Government by magazine cover continues this week, as Arnie calls a special session and then doesn’t show up for it himself:
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger jetted to China on Monday to help promote an event dear to his wife’s family, taking a four-day break from the special legislative session that he called to address California’s healthcare and water problems and leaving more than 600 bills awaiting action on his desk.
The governor, who is scheduled to return Thursday night, has two weeks to sign or veto the measures and is prohibited by the state Constitution from acting on them while he is out of the state.
Schwarzenegger announced his trip a day before flying to Shanghai for the summer games of the Special Olympics, a nonprofit that benefits the disabled.
Why should the Governor have to play by the same rules as the Legislature? After all, he only CALLED for the special session, that doesn’t mean he has to show up for it! Even if he’s the only one holding up the healthcare bill, and arguably the water bill as well.
The sick part of this is that Arnold had cancelled trips to Britain and India because he was so concerned with engaging in a special session. Now, trip to China comes up, he’s out. I don’t even think he’s the Governor anymore. He’s like some figurehead king like Olaf of Sweden who exists strictly in ceremonial terms. I also believe that Arnold can only spend about 6 months or so in Sacramento before having to get out and go on a press junket.
And he lied about it, too:
On Sunday, he told the (British) Conservatives: “I’m very sorry that I could not join you in person, but as you probably know by now, I’m in the middle of a special session of the Legislature that I called. . . . Because of that, I had to cancel all travel, except a long-term promise to attend the Special Olympics World Summer Games in China, which is this coming week. Now this is an organization that my mother-in-law started.”
But in fact, Schwarzenegger traveled to New York last week to speak at the United Nations about global warming, then went to Sonora, Mexico, on Thursday and Friday for a conference of the Border Governors Assn., a group he will lead as chairman for the next year. He flew to his Los Angeles home Thursday night to celebrate his son’s 10th birthday.
Also, it wasn’t a “long-time commitment,” he didn’t decide to go to China until the weekend.
The Special Olympics is a perfectly noble enterprise, but governing comes with a little thing called responsibility. 600-some bills are collecting dust on the Governor’s desk while he tries dim sum.
If the guy doesn’t want to run the state, other options can be put in motion. From what I remember, that’s how he got the gig.