Four Years Later, Arnold’s Tonight Show Pledge Rings Hollow

Far from ending the game, both Schwarzenegger and the legislature have taken special interest fundraising to new extremes while refusing to enact reforms to the system. Twice the California Assembly has passed a bill to provide a way for candidates who want to run for office without taking any special interest money to do so. The idea, modeled after successful reforms in Arizona, is to give candidates who swear off private funds a limited amount of public funding for their campaigns. Twice the California Senate has failed to take it up while Schwarzenegger sat on the sidelines.

After pledging to blow up boxes, the strongest campaign finance reform that Schwarzenegger has proposed is to restrict fundraising during certain parts of the legislative session—a mere fig leaf that would simply alter the schedule by which special interests continue to call the shots. Worse yet, in 2005 Schwarzenegger actually went to court to throw out a campaign finance rule that the Fair Political Practices Commission had set in response to abuses by Cruz Bustamante during the recall campaign.

To his credit, Schwarzenegger has pushed for reform in the process by which legislators self-interestedly draw political districts to protect their own careers instead of accurately representing local communities or providing competitive elections. Legislators have toyed with giving this task to an independent commission but are now considering it only as part of a deal to extend their own tenure in office by changing legislative term limits. Even if this package were adopted, it would not reduce the power of special interests to elect friendly politicians through campaign contributions.

If Schwarzenegger has learned one lesson as governor, it is that he is more popular when he works with Democrats in the legislature than when he fights them. This may have been the lesson of the 2005 special election, but it was not the lesson of the 2003 recall. With three years left in his final term as governor, Arnold would do well to remember the original reason voters sent him to Sacramento. It’s time for Arnold to get out the broom he campaigned with and put it to use.

Derek Cressman is a fellow at the Poplar Institute and author of The Recall’s Broken Promise: How Big Money Still Runs California Politics.