Turn Left

If 2005 was the Arnold's Year of Reform, it looks like the embattled Governator is readying to make 2006 his Year of Liberalism:

Beyond the push to repair roads, ports and hospitals, Schwarzenegger has told his staff members he wants to cover the estimated 6.6 million Californians who have no health insurance. Officials said they are considering a variety of options, such as putting more nurses and doctors in schools and expanding prevention programs with the help of federal waivers.

They are also looking at programs being debated and implemented in other states, such as a Wisconsin plan to grant vouchers for buying basic health insurance paid for with a payroll tax. One idea would require all Californians to obtain health insurance, much as drivers are required to have car insurance.

But because the state expects another budget shortfall next year, the governor's health officials said they are narrowing their focus to the state's 780,000 uninsured children and teenagers.
[...]
And the governor wants to revive a plan that Democrats torpedoed last year to install solar panels on 1 million roofs — traditionally an issue they would embrace — after being lobbied by electrical workers unions concerned about protecting jobs.

We'll see what comes of it all. The state is shockingly underfunded right now, and having just passed a $15 billion bond initiative, there's already talk of floating another. So much as I'm for these goals -- including the solar panels project, which unions myopically opposed and Democrats cravenly caved on -- we just don't have the cash for this stuff unless we raise taxes a bit. And I'm not hearing any mutterings from Arnold on that. Also, this is just a horrible, evil idea:

Whatever the governor's intentions, one element of the new agenda is already causing friction. On Thursday, Schwarzenegger launched a signature-gathering drive for a proposed November 2006 ballot initiative that would increase penalties for sex crimes. The measure would include a provision requiring sex offenders to be tracked for life with global-positioning devices.

The initiative drive will give Schwarzenegger a tough-on-crime issue to embrace next year, while forcing Democrats to take a stand on a measure they may find too harsh. Democrats faced a similar battle last year with an initiative to modify the state's three-strikes law, which Schwarzenegger opposed and which failed.

This is simple demagoguery, an attempt to whip society's most hated offenders for political gain. In a democracy, the measure of a society is not how it treats its most beloved, but how it treats its least liked. Arnold is taking an easy path towards a wedge issue by violating the constitutional rights and further heaping punishment on sex offenders. That's grotesque, not because sex offenders are good, but because the rest of society supposedly is. If you want to increase the penalties on these offenses and lock offenders up till death, put that on the ballot. But there's simply no precedent for using the state to track every step they take for the rest of their lives. Both society and its convicted must move on, or not. This, however, is simple pandering to the electorate's worst instincts.