Governor Schwarzenegger wrapped up his trip to Washington, DC today with a stop at the offices of U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, and a bit of levity about the difficult balancing act in trying to be a centrist in the world of partisan politics.

Schwarzenegger has been busy mending GOP fences of late, and defending himself against accusations that he’s either too much to the left (according to some Republicans), or too much to the right (according to some Democrats).

The transcript below was provided by David Drucker, a reporter for the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call, and a former statehouse reporter here in Sacramento. David is the reporter who asked the question:

Reporter: “You told Tim Russert [this past Sunday on Meet The Press] that you’re an Arnold Republican. Can you define an Arnold Republican for us?

Feinstein (turning to Schwarzenegger and smiling): “I’d like to hear this one, too.” (laughter in the room)

Schwarzenegger: “An Arnold Republican is someone that you cannot really put into a box. Because in politics people have this tendency of saying, ‘well, is he over here, or is he over here?’ You can’t do that with me. Because, you know, I didn’t grow up with that kind of politics. I did not work my way up to this position in the political arena. So I take things on what I think
is best for the state. I’m trying to represent everybody, Democrats and Republicans. So that’s what I’ve always said.

“I’m in the center, I think that’s where the action is. It’s just very difficult and challenging in
California when you do that — when you’re in the center. Because they can’t put you into that box, the right or to the left. That’s the way I am.”

Feinstein: “I could have told you that before the beginning of last year.” (more laughter)

One of the biggest changes to California’s government structure in modern times may be back under discussion again, by both supporters and foes: term limits for members of the Legislature.
Beginning last year and ongoing to the new year have been discussions about modifications to the state’s landmark 1990 initiative that limits service in the Assembly to six years and service in the Senate to eight years. The talk seemed to originate during the negotiations between Governor Schwarzenegger and legislative Democrats to head off a special election battle, negotiations that ultimately failed.

The modification, still being sought by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, would modify the term limits law to allow service in one chamber for 12 years. That’s actually two years less than under the current law, but would keep lawmakers from hopping from one side of the Capitol to the other.

Today, a national organization known as U.S. Term Limits released a TV ad criticizing any attempt to change the current California system.

“Incredibly,” the narrator of the ad says, “some self-serving politicians are again trying to destroy our term limits law.”

The organization has also contacted legislators and candidates and asked them to sign a pledge supporting the law as it is. The group’s spokesman, Paul Jacob, says they will publicize the list of who signed the pledge, and who didn’t, next week.

Lawmakers who support changes to the term limits law say it would help create more institutional memory, and would also help diminish the constant campaigning that now exists. But USTL’s Jacobs says the 12-year “one house” alteration would only serve to restore the power of longtime legislative leaders, versus the status quo where, in his words, “every legislator matters.”

Polling still shows Californians support term limits. And no one seems to believe that anything short of a fully supported bipartisan effort… from the governor and others… would pass muster in a new ballot initiative.

It’s not cheap to buy political TV ads in many parts of California, and so it would seem still a bit early to lauch any big ad buy for the June 6 primary.

But not for gubernatorial candidate Steve Westly. And apparently not for his challenger, Phil Angelides.

Truth be told, it’s often the big splash of an ad campaign that matters, with the candidate hoping to earn a little “free” attention from political reporters. Both campaigns, however, say the ads will be seen in all of the state’s big TV markets.

Both ads are kind of an introduction to the voters. Westly’s ad, which was out first, highlights his business background and says he is a “problem solver.” The ad’s tag line is that Westly would be a “different kind of governor.”

The Angelides ad, which is out today, relies largely on an on-camera endorsement from U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer (D-Marin). And its tag line not so subtly highlights the campaign’s raison d’etre: “He stood up to Arnold, he’ll stand up for you.”

That last line, of course, is going to be a frequently discussed issue: who really is the best Democrat to challenge Arnold Schwarzenegger? Angelides has been critical of the governor’s policies from the beginning; Westly originally joined with Schwarzenegger on getting the voters to approve deficit bonds in 2004 but, in recent times, has argued that the governor has strayed away from sound policies.

As for Schwarzenegger, he’s spending the day in Washington, DC today with many of the nation’s governors. And his schedule includes time with someone who’s not very popular back here in the Golden State: President George W. Bush.

A leading state legislator now says last week’s decision by Secretary of State Bruce McPherson to allow some counties to use voting machines made by Diebold Elections Systems, Inc. violated state law.

In a letter sent to McPherson yesterday, Senator Debra Bowen (D-Marina del Rey) says that McPherson’s decision to “conditionally” certify Diebold machines for use in 2006 was a mistake.

“While your decision may be good for Diebold and its shareholders,” she writes, “it is not in the best interests of California’s voters or our democracy.”

[McPherson, as we’ve reported before, sent Diebold’s machines back for additional federal testing last December, after reports of potential security flaws. Those tests haven’t been completed, but on February 17 McPherson went ahead and signed off on Diebold machines for the June and November elections.]

The senator claims that McPherson’s decision runs afoul of California elections law, which says that electronic touch-screen machines can’t be approved until they have received “federal qualification.” But a spokesperson for McPherson says that Diebold’s machines have, indeed, received federal qualification… and that McPherson’s request for “additional” testing was made after Diebold’s optical scan and touch-screen machines had received federal approval.

The letter from Bowen (one of two Democrats running for McPherson’s job this year) also repeats a challenge that she’s made in the past: that Diebold’s touch-screen voting machines aren’t compliant with the state’s new “paper record” law.

That law requires that voters in counties with touch-screen machines be allowed to check the accuracy of the machine on a paper prinout. For the blind, the law says that an audio playback must be made available.

But here’s the rub: even a spokesperson for Diebold admits that their audio device reads back whatever is recorded on the machine itself. Senator Bowen, however, claims that state law requires that a blind voter have access to what’s on the paper printout, not what’s in the machine’s memory.

Even some local elections officials have told me that they have questions about this very same small… but potentially important… detail. But a spokesperson for McPherson says that his office is confident that the Diebold machines “comply with the [paper trail] law” and that former Secretary of State Kevin Shelley thought so, too.

If any of this is going to impact the 2006 elections, it will have to do so quickly. Elections officials in several counties are already in the process of acquiring Diebold machines. And the company expects as many as 21 counties will be using its machines on June 6.

That’s the overall assessment of Legislative Analyst Elizabeth Hill, who certainly doesn’t sugar coat her office’s assessment of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s 2006-07 state budget in a report out this morning.

You can read the entire report here. Hill is releasing her broad overview of the budget today at the monthly luncheon of the Sacramento Press Club.

The report is pretty lengthy… so for now, the bottom line:

* Hill projects that state revenues will be even better this year and next than the governor’s estimates. In fact, the report states that if Schwarzenegger’s budget were adopted as proposed, the state would be sitting on a surplus of $2.6 billion. That’s a whopping $2 billion more surplus than the governor’s advisers thought they’d have at the end of the coming budget year.

* Nonetheless, the LAO projects an operating deficit will again return in 2007-08 of almost $4 billion, and nearly $5 billion in 2008-09. For those of you who aren’t die-hard budget watchers, the governor’s budget has its own operating deficit for the coming year; the only reason it doesn’t show up is because of some serious one-time revenue that has filled in the gap.

* Hill says the governor’s budget for the coming year “would still leave the state with large structural budget shortfalls and an enormous amount of outstanding financial obligations.”

* With the current infrastructure debate often turning to the issue of selling bonds– and how much debt the state can afford every year– here’s an interesting nugget: the LAO estimates that even though Schwarzenegger has proposed paying off some existing debt next year, the state will still have $20 billion in outstanding budgetary debt as of July 1, 2007. And the report estimates that the annual cost of paying off that debt will rise from $3.7 billion in 2006-07 to more than $5 billion in 2008-09.

And that’s before any infrastructure bonds are even sold.

The jockeying over whose infrastructure bond package is the right one continues, with Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez today weighing in for an approximately $30 billion proposal, less than half the amount proposed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Nunez told reporters today that Assembly Democrats agree with Schwarzenegger on some issues– but not all. While more than half of the governor’s bond plan would go to education (K-12 and higher education combined), those areas would receive about one third of the money under Nunez’s proposal. Percentage-wise, it appears most of the bond money in the Assembly Democratic plan would go toward transportation projects (these are only rough numbers provided so far by Nunez’s advisers).

This is the second Democratic proposal, following in the footsteps of the plan from Senate President Don Perata that was originally introduced last year.

Nunez said today that common ground exists on the bond issues related to education. But it appears there are a number of other issues that remain unresolved, and thus likely to be at the center of the real negotiations:

* How Long? Democrats continue to reject the governor’s suggestion to place the bonds on statewide ballots through 2012. Nunez today said that his plan would call for all of the infrastructure bonds in the next 2 election cycles; Perata’s bill currently calls for placing his version on the ballot only this year.

* What’s Is/Isn’t Included: Both Democratic leaders want to include projects related to California’s affordable housing woes, a subject not dealt with in the Schwarzenegger plan. Nunez and Perata have also spoken at length about more funding for public transit, instead of just traffic congestion relief.

Meanwhile, the governor has proposed bond money for expansion and upgrades in public safety facilities. Democrats have pretty much rejected such issues as not a priority, with Nunez today saying that the governor’s plan on this issue isn’t “ready for prime time.”

In short: there’s a lot still in flux on the issue of infrastructure ideas. And a quick check of the calendar shows not much time left for a deal to gel for the June 6 primary ballot: the deadline to get something on that ballot for voters to consider is March 10… only 17 days from now.

A major hurdle for elections officials in at least 17 counties was crossed this afternoon, when Secretary of State Bruce McPherson gave approval for voting machines made by Diebold Elections Systems to be used in the June 6 primary.

Diebold machines– one model optically scan ballots, the other is an electronic touch-screen system– have been in a bit of limbo for weeks, after concerns over security issues prompted McPherson to send the machines back through the federal testing process.

Today’s news release says that process is still incomplete, but that McPherson has received assurances on security issues through a report submitted to him on Tuesday from a team of state investigators who were also looking at Diebold’s operating system.

“After rigourous scrutiny, I have determined that these Diebold systems can be used for the 2006 elections,” said McPherson in a prepared statement.

The decision will no doubt be controversial with many of the critics of electronic voting systems, and McPherson’s decision seems to anticipate that. His statement lays out a set of extra precautions that must be taken by any county using Diebold machines.

Those precautions include extra poll worker training; secure storage of memory cards for the machines; and tamper-proof seals on the machines that must be verified before voting begins on the day of the election.

“We look forward to helping administer successful elections in California,” said Diebold president Dave Byrd in a written statement. Diebold says it plans to have its machines in 21 California counties by June.

Probably most relieved by the decision is San Diego County, where the first big election in the state this year is April 11, to fill the seat vacated by the resignation of U.S. Representative Randy “Duke” Cunningham. San Diego uses the Diebold TSx touch-screen machine, and Registrar of Voters Mikel Haas has jokingly said in recent weeks that the machines were just sitting in a warehouse across town, waiting for clearance.

It looks like he can now go get those devices out of storage.

Governor Schwarzenegger has denied clemency to convicted killer Michael Morales.

You can read the governor’s decision here. But the last paragraph is perhaps the most relevant:

“Nothing in the record or the materials before me compels a grant of clemency. The pain [victim Terri] Winchell’s loved ones have been forced to endure at the hands of Morales is unfathomable as is the brutaility of the acts he perpetrated.”

After several weeks of discussions, a bill to allow counties to conduct the June 6 primary by mail is scheduled to be heard next week in a Senate committee.

The bill is AB 707 by Assemblymember Loni Hancock (D-Berkeley), and staffers say they expect it to be heard next week in the Senate Elections, Reapportionment, and Constitutional Amendments Committee. Its impetus, in large part, is based on the situation in Alameda County, where their touch-screen voting machines don’t comply with the new state law requiring a paper record of every vote cast.

The dilemma in Alameda and other counties are outlined in a story I recently filed. But while many other counties have systems in place that could be certified for use in June, Alameda elections officials say they won’t have enough time to get enough new machines in place.

AB 707 doesn’t name any particular county; rather, it says any county that meets certain criteria (county officials must approve of the plan, allows some in-person voting, etc.) would be eligible.

But the bill faces some significant hurdles. Because it’s an urgency measure, AB 707 will need bipartisan support in both chambers. And in the past, some Republicans have opposed some all-mail balloting proposals over fears of voter fraud.

And even if it does get enough votes, can AB 707 get out of the Legislature and past the governor in time? Many elections officials have said that mid-March is the latest they can wait before beginning preparations for the June primary.

An effort is about to get underway to attempt to delay the implementation of the initiative on which Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger cut his political teeth: after-school programs.

Senator Tom Torlakson (D-Antioch) plans to introduce a proposed constitutional amendment to delay the implementation of Proposition 49. The measure, campaigned for by Schwarzenegger and approved by voters in 2002, is expected to cost the state an extra $428 million in the coming fiscal year.

Prop 49 was written in such a way as to only trigger when the state’s revenues reached an adequate level. But the Legislature’s non-partisan analyst has been suggesting for months that lawmakers may want to ask the voters to rethink Prop 49’s funding formula, given the state budget’s battle with recurring deficits.

Torlakson’s proposal, which has not yet been formally introduced, would require that all money owed to public schools under the Proposition 98 guarantee be paid back before Prop 49 would ever kick in. Of course, there’s still some dispute as to how much money is still owed under previous budget deals. Education advocates say the total IOU is $3.2 billion, and they have recently complained that the new after-school funding will crowd out money needed elsewhere.

The new legislation would require a two-thirds vote of both houses to make it to the ballot, but would not need the governor’s signature.