California’s governor says he needs to focus on the budget crisis. Polls show voters may not have the appetite for such borrowing when the state is in such dire financial straits.
After an exhausting political fight to put an $11.1-billion plan for shoring up the state’s water supply before voters, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger now wants to yank the measure from the November ballot.
The governor is working with legislative leaders to postpone the water bond proposal as its prospects appear increasingly dim. Polls suggest voters may not have the appetite for such borrowing at a time when the state budget is in continuing crisis.
And the governor’s vow to aggressively fight another measure on the November ballot, one that would roll back the landmark global warming bill he signed in 2006, threatens to distract from the effort to get the water bond passed.
Schwarzenegger said Tuesday in a statement that he would try to get the two-thirds vote of the Legislature needed to pull the bond measure, Proposition 18, from the ballot and take it to voters in 2012 instead.
“After reviewing the agenda for this year, I believe our focus should be on the budget — solving the deficit, reforming out-of-control pension costs and fixing our broken budget system,” the statement said. “It’s critical that the water bond pass…. I will work with the Legislature to postpone the bond to 2012 and avoid jeopardizing its passage.”
The measure would pay for infrastructure to provide more clean and reliable water for the state. It was passed by the Legislature in November 2009, after months of difficult wrangling among farmers, environmentalists, water agencies and lawmakers.
The challenge of getting voters to support the package, which opponents said was filled with pork projects inserted by lawmakers, seems to grow with the state’s financial problems.
