Man of contradictions

It’s hard to figure out Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. He’s a man of contradictions, one day calling for bipartisanship and praising his Democratic colleagues in the Legislature, the next day calling them “girlie men” and “obstructionists” for not giving in to his demands on the state budget.

Most recently, he’s called for a part-time Legislature, saying that with less time to spend at work lawmakers would pass fewer “bad bills.” Then, just this week, he turned around and accepted a 2,500-page set of recommendations for reforming state government from “top to bottom.”

As might be suggested by the sheer size of the report, the recommendations of the California Performance Review team are manifold. They would cut state government by 12,000 positions, eliminate 118 boards and commissions, consolidate several state departments, including those dealing with education, and eliminate county boards of education.

Senate President Pro Tem John Burton, D-San Francisco, has already given the report the kiss of death. “It isn’t going to come to fruition,” he told Los Angeles Times reporters Monday. “They clearly are biting off more than anybody could conceivably chew.”

The governor and his Performance Review Commission need to winnow out the worthwhile and saleable recommendations and get the public behind them, or they won’t go anywhere. Many of the boards and commissions selected to be axed, for example, serve mainly as retirement sinecures for former politicians and should be cut, but some, such as the state Air Resources Board, are invaluable.

Meanwhile, the governor should abandon this silliness about a part-time Legislature. Revamping state government is a huge task, as a 2,500-page report suggests. It can’t be done by part-timers. That should be obvious, even to a man of contradictions.