Day 2 of the Arnold
Administration — If we told you that the governor accepted a huge
campaign contribution from the state’s largest private workers’
compensation insurer just before opening a special legislative session
on workers’ comp, you’d be sure that we accidentally got our wires
crossed and were looking at some old story from the Gray Davis files.
And if we added that the governor used a loophole in campaign limits –
putting the money in an old campaign committee, so he could accept a
donation that is nearly five times larger than contribution limits
allow – you’d be sure we had mistakenly opened Cruz Bustamante’s
campaign finance disclosures. That kind of special interest
politics-as-usual is exactly what Arnold came in to office to clean up,
right?
Apparently not. We have just learned that mega-insurer American
International Group (AIG) donated $100,000 to Arnold last week. The
company wants to keep insurance rate regulation off the table during
the workers’ compensation special session that the governor convened
today. Will Arnold treat AIG equally and look to reform the insurance
companies just as he goes after other players in the workers comp
debate (namely workers, doctors and lawyers) or will this big
contributor get a break?
Arnold told us that things would be different, but already it looks a lot like more of the same.
