The Governor's Wayward Broom (Arnold) [View All]

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http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-court23nov23,0,4984573.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions

The Governor's Wayward Broom
'Housecleaning' puts special interests first.
By Jamie Court

Jamie Court, author of "Corporateering: How Corporate Power Steals Your Personal Freedom and What You Can Do About It" (Tarcher/Putnam, 2003), is a founder of http://www.arnoldwatch.org .

November 23, 2003

Arnold Schwarzenegger's first act in office may have been to cut the car tax, but his second was to put on the chopping block hundreds of pending public safety regulations that were reviled by special-interest groups.

Among the scores of new rules that were frozen for six months — in order to be vetted for their effect on business — were regulations to limit pesticides, to create drinking water standards for arsenic and to publicly disclose on the Internet doctors' medical negligence settlements.

Schwarzenegger acknowledged when he ran for office that he wanted to promote business opportunities, but his freeze of already well-vetted regulations and his appointment of anti-regulation regulators to redraft them are beyond the pale.

In his first week, the governor who was going to oust special interests has managed not only to give them the keys to government, he's created a potential separation-of-powers crisis. At the very least, his Executive Order 2 is going to force government agencies to do their job twice.


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