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Updated: Jun 19th, 2005 - 20:05:13 |
TALLAHASSEE -- California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is calling on his Florida counterpart to pump him up in an ongoing battle with his state's Democratic lawmakers.
Gov. Jeb Bush will join Schwarzenegger at fund-raisers in Florida this weekend to raise cash for ballot measures aimed at side-stepping the Democratic-controlled Legislature of California.
In doing so, Bush is drawing criticism from both coasts for helping with Schwarzenegger's initiative campaigns.
Bush has long condemned the spread of voter mandates in Florida, saying they make it difficult to manage the state's finances.
"I think there is a certain bit of irony there," said Ben Wilcox, executive director of Florida Common Cause, which has fought Bush and Florida's Republican-led Legislature over efforts to restrict ballot measures.
"It always seems that people don't like the citizens' initiative process, unless their initiative is in play."
Schwarzenegger is expected to attend fund-raisers beginning today in Tampa Bay, followed by Saturday events in Miami and Orlando.
The Orlando fund-raiser will take place at the Isleworth home of time-share magnate David Siegel, where seats are priced from $5,000 to $25,000.
The co-host is Robert Earl, chief executive officer of Planet Hollywood. Schwarzenegger, the former Mr. Universe and star of the Terminator films, is a past investor who promoted the restaurant chain in the 1990s.
"I am helping Gov. Schwarzenegger because I support his efforts to bring California out of its morass," Bush said in an e-mail to the Orlando Sentinel.
"I support him, and that is why I am participating in a couple of events."
The fund-raisers will benefit the California Recovery Team, a Schwarzenegger committee formed to pay for his ballot proposals. Schwarzenegger is considering putting the measures before voters in a special election this fall.
Schwarzenegger is pushing three initiatives that would overhaul the way voting districts are drawn, toughen requirements for teacher tenure and impose spending limits on the state budget.
He already has tangled with ruling Democratic lawmakers in California over a wide landscape of tax and budget issues.
In Florida, Bush has said repeatedly that he opposes the concept behind one of Schwarzenegger's measures -- having an independent commission draw voting-district lines.
While Schwarzenegger is looking to take redistricting out of Democratic hands, Bush prefers that it stay with the Republican-dominated Legislature in Florida.
Given such political crosswinds, some critics said Bush should steer clear of Schwarzenegger's fund-raising tour, which continues to Illinois and Texas after the weekend in Florida.
"It seems completely hypocritical," said Ned Wigglesworth, an analyst with TheRestofUs.org, a Sacramento-based campaign-finance watchdog group.
But Bush's fund-raising support also seems rooted in Republican circles. The two governors have a brief but interlocking political history.
Schwarzenegger's first budget director, Donna Arduin, played the same role under Bush for five years. Schwarzenegger's chief political consultant, Mike Murphy, advised Bush during his 2002 re-election campaign.
In California, that state's Chamber of Commerce is backing Schwarzenegger's ballot effort. But in Florida, the chamber has spearheaded legislative efforts the past two years aimed at making it more difficult to amend the state constitution.
Critics of voter mandates point to the high price of Florida's class-size amendment, to a high-speed rail initiative -- repealed last year -- and to what many see as the absurdity of a 2002 measure to protect pregnant pigs.
In Florida, lawmakers this session approved a measure for the 2006 ballot that will ask voters to decide whether to require that any proposed amendment get 60 percent of the vote to pass, rather than a majority.
Rep. David Simmons, R-Longwood, who helped lead House efforts on overhauling Florida's ballot process, declined to offer his view of Bush helping Schwarzenegger, saying only that "California is a different world. . . . Make that a different planet."
Seminole County Watch.com
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