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Arnold Schwarzenegger on Social Security
Republican CA Governor
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2005: privatize public employee pensions
In 2005, Arnold used his annual state of the state address to propose a series of radical reforms. One measure he proposed was a scheme to privatize the pensions of public employees; another was to peg teachers' salaries to performance and restrict
tenure; a third separate plan was to redistrict the state's congressional districts to make them less secure for incumbents. If the Democrats didn't go along with his reforms, he warned he would go over their heads to the people and call a special
election.The proposals attracted immediate scorn from a wide variety of interest groups. And Democrats vowed to oppose the reforms with all their might, as Arnold knew they would.
If he thought the people would go along with his agenda, he had
clearly miscalculated.
In Nov. 2005, Californians delivered their verdict--a resounding rejection of each one of Arnold's proposed reforms. It was probably the greatest defeat he had ever suffered, personally and politically.
Source: The Governator, by Ian Halperin, p.288-289
, Oct 12, 2010
Page last updated: Apr 27, 2013
