Governor faces health-care hurdle

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger whooped it up at his inauguration Friday with some of his biggest GOP donors, but if the reaction to his health-care proposal Monday is an indication, he’ll face a much tougher Republican audience today at his State of the State address.

Some of Schwarzenegger’s financial supporters in Newport Beach said they’re generally supportive of the governor despite his recent shift to the left. But Newport Beach Republican Assemblyman Chuck DeVore predicted rebellion among legislators — possibly even a lawsuit to block the health-care proposal Schwarzenegger unveiled Monday.

The governor has described the health-care proposal as extending insurance coverage to all Californians. To some Republicans, the two main objections are that the plan would charge a tax to small businesses that don’t provide health care to employees and that it would offer health-care coverage to the children of illegal immigrants.

“I’m deeply disappointed in Governor Schwarzenegger for violating his campaign promise not to raise taxes,” DeVore said, a statement he’s prepared to repeat as many times as necessary. “If this goes through as a majority vote and gets signed into law, we [the Assembly GOP caucus] will sue through the California Supreme Court to protect the California Constitution’s protection against tax increases.”

The plan has caused some dismay among supporters like Dale Dykema, a Newport Beach resident who donates to Orange County fundraising powerhouses the Lincoln Club and the New Majority.

Some in the GOP gladly supported the governor specifically because of his proposals, such as the 2005 statewide initiatives that failed at the ballot, said Dykema, who gave more than $50,000 to Schwarzenegger’s reelection effort.

“Certainly a lot of those people are now not very supportive of him,” Dykema said. “I realize it’s good to reach consensus, but it’s almost as though he appears to be wavering from his principles to gain consensus.”

Buck Johns, a Newport Beach businessman who said he gave “five figures” to the governor’s 2006 campaign and attended the inauguration, said GOP donors will back the governor if he challenges U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer after he’s termed out in 2010. But that doesn’t mean they’ll rubber-stamp proposals they don’t like, Johns said.

“He is clearly running to the left. He’s calling it the center,” Johns said. “A major run-up in health care is not something that I think will sit well with his base.”

Schwarzenegger’s next big hurdle will be the budget proposal, which should come out Wednesday. Johns questioned whether the governor will get the needed GOP votes to pass a budget, which requires a two-thirds majority, but DeVore harbored no uncertainty.

“The more to the left the governor is seen as having moved, the more difficult it’s going to be to capture the six, seven, eight Republicans” he needs in the Assembly, DeVore said.

But Schwarzenegger could still win supporters back. Tom Tucker, chairman of the New Majority’s umbrella group for its four chapters, said he expects the governor to bring at least one of the reform initiatives that failed in 2005 back to the ballot, and GOP supporters want reform.

The governor also may be taking his cues from beyond his Orange County base and even the state GOP.

“I believe he is trying to govern center-right,” Tucker said. “He’s trying to govern like a statesman, not a partisan. I think that’s what America wants.”