Arnold Bankrolls Opposition Research on Himself
California is facing a $4 billion budget deficit, so you might reasonably assume that the state can’t afford the luxury of funding think tanks for wealthy special interest groups. Yet the budget signed late last month by Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger includes $6 million for something called the Labor Institute, a pro-union public policy research outfit housed at the University of California. In doing so, Arnold reversed his previous position, suggesting a heavy whiff of election-year politics.
The Labor Institute got its start back in 2001 under Mr. Schwarzenegger’s Democratic predecessor, Gray Davis, and over the years has received nearly $23 million in taxpayer funding. Founded by left-wing professors at UCLA and UC Berkeley, the LA Times described it as "a place where union leaders and academics can come together to explore workforce issues and trends." Uh huh. In reality, the institute is little more than a training ground for activists. It works closely with public-sector labor leaders and sympathetic Democratic lawmakers in Sacramento to promote union-backed legislation. And its research reports — on everything from living-wage laws to gender discrimination to family leave — have a Big Labor bias that borders on propaganda.
In last year’s budget, Mr. Schwarzenegger vetoed $3.8 million intended for the program, though the University of California found money from other sources to keep it alive. This year, Democratic state legislators not only reinserted the appropriation but upped it by $2.2 million, and Arnold looked the other way. The Governator would never admit it, but this is yet another indication that he’s still spooked by Big Labor’s successful campaign against his special election ballot measures last June. Since then, Mr. Schwarzenegger has agreed to huge hikes in education spending and an increase in the minimum wage. The governor knows he won’t win over Big Labor, but these gestures might at least provide a shield against labor efforts to demonize him in November in his re-election race against Democrat Phil Angelides.
Still, the political strategy is of little comfort to those most concerned about excessive government spending. As Kevin Dayton of the San Francisco-based Pacific Research Institute put it in a column last week, "The UC Labor Institute now enjoys a fresh $6 million in taxpayer dollars to harass California business, concoct bogus studies, conduct union activism, and engage in partisan politics." Unions have every right to do all that, says Mr. Dayton, "But the unions themselves, not California taxpayers, should pay the bills."