By Katie Clary
Staff Writer
Gov.-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger will be sworn into office in 18 days. That gives Schwarzenegger the least amount of time in California history to decide who he will appoint to his new administration. Helping him in this endeavor is a 68-member team of business, community and academic leaders that Schwarzenegger unveiled three weeks ago, which the press has dubbed simply the “transition team.”
“As I said in my campaign all along, I want to reach out,” said Schwarzenegger in a news conference presenting the team. “I want to be the people’s governor.”
“You will see a very diversified team of people on that list. You will see people that are to the left, people that are to the right and people that are to the center.”
Pepperdine professors pondered what this transition team reveals about the governor-elect’s future administration. Will Schwarzenegger truly bring bipartisanship to Sacramento or just politics as usual?
“The proof will be in the pudding,” said Dr. Chris Soper, a professor of political science at Pepperdine. Until Nov. 17, nobody will know if the transition team is “window-dressing” or a real step toward bipartisanship, explained Soper. “It’s far too early to tell,” he said.
But clearly the governor-elect is at least trying to appear bipartisan.
Forty of the transition team members are mainstream conservatives, including Former Republican Gov. Pete Wilson and many who served on his staff.
But the team also includes a smattering of big-name liberal Democrats such as San Francisco mayor Willie Brown and University of Southern California professor Susan Estrich, who managed Michael Dukakis’ 1988 presidential campaign.
Soper asked the big question: “Is this a harbinger that he’s going to appoint Democrats?”
Perhaps, Soper continued, but in all likelihood Schwarzenegger will do what virtually all other politicians do and appoint the vast majority from his own party, namely, the Republican Party.
Pepperdine political scientist Dr. Stanley Moore believes the transition team is little more than PR.
“It’s a nice gesture to list all these people—they may have one dinner together,” he said. Moore suspects of the 68 members, Schwarzenegger will listen to eight or 10, probably his campaign manager and individuals involved with Pete Wilson’s administration.
“We’ll have to find out over time the circle of friends who Schwarzenegger is listening to,” he said.
Regardless, the transition team members still have their work cut out for them. The governor-elect’s office has received more than 7,000 applications so far. Their job is to point to the needles in the haystack.
“Obviously [Schwarzenegger] doesn’t know all the people in California. Their job is to feed talented individuals into the system,” said Darrel Ng, a press aid to the governor-elect’s office.
Interestingly, the team includes two graduates from Pepperdine Law School: Matt Fong, an attorney whose daughter currently attends Pepperdine, and Rick J. Caruso, a real estate CEO and president of the Los Angeles Police Commission.
Starting mid-November, Schwarzenegger will appoint 300 personal staff and Cabinet members. And he’ll have the ability to make 2,500 to 3,000 more appointments to various boards, explained Ng. These vary from the Agricultural Labor Relations Board to commissions on horse racing.
But when Schwarzenegger starts as governor on Nov. 17, he’ll face more difficult challenges than who to appoint to the California Horse Racing Board. At the top of the list: the California Congress and Senate.
Even if Schwarzenegger intends to govern across party lines, the governor-elect faces a Legislature divided by conservative “cavemen” Republicans and liberal Democrats, according to Moore.
Schwarzenegger is walking into a polarized political scene in Sacramento. “Ideologues on both sides won’t listen to each other,” Moore added.
“I hope Schwarzenegger will surround himself with [Former Gov. Pete Wilson’s] people or similar pragmatists,” he said. “But the situation may be so badly gerrymandered that may not even help.”
Moore considers recently named Chief of Staff Patricia Clarey a bright spot in the governor-elect’s search for appointments. He hopes that Clarey, a health-care industry executive who spent most of the 1990s with the Wilson administration, brings a moderate perspective.
“It bodes well,” said Moore. “It looks good, like the new governor-elect will try to pragmatically solve the problems of state.”
And one step closer to being the “people’s governor.”
October 30, 2003