appeal, but the 3rd District Court of Appeal denied the request.

Look for a costly and vituperative fall election season.