ShareThisBy ANDY FURILLO
Friday, November 10, 2006
Sacramento politicians basked Wednesday in the success of the $37.3 billion infrastructure bond package that they said reverberated a simple message from the voters: give us some more of that bipartisanship stuff.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, getting ready to take off on a trade mission to Mexico, said that he was "over the moon" with the clean-sweep endorsement voters gave Propositions 1A through 1E.
"The reason I think it was successful," Schwarzenegger said, in a videotape of his statement released by the governor's office, "was because Democrats and Republicans worked together."
The bipartisan angle echoed in statements earlier in the day from Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, D-Los Angeles, and state Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, D-Oakland, the rival-party partners of the Republican governor in getting the bonds on the ballot.
"The voice of the voters is once again telling the California Legislature and the governor, 'Keep working together,' Nunez said at a press conference. "Because that's a vote of confidence for us - 'If the governor and the Legislature are working together, then we will be with you.'"
Perata, whose campaign team shepherded the package to victory _ with big help from the governor, who stumped for the bonds on his own _ said he was "delighted with the results and surprised at how easily the bonds were approved by the voters.
"It meant when the Legislature does something the voters believe is important, they will support it," Perata said.
The four bond measures all won in relatively easy fashion, with the $4.1 billion levee protection bond, Proposition 1E, scoring the highest margin of victory. It was supported by 64 percent of the voters.
Proposition 1B, the $19.9 billion transportation bond, enjoyed 61 percent support. Proposition 1C, the $2.9 billion housing bond, and Proposition 1D, the $10.4 billion education measure, each were favored by 57 percent of the voters.
Swamping them all was Proposition 1A, a companion measure supported by the infrastructure advocates that sought to shield the sales tax on gasoline - revenues voters previously earmarked for transportation projects - from raids by lawmakers looking to solve other budget problems.
An unrelated bond measure, Proposition 84, also passed the test with the voters. The $5.4 billion plan proposes to improve water quality and supply while expanding wildlife habitat and parks and recreation areas. It received 54 percent support.
Pollsters had said in recent weeks that surveys showing the bonds hovering at barely above the 50 percent approval level portended problems for the package. The analysts also expected the bonds to run into trouble when voters dug into the long-term costs of the proposals to learn that they would cost about twice their face value over the 30-year life of the bonds, with the general fund taking an average annual hit of $2.5 billion to pay them off.
Final poll numbers proved the concerns groundless, although not without some anxiety on the part of the bond backers.
"I think we were very lucky to survive," said Gale Kaufman, the Sacramento political consultant who worked on the Proposition 1D campaign. "But the voters were very discerning. They took the time to read them and consider them. Early in the election, they were unaware of what was going, but when push came to shove, they got to understand what the bonds were - an investment in the future."
On the transportation side, Caltrans Director Will Kempton said motorists should start seeing new slabs of concrete and steel "very soon" in some of the most highly congested corridors of the state.
"We are serious about getting this work out as quickly as we can," Kempton said. "We know voters have expressed a great degree of confidence in us, and it's up to us to deliver the goods."
Kempton said the transportation component of the bond program alone will produce 144,000 "sustainable" construction jobs for the decade-long construction life of the program.
"It is a huge boost to the economy," he said.
Elizabeth Deakin, a city planning professor and director of the UC Berkeley Transportation Center, said it may be premature to project an accurate bond-job connection. Deakin added that a good portion of the jobs might wind up in places other than California.
"A lot of these projects are sketched out at this point, but they're not fully developed," she said.
