Schwarzenegger, Bowing to Voters, Will Veto Gay Rites
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SAN FRANCISCO – A day after California’s Legislature made history by passing legislation that would authorize gay marriage, Governor Schwarzenegger signaled that he plans to veto the measure.
In a statement yesterday, the Republican governor’s press secretary portrayed the decision not as a repudiation of gay marriage but as an effort to uphold the wishes of California voters, who overwhelmingly upheld the traditional view of marriage in a statewide referendum in March 2000. “We cannot have a system where the people vote and the Legislature derails that vote. Out of respect for the will of the people, the governor will veto” the gay marriage legislation, the spokeswoman, Margita Thompson, said.
In interviews, Mr. Schwarzenegger has indicated that he has no personal objection to gay marriage. The statement yesterday from the governor’s office said he is “proud” of the broad protections California offers to so-called domestic partners. Mr. Schwarzenegger also indicated that he would abide by the outcome of legal challenges brought last year following the mayor of San Francisco’s decision to solemnize gay nuptials.
Political analysts said Mr. Schwarzenegger’s fading political star was likely to lose more luster whether he signed or vetoed the gay marriage bill, which passed the California Assembly somewhat unexpectedly Tuesday night on a 41-35 vote.
“This is not an issue he wants on his desk because no matter what he does, he’s going to make a lot of people angry,” a prominent political analyst, John Pitney Jr. of Claremont McKenna College, said.
“I don’t think he has any alternative quite frankly but to veto that bill,” a scholar at the University of Southern California, Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, said. “He’s in trouble, probably more trouble, if he starts abandoning his base…. If you look at his numbers, all he’s got left are conservatives and Republicans.”
A Field Poll taken last month and released yesterday confirmed a precipitous drop in support for Mr. Schwarzenegger. Only 36% of voters surveyed said they were inclined to back the Hollywood idol if he chooses to stand for re-election in November of next year, while 56% said they were not inclined to support him. In the new poll, two relatively obscure Democratic candidates for governor, Phil Angelides and Steve Westly, narrowly led Mr. Schwarzenegger.
Ms. Jeffe pointed to another ominous sign for the former movie star: a whopping 82% of Hispanic voters said they were not inclined to re-elect the governor, who has alienated some Latinos with talk of sealing California’s border and by expressing support for citizens’ border patrols known as the Minutemen. The margin of sampling error in the poll of 891 registered voters was plus or minus 3.4%, and a somewhat greater range for the Hispanic sample.
The poll numbers come as the governor is about to embark on a barnstorming campaign on behalf of three ballot measures that will go before voters in November. One initiative would take the power to draw legislative districts away from lawmakers and put them in the hands of retired judges. Another would require public-school teachers to work for several years before being granted tenure. At the moment, teachers gain tenure after just two years. A third measure includes several provisions aimed at controlling state spending and reforming the budget process.
Mr. Schwarznegger has not said whether he intends to run for re-election. However, there are indications that he may announce his candidacy at a GOP convention later this month. A Republican political consultant, Allen Hoffenblum, said that even though the gubernatorial election is 14 months away there is some pressure within the party for the governor to enter the race soon. “In the Republican leadership, people are concerned that if it goes to November and he loses these three ballot measures, he’s going to announce he’s not running for re-election,” the consultant said.
Mr. Hoffenblum said an abrupt exit by Mr. Schwarzenegger could leave the state GOP completely adrift. “There’s no bench there,” he said.
The reasons for Mr. Schwarzenegger’s political slump are varied. Unsuccessful jousting with the state’s public employee unions over pension costs led to attack ads that painted the governor as an enemy of teachers, nurses and police.
Mr. Schwarzenegger’s support for President Bush during last year’s election may also have hurt the governor in his home state.
The gay-marriage bill is just the first of several politically awkward measures Democratic lawmakers are planning to send to Mr. Schwarzenegger in the coming days in order to leave him politically wounded as he opens his campaign for the ballot measures. “They’re teeing all these up and getting him on record,” a professor of communications at California State University, Barbara O’Connor, said. One divisive bill that could reach the governor in the next few days would grant driver’s licenses to illegal aliens.
Mr. Hoffenblum said Democrats’ jubilation about Mr. Schwarzenegger’s woes may be premature. “They think he’s already defeated,” the consultant said. “He’s very charismatic. He’s still Arnold.”