Wednesday, 06/09/2010 Print Version |
Well, a pleasant good morning. My name is Gary Toebben, I'm president and CEO of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce and, on behalf of the business community of Los Angeles, we're happy to welcome you to our building and to this celebratory news conference this morning.We're all excited about the passage of Proposition 14, which will reform the primary election process for congressional, statewide and legislative races. Yesterday's victory was about choice and change. Prop 14 will allow voters to choose from all the candidates on one ballot, regardless of party preference. It will also change Sacramento, reducing partisan gridlock and ensuring a more moderate and efficient state legislature.The Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce salutes the California voters for passing this historic reform and we thank our partners here with us today; Governor Schwarzenegger, Lieutenant Governor Maldonado, Jeannine English with AARP and Royce D'Orazio with IndependentVoice.org.Everybody played an important role but no one played a more important role than the man whose legacy in this state will be one of change and reform. Please help me welcome Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. (Applause)Thank you very much and good morning, everybody. I want to thank Gary Toebben, president of the L.A. Chamber of Commerce, for his great partnership and endorsing this initiative early on and being a big supporter and having us here today.Also Lieutenant Governor Maldonado, I want to thank you very much for making sure that it gets on the ballot and making this part of the budget negotiations last year. You are a true reformer also, so that’s why I liked you and I picked you as the lieutenant governor.Then Jeannine English, of course; the AARP has been terrific, not only with this initiative but a lot of initiatives that we have won. And it goes back to 2002 when you guys endorsed, the AARP endorsed Proposition 49, the After-School Education and Safety Act. So you are great partners and always bring me good luck.And then, of course, Royce D'Orazio from the IndependentVoice, we want to thank them also, who were very important because this is kind of a group of frustrated voters that could not really participate in the primary process and so he's representing all the Independents and Decline to State.And I want to thank also the people that have run the campaign, Adam Mendelsohn and the campaign staff, for doing such an extraordinary job and all the organizations who endorsed this initiative, which is so important and wanted to make the initiative win. And then all the people that donated money, because it always costs a lot of money to make those initiatives pass.And Nursing Homes then I want to thank also all the people that voted for this initiative. I think that their message was loud and clear to Sacramento, that we want to change the dysfunctional political system and we want to get rid of the paralysis and the partisan bickering that is going on in Sacramento.I think that it was very clear that there is a sweeping change in California. We have seen that just in 2008, when the people voted for redistricting reform. And now they've voted for open primaries. It's a frustration that the voters have. They feel very strongly that nothing gets done by this partisan bickering. And even though throughout the country you see some states going further to the right and some states go further to the left but Californian voters were fighting for the middle, fighting where the real action is, for the center.And I have been saying this since I have come into office, that we must reform the system in order to make our political leaders and politicians servants to the people and not servants to the parties, because no one can get stuck in their ideologies. We have a system here that gets praised and that gets rewarded for getting stuck in our ideological corners and get punished for compromise and we have seen that during the budget negotiations last year.The fact of the matter is, when you have a two-party system, the two parties have to work together in order to get things done. And this is why it is so important that we have created those changes now. Those are fundamental changes, those are huge changes that will change everything in the future. It will not solve all the problems but it will change a lot.And I know that you will have questions about, so what do you think about Jerry Brown versus other candidates and what happened with Poizner and what happened with Meg Whitman and all those kind of things. None of this really matters. What matters right now is really that we changed the political system fundamentally. It doesn't matter if a Democrat or a Republican goes in there. It changed the system.And so again I want to say thank you to the people for doing that. It really was a great service that they've done for the state of California.And with that, I want to bring up our Lieutenant Governor to say a few words about this. Please welcome him. Thank you. (Applause)Well, thank you, Governor. And I'll be very, very brief. All I can say is that I want to thank the people of California, because this wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for the people of California who were disenfranchised, who were disappointed, who were just not happy the way California, especially Sacramento, works, because we have a body in the legislature that cares more about political parties than about California.And today is a great day for California because Proposition 14, as the Governor was speaking here -- all I can see in my mind is a government that can come together as one and to focus on real issues that are important to California like jobs, fixing government, education and so forth. And all I can say is that, as I listened to Governor Schwarzenegger speak -- the Governor has been in Sacramento for quite some time now and he's made it a point to reform this great state and to reform the election process. This is step two to a big process. Proposition 11 was his and he worked very, very hard. And now all I can do is envision a government that really can come together as one, as he stated.But I want to leave you with this; in 2000 -- and I'm not going to mention any names -- I was sitting on the floor of the California State Assembly, and I had a member of the legislature come in and whisper in my ear -- and I can hear it to this day -- said to me, "Maldonado, you better change how you vote, because the courts just struck down the open primary and now you better toe the line."I'm here to tell that member that whispered in my ear today that he better change how he votes, because people want a government that works and they're sick and tired of this dysfunction that we have in Sacramento.So as we move forward, all I can do is thank Governor Schwarzenegger for all the support he's given me but, more importantly, for all that he's given for California. Because California has everything; we have beaches, we have Hollywood, we have high tech, we have biotech, agriculture, we have the Terminator, we have the Lakers right now. (Laughter) But you know what we don't have? A government that works. And Proposition 14 will make government work.So with that, I'd like to bring up Jeannine English to say a few words also. (Applause)On behalf of AARP's three million California members -- and those members vote -- I'd like to thank Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger for his leadership on this issue and on the leadership that he's shown throughout his governorship.This is critical to California's future. For too long, running for office in California has meant pandering to your party's narrow base. And it's just to win that primary and then you're basically a shoo-in. And what have Californians gotten for it, this pandering to the extreme wings of both parties? The answer is elected officials who are locked into inflexible ideological positions that make it impossible for them to work together toward solutions to get California back on track.But now, thanks to the passage of Proposition 14, Californians will be able to elect a body of representatives that is beholden to the people of California and who work together, not to compromise their principles but to make principled compromises. An open primary system will give every Californian equal access to the same ballot and will put us back on track to restoring the faith that we once had in our elected representatives.Again, thank you, Governor. And now I'd like to introduce Royce D'Orazio from IndependentVoice.org. Thank you.Thank you very much. Today is a fantastic day for California independent voters. Over 2 million voters cast a yes on Proposition 14 yesterday and, as a result, 3.4 million Decline to State voters will now have equal access to our political process. At this rate California voters, California independent voters, will exceed 4 million individuals by the next election cycle.Yesterday Proposition 14 passed by the largest margin for a political reform initiative in over 12 years. For that, I'd like to thank the Independent voters, the organizations across this country that helped participate in this and, of course, Governor Schwarzenegger, Lieutenant Governor Maldonado and our national affiliate, IndependentVoting.org.Elected officials and candidates, please take note; there is now a new political force in California. And I encourage you to visit our website, because IndependentVoice.org and California's independent voters want to know where you stand on the political reform agenda and we want to know now.With that being said, to all of our brothers and sisters in all the other states across this country, help is on the way and I thank you very much. (Applause)GOVERNOR: Are there any questions, please?QUESTION: I do want to ask about Meg Whitman and Jerry Brown. And they have not talked about -- they have been distancing themselves from your Administration, saying that it has failed to fix the financial crisis that existed when you came into office. I'm wondering if you can respond to that.GOVERNOR: Well, I'm very happy to say that when I came into office in 2003 we had a huge financial crisis with a $16.5 billion deficit and throughout the years we improved that situation and we knocked down the deficit to zero. And also, we created a million new jobs and we reformed Workers' Compensation and rebuilt California to get going with the infrastructure and so on and so forth.It's very unfortunate that we got into another crisis in 2007, a world economic crisis where the whole world went down in value and, because of that, you see jobs being lost all over the world including in California and now we have lost a lot of those jobs and now we have to start rebuilding those again.So we are very happy with the record and we are very happy with the record that we have so far in reforming the system. And when we talk about reforms -- if it is Workers' Comp reform or if it is redistricting reform or open primaries or any of those things -- the job is not finished. You know, the important thing is now that this summer we get together with the legislature, Democrats and Republicans and all work together to create the budget reforms that we need and that we have the tax reforms that we need, the education reforms that we need. And also, the kind of a system where we really get out of those kind of problems in the future and not always run into the same problems again.And the public pension reform is another one of those areas that we need to get together on, because it will eventually bankrupt the state of California because we have now a $500 billion deficit, a debt with the public pensions. And I think that's inexcusable to see this kind of rise in costs. The costs there went from $150 million, just for CalPERS, to $3 billion in the last 10 years. That's an increase of 2,000 percent, even though our revenues only increased by 26 percent.So we've got to make those kind of changes. And that's what I'm about. That's what I promised the people of California when I came in, that I will do everything that we can to change the system.Now, I have to say, at the same time, that whenever you try to reform anything it's very tough to do. Let's not forget that. There is a huge amount of people that want to hold onto the status quo because it benefits them personally, or their organization or their business, or because they are afraid of the unknown, what the change will bring. And this is why, you know, it's a tedious job. And you work along and try to bring people together. It's a slow process but you do it. And sometimes you fail. Like remember, with redistricting we failed five times and the people asked me over and over again, "Don't you get the message that it's no?"And I said, "No. I think that we're going to be back." And we were back and the sixth time we did win. And so this is why we never should give up.There are certain things that we have not been able to do. If we would have had budget reform in 2005 during the special election, we wouldn't be in this mess that we're in today. But as you remember, $160 million were spent against those initiatives. But we never give up. And we're going to work now with the legislators. I told them I will not sign a budget if we don't have those reforms, budget reform, tax reform, pension reform and those things.So we're going to work through it, bring everyone together. We're not going after anyone, after labor or after the Democrats or any of that. It's all about just let's get the job done and let's serve the people of California.QUESTION: Governor, when your term is over will you seek another political office, or will you go back to your former career?GOVERNOR: I have said many times that I cannot even focus on what do I do after I'm finished with this job, simply because -- in sports you learn something that is absolutely crucial and this is keep your eye on the ball, don't start wandering off. And so I will have plenty of time after that.Right now I'm a servant of the people of California. And because of things that I just mentioned, all those reforms, there's going to be a lot, a lot of work ahead of us. So I'm concentrating just on what I'm doing this year and not what I'm going to do next year.QUESTION: Have you talked to any of the gubernatorial candidates? Are you going to make an endorsement?GOVERNOR: No, I'm not going to make an endorsement at this point and I don't know if I will make one later on. I'm just going to go and concentrate on this and make this be the story of the day rather than any other subject. So I just wanted to make sure that you all write -- this is, by the way, national news. The reforms that we have created here, by people voting overwhelmingly for open primaries, this makes national news because, as I said earlier, in every state there is all this bickering and fighting going on of, you know, trying to go and -- if it's the Tea Party or this party or that.We in California have said we've got to come to the center, we've got to bring everyone together in order to solve problems. So that's quite a change compared to the rest of the nation. And I think the rest of the nation eventually will find out this is exactly where the action is; not to go way to the right, not to go way to the left and not to get things done but to get things done and to come together. That's where the action is.So thank you very much, everyone, for showing up here today. Thank you. (Applause)
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