SACRAMENTO — What a difference a year makes.
The 2008 California Business Legislative Summit hosted by the California Chamber of Commerce was packed. Participants heard a slate of state and national figures talk presidential politics and a confident Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger pitch his plans to solve a gaping $15 billion budget deficit.
Twelve months later, the 22nd annual CalChamber conference opened Monday in the same place, the Sacramento Convention Center, but in a far smaller space. In fact, this year’s crowd was about a third of the size of last year’s 1,400 attendees.
That wasn’t the only difference. With California businesses confronting the realities of a stagnant economy, rising unemployment, higher taxes and fees, and increasing regulation, the somber mood was pervasive.
At the end of the day’s activities, CalChamber president Allan Zaremberg announced that Schwarzenegger would be skipping the Sacramento Host Breakfast on Tuesday — only the second time in the event’s 83-year history that a governor would be a no-show. According to Zaremberg, President Obama had summoned Schwarzenegger to Washington to talk vehicle fuel-efficiency standards. It wasn’t lost on the conferees that Tuesday was also a special election — called by Schwarzenegger and the Legislature — in which voters were being asked to solve what is now a $42 billion deficit.
The CalChamber had endorsed the package of propositions on Tuesday’s ballot, which contains six measures intended to reverse California’s persistent budget problems and restore the state’s long-term economic health. Polls show five of the six losing by wide margins, with only Proposition 1F — which would dock legislators’ pay if they don’t pass a budget on time as required by the state Constitution — finding a receptive audience.
Zaremberg acknowledged voter disgust with Sacramento and the Capitol’s climate of chronic crisis.
“Make no mistake: Voters are angry,” he said. “The recession doesn’t help, but they want to send a message of ‘Don’t ask us to bail you out. You got us in this mess.’”
While conceding the propositions weren’t perfect, he insisted Proposition 1A, in particular, “is a good proposal. It’s permanent reforms in exchange for temporary taxes.” Click here for a related Noozhawk story.
Whatever the outcome of Tuesday’s vote, Zaremberg said a strong economy is the only reliable way to balance California’s budget. He said the 15,000-member state chamber would soon launch a three-year campaign designed “to make sure we all are involved in making California a better place to do business.”
Among Mondays’s speakers were Republican gubernatorial candidates Tom Campbell and Steve Poizner; former San Francisco Chronicle politics writer Greg Lucas, who now writes the California’s Capitol political blog, and Dan Schnur, director of USC’s Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics; and Chuck Todd, NBC News’ chief White House correspondent.
Handicapping the governor’s race, which already has six likely candidates, three from each party, Lucas and Schnur agreed that Republicans appear to be facing an identity crisis that may overshadow the actual primary battle between Campbell, a former congressman; Poizner, the state insurance commissioner and a successful high-tech entrepreneur; and former e-Bay CEO Meg Whitman.
For the Democrats, they noted the next-generation appeal of Mayors Gavin Newsom of San Francisco and Antonio Villaraigosa of Los Angeles but cautioned not to count out state Attorney General Jerry Brown, who served two terms as governor in the 1970s and early ’80s.
While Newsom and Villaraigosa must confront the risks and realities of running major cities with budget problems of their own, Schnur said, Brown starts with high name recognition and a position that allows him to garner headlines without having to really deliver any results.
“So Brown could be the youngest and the oldest governor in California history,” Lucas quipped.
The Goleta Valley and Carpinteria Valley chambers of commerce have several members at the conference and at the Regional Legislative Alliance summit, which takes place Tuesday. Representing the Goleta Valley chamber are Kristen Amyx, president and CEO; board members Mark Dispenza, an associate at Holmes & Holmes Insurance Agency Inc. and chairman of the chamber’s Issues & Policy Roundtable, and Steve Greig, government relations manager of Venoco Inc.; and members Bill Macfadyen, publisher of Noozhawk and a former chamber board chairman, and entrepreneur and business consultant Jimmy Wilson. Representing the Carpinteria Valley chamber is Pat Kistler, the chamber’s government relations director.
Rounding out the RLA delegation are members of the Camarillo, Oxnard, Santa Paula and Ventura chambers of commerce, and the Western States Petroleum Association.
— Noozhawk publisher Bill Macfadyen can be reached at wmacfadyen@noozhawk.com.
