Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger may finally have figured out how to unite California’s squabbling Democrats and Republicans: appoint Abel Maldonado as lieutenant governor.
When he announced Monday on the Jay Leno show that the state senator was his choice for California’s Number Two job, the governor may have convinced both sides to go to war against the Santa Maria legislator.
Republicans still haven’t forgiven Maldonado for his calculated decision last February to join Democrats as the deciding vote for a budget that hit Californians with billions in new taxes.
Democrats aren’t happy Schwarzenegger picked a Republican to replace uber-Democrat John Garamendi, who resigned as lieutenant governor earlier this month to take a seat in Congress.
And party leaders on both sides are beyond livid that Maldonado demanded an open primary measure go on the June ballot as the price for his budget vote. The measure, which would allow voters to support anyone, regardless of party, in a primary election, is seen as a major loss for party loyalists and a win for political moderates like, for example, Maldonado.
While Schwarzenegger has never been one to concern himself with how the Legislature views anything he does, it’s different this time. Maldonado needs a majority vote from both the Assembly and the state Senate if he’s going to finish Garamendi’s term.
That’s one reason Schwarzenegger all but shouted “Viva la raza” in announcing Maldonado’s nomination. The 42-year-old farmer was Santa Maria’s first Hispanic mayor, a release from the governor’s office pointed out.
Team Schwarzenegger also quickly fired out an e-mail to reporters, reminding them that “until now, there were no Latinos holding statewide office, either Republican or Democrat, in the state that has the largest population of Hispanics in America.”
How much weight that will carry with Latino Democrats is a question, especially when even Maldonado has questioned Schwarzenegger’s willingness to back Latinos for statewide office.
In 2006, for example, Maldonado carried the governor’s bill for a boost in the minimum wage, despite constant attacks and nearly unanimous opposition from the Legislature’s Republicans.
Yet when Maldonado ran for state controller later that year, Schwarzenegger didn’t support him in the GOP primary, which was won by Tony Strickland, a loud and continuing opponent of the minimum wage hike and just about every other Schwarzenegger proposal.
“When (Schwarzenegger) needs Latinos, Latinos are always there for him,” Maldonado fumed after the election. “When Latinos need him, the answer’s been ‘no.’”
With Democrats holding a solid majority in both houses of the Legislature, if they decide they don’t want to see a Republican as lieutenant governor, it’s not going to happen. Conversely, if they decide they want Maldonado in the job, there’s nothing Republican legislators can do to stop them.
Ironically, then, it’s Democratic politics that may give Maldonado his best chance of becoming lieutenant governor.
Maldonado’s 15th State Senate District stretches along the coast from the conservative cowboy country of Santa Maria north to the liberal environs of Santa Cruz and then over the mountains to Los Gatos in Santa Clara County. Democrats hold a 40 percent to 34 percent registration edge and they’re convinced it’s a seat they can win.
A win there would bring Democrats within a single vote of their Holy Grail of a two-thirds majority in the Senate, which would leave the Republicans there essentially irrelevant.
So here’s the potential trade-off for Democrats: a few months of seeing Maldonado as lieutenant governor, a job with minimal power, versus the possibility of taking a near stranglehold on half the Legislature.
There are no guarantees in politics. GOP Assemblyman Sam Blakeslee of San Luis Obispo, the Assembly minority leader, could very well win a special election for the Senate seat. Maldonado might use his status as an appointed incumbent to win the Republican primary and then grab a full-four year term next November.
In this morning’s Sacramento Bee, John Burton, chair of the state Democratic Party, asked, “Why would Democrats confirm a Republican for statewide office?”
Putting aside the usual good government arguments – it is possible, after all, that someone from the other party is the best person for the job – the only realistic answer is “Self interest.”
Why would Democrats confirm a Republican as lieutenant governor? Because they thought they could get something better.
John Wildermuth is a longtime writer on California politics.