With a full day of pomp and circumstance promised, Gov.
Arnold Schwarzenegger will be sworn in to his one and only full term as governor at Memorial Auditorium today. In exerpts of his speech released by the governor's office, Schwarzenegger will trumpet centrism and compromise.
"Some pundits said that I won reelection because I co-opted the Democratic agenda," the governor will say. "Some said that the Democratic legislature, by working with me to increase the minimum wage or reform prescription drug costs, abandoned the Democratic nominee for governor. This is the kind of partisan thinking that frustrates the voters and diminishes our democracy.
The people are disgusted with a mindset that would rather get nothing done than accomplish something through compromise."
"
Centrist does not mean weak. It does not mean watered down or warmed over. It means well-balanced and well-grounded. The American people are instinctively centrist . . . so should be our government. No one ideology can solve
prison reform or
immigration reform or any of the other challenges facing us. It will take the best ideas of everyone. It will take creative thinking. It will take negotiations. It will take letting go of the past."
And though the governor was missing from the pregame party yesterday, Kevin Yamamura reports,
at least there was a walking asparagus.
"The Republican governor stayed in Los Angeles to rest his broken right leg and prepare for today's swearing-in ceremony at Memorial Auditorium, missing out on Thursday's environmentally minded fair in a large white tent on the Capitol's south steps.
'I hope all of you will say a big prayer for his recovery,' said first lady
Maria Shriver. 'And I hope when you go skiing, you don't break your femur. Because it isn't pleasant.'"
Hey, at least
it's not a tumor.
Pleasant or not, the governor has a full day scheduled today, starting with a morning swearing-in ceremony, followed by lunch with elected officials and donors and capped by an evening black-tie gala. None is open to the public, which is one reason inaugural planners organized Thursday's activity for those without invitations to today's events. Shriver said her husband will be at his swearing-in ceremony.
If not, we're confident
John Garamendi will be ready and waiting.
Mark Barabak chimes in on
Willie Brown's role as today's emcee. "No Democrat was more reviled by Republicans than Brown, who served a record 15 years as Assembly speaker before voter-imposed term limits — the "anti-
Willie Brown law," he called it — chased him from the Capitol.
And yet tonight he will preside over Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's second inaugural fete, resplendent, no doubt, in a bespoke tuxedo and symbolizing the bipartisanship that made the event, and all its Hollywood dazzle, possible.
For all their superficial differences, the governor is a kindred spirit of the famously flamboyant Brown, a showman who loves to startle audiences and defy expectations. So maybe it shouldn't be all that surprising to see Brown surface amid the Schwarzenegger splendor, a dozen years after leaving the speakership. What better way to confound convention and underscore the governor's political outreach than to invite an old GOP nemesis like Brown into the tent — and, better yet, make him ceremonial ringmaster?
"It's good politics for Arnold, good business for Willie and entertaining for everyone else," said Republican strategist
Dan Schnur, alluding to Brown's lucrative law practice and
sassy wit."'
The Register's Brian Joseph writes that "
Orange County will play a role in today's festivities by virtue of people like [
Richard Hill] Adams and
John Herklotz of Laguna Hills, a retired media executive who contributed at least $15,000 to the inaugural festivities.
Orange County donors have given at least $140,000 to the inauguration, or at least 10 percent of the $1.3 million reportedly raised.
Also expected to attend is Anaheim Mayor
Curt Pringle, a Republican who was an honorary co-chairman of the inauguration, and Santa Ana Mayor
Miguel Pulido, a Democrat."
Meanwhile, Peter Nicholas looks at
the ghost of another former Democratic pol.
He was booted out of the Capitol three years ago, but when former Gov.
Gray Davis returns today to watch the man who replaced him sworn in for a second term, he'll find an eerie resemblance to what he left behind.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has entrusted onetime Davis aides with his administration's success, appointing them to top jobs. He has embraced policies that Davis favored and settled into a similar governing style.
The Republican incumbent is even beginning to sound a bit like his Democratic predecessor.
Defending his aggressive fundraising, Schwarzenegger has taken to saying that donors are "buying into" his agenda, not the reverse. No slouch at fund-raising himself, Davis defended his pursuit of campaign money in the same terms.
'If you look at where I come down on issues and where Arnold comes down on issues, there's not much space there,' Davis, now a corporate lawyer, said in an interview in his Century City office."
OK, Gray, but how much do you bench?
Speaking of those newly departed, former Schwarzenegger campaign communications director
Katie Levinson has signed on as a senior adviser to the
Rudy Giuliani campaign. In her new gig, she will square off against her former boss,
Steve Schmidt, who has the same title for
John McCain's presidential camapign.
Meanwhile, in the world of policy, "Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration proposed Thursday that
California insurers be required to offer benefits that include disease-prevention programs such as those to help people stop smoking, manage their diabetes and be screened for breast cancer," reports LAT's Jordan Rau.
"The insurers, as well as state health programs such as Medi-Cal, would have to offer incentives to participants. The incentives could include vouchers, premium reductions or credits for health-related items such as gym memberships or Weight Watchers. Employers would have to buy those plans for workers to have access to them."
Health care will be one of many issues that will lead to a year of spirited debate in the Capitol, writes Harrison Sheppard in the Daily News. "Even as the inaugural pomp and circumstance began in the Capitol on Thursday, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is girding to face some difficult challenges with his own party in the year ahead.
'In reality, last year we were aware that the governor was in an election,' said Sen.
George Runner, R-Lancaster, and chairman of the Senate Republican caucus.
'And so we certainly had that as a filter, which we used to respond to some of the issues that we were faced with that we might not agree with. I do think that will change.'
'But hopefully that changes how the governor responds, too, because he's not in an election,' Runner added.
'You can't find a middle ground with people who are so far to the extreme right that finding common ground means being a conservative Republican,' [Speaker
Fabian] Nuñez said.
'
The question for (legislative) Republicans is: Are they going to moderate their extremist views to those of the Republican voters or not?'"
The Bee's Aurelio Rojas leads with
a different detail of the plan. "Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's plan to reduce health care costs and increase access will
require employers to establish pre-tax health care contribution plans for employees, administration officials announced Thursday.
The much-anticipated plan that the Republican governor is scheduled to unveil Monday also will require health plans and insurers to offer a benefit package that includes rewards, including a premium reduction, if certain healthy living goals are met."
Finally, as you begin to receive your W-2s and 1099s, you might be distraught about taxes due. Leave it to the Welsh to
find a solution.
"A Welsh man who was banned from paying a 650 pound ($1,600) court debt in bronze one pence pieces says he will pay up, but he will use silver five pence pieces instead.
Michael Rees tried to pay the fine and costs for a careless driving conviction, which he disputes, with monthly instalments of 4,000 pennies - Britain's smallest denomination.
The 41-year-old said he had paid 540 pounds of the debt with wheelbarrow-loads of pennies until the fines office at Pontypridd Magistrates Court in south Wales refused to accept any more.
They cited the 1971 Coinage Act, which says bronze payments of more than 20 pence do not have to be accepted as legal tender."
For those of you not going to inaugural activities, why don't you research whether the United States and California have such laws, and
let us know.
