by Matt Paulson
Editor in Chief
Even though the California recall circus has left town, the tent is not vacant.
The big top in Sacramento has been filled by the 68 diverse members of Governor-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger’s transition team.
The main attractions: education, money and quasi-diversity.
The ringmaster: our own local boy, David Dreier (R-San Dimas).
Dreier, chairman of the House Rules Committee and chairman of the California Republican Delegation, has been chosen to head Schwarzenegger’s transition into office once the election is certified.
Members of Schwarzenegger’s team range from liberal former California Governor and Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown to right-leaning former Gov. Pete Wilson to Hollywood producer Ivan Reitman, who was responsible for some of Schwarzenegger’s more light-hearted films such as “Junior,” “Twins” and “Kindergarten Cop.”
“You couldn’t have a more diverse group of individuals,” said Jeannine Martineau, president of the California School Boards Association, and transition team member.
Martineau, who also sits on Schwarzenegger’s education advisory committee, is the team’s expert in education, a topic emphasized throughout the recall debacle as one of the top priorities of whomever received the governorship.
As a member of the team, Martineau has stated that her goal is to provide every kid in California a quality education.
“Right now, that’s not happening,” she said.
Martineau, who represents more than six million students, hopes that her hands-on experience will help Schwarzenegger remedy the dire condition of California’s education system a system that earlier this year had to cancel the much-anticipated high school exit exam, which was scheduled to go into effect next spring, because of a projected 20 percent failure rate.
“My goal is to hopefully provide (Schwarzenegger) insight from someone in the trenches,” she said. “What can we do to make things better for kids? That will make me happy.”
California’s financial crisis also was on voters’ minds during the recall election.
Schwarzenegger has borrowed Donna Arduin, an independent auditor, from Jeb Bush to figure out how California can solve its fiscal problems.
Schwarzenegger proclaimed in an Oct. 9 press conference that he would “open up the books and let the people look inside. Let the sun shine in.”
Arduin, who has pledged to finish work by January, is also a fiscal conservative, leading some to suggest that Schwarzenegger’s transition team is only superficially diverse, with the majority actually a faction of “predominantly mainstream conservatives,” said Bruce Cain, political science professor at the University of California, Berkeley, to the Associated Press.
Included in the right-leaning transition team are Wilson, State Senate Republican Leader James Brulte, former Wilson welfare director Eloise Anderson, President Bush’s former Deputy Assistant Bob Grady and former Representative Bill Baker.
Cain said this move by Schwarzenegger is similar to Bush’s strategy late in 2000.
“With Bush, he faked left and went right,” Cain said.
Despite questions about the actual diversity of the transition team, the Inland Empire and surrounding areas are duly represented.
Along with Dreier, Martineau and Brulte, who is centered in Rancho Cucamonga, are Sheriff Mike Carona of Orange County, member of the White House Commission on Homeland Security as well as the Emergency Services, Law Enforcement, and Public Health and Hospitals Advisory Committee; Laguna Niguel’s Carlos Olamendi, who was recently appointed to the President’s Advisory Committee on the Arts; Safi Qureshey, an Orange County businessman and computer mogul; and Michael Ramos, San Bernardino County district attorney.
