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From CQ Weekly, PETER HARKNESS A Call for Action by States Most states have little interest in waiting to see if the White House and Congress are willing to compromise on a series of pressing domestic issues. They are moving quickly with the assumption that no matter how fast the new Democratic leaders in the House can pass a bunch of bills, there is no guarantee that the Senate and president will go along. If anything, they have a sense of urgency to continue or even accelerate state efforts to address intractable problems. 
Two high-profile governors serve as the best examples of this center-activist trend. If you were to listen to the initial speeches of Arnold Schwarzenegger in California and Eliot Spitzer in New York, it would be hard to guess who’s the Republican and who’s the Democrat. Both laid out ambitious agendas, though much of Spitzer’s had to do with ethics and budget reform, which may be hard to pull off, but at least doesn’t cost a lot of money. Spitzer was elected with almost 66 percent of the vote, a record, after running as a reformer — something the Empire State desperately needs. And he did not disappoint. But he also proposed expanding health insurance coverage for all children, distributing education money more equitably, lowering property taxes and revitalizing the upstate region.
Schwarzenegger, who has already achieved one of his major goals by gaining voter approval of $37 billion in bond authority for infrastructure improvement, proposed a plan for universal health care; an even stronger effort to limit greenhouse gases than has already been passed; plus more money for education, prisons and reservoirs. As party identification in the state continues to fall, polls show that voters by large margins want quick action on both health care and global warming. So now Arnold — the “Two-Terminator” — is referring to himself as the “post-partisan” governor. It may become a model. These high-profile governors are not alone. You can see the center-activist trend play out in Minnesota, where Tim Pawlenty, the Republican incumbent, barely survived re-election as his party got wiped out in legislative races. Now Pawlenty is doing his best to reach out to the new Democratic leaders, claiming that they all can agree that “progress can and should be made” on a number of key state issues from improving education to moving toward universal health care. The elections, the governor added, have sent a message to Republicans about “getting things done.” Democratic leaders are being surprisingly magnanimous given the depth of their victory. CREATIVE, AND COSTLY In Pennsylvania, for example, Gov. Edward G. Rendell, the former Philadelphia mayor and one-time chair of the national Democratic Party, has been energized by his surprisingly easy re-election. An activist by nature, he quickly announced plans to privatize the Pennsylvania Turnpike to raise cash for transportation improvement. Then he unveiled a unique, wide-ranging and detailed health care proposal with a goal of covering 767,000 uninsured citizens, cutting costs and improving quality. Rendell is hardly alone, though his health care plan is more specific than the others. Governors in a number of other states are proposing reform plans of various ambition. But they are also submitting proposals clustered around growing anxiousness about economic security — ideas that involve the minimum wage, regressive taxation (particularly for food and clothing), expanded preschool programs, more job training, and increased aid to lower-income students. There may be a deal on minimum wage brewing in Washington, but it could be irrelevant by the time it finally passes. Twenty-nine states already have minimum wages higher than the current federal standard of $5.15 an hour, and more are likely to enact increases this year. The trend, according to Jeanne Mejeur, who follows the issue for the National Conference of State Legislatures, is that indexing for inflation “seems to be the wave of the future.” The same is true with health care, global warming and stem cell research. Congress may pass some bills addressing those issues, but it’s hard to imagine that they will be real breakthroughs. The states will be moving faster and more broadly. As the year unfolds, the looming question will be: How will states pay for costly new initiatives? Most are in decent fiscal shape at the moment, and only a few, such as Michigan and New Jersey, face significant deficits. But that can change quickly if the economy slows. And as Massachusetts is finding out now, new health care systems can prove to be far more expensive than envisioned. A state panel recently reported that the newly enacted insurance plan, which has received national attention, will cost a lot more than the estimates used when the bill was being considered. And that may prove to be penny-ante when the bill for our first “post-partisan” governor’s agenda comes due in California. Peter Harkness is editor and publisher of Governing. Previous columns: © 2007, Congressional Quarterly, Inc. Reproduction in any form without the written permission of the publisher is prohibited. Governing, City & State and Governing.com are registered trademarks of Congressional Quarterly, Inc. |
THE STATES AND LOCALITIES