Help us out here: Didn’t
Arnold once say that it wouldn’t be business as usual in Sacramento?
Sources tell us the Gov has cut a deal with Sacramento’s Dean of Dirty
Deals, Senate Leader Don Perata. In the trade, Arnold’s controversial
nominee to head the Division of Workers Compensation, Andrea Hoch, will
be approved in exchange for releasing state funds to finance the Bay
Bridge (a top priority for Perata). Perata has previously objected to
Hoch on the grounds that her regulatory proposals unfairly slash
injured worker benefits, and Arnold has said that he doesn’t want the
cost of the new Bay Bridge to be paid by taxpayers across the state.
Issues that have nothing to do with each other, right?

But if Perata changes course and the Senate confirms Hoch, it’s
evidence that Arnold was willing to get down and dirty in the political
muck. Sure, it may be illegal to trade votes, but, until someone really
sweeps Sacramento clean, that’s considered a mere technicality. Always
looking for a deal, Perata has been fawning over Arnold since the State
of the State speech, at one point declaring: "I’ll be a footnote in
California history to what [Schwarzenegger] can accomplish." Perata has
pushed, according to ArnoldWatch sources, Senate Democrats to take up
Arnold’s drug industry-driven pharmaceutical costs legislation. Perata
decided to join in on the gov’s call to cut Prop 98 funding for
schools. Now the Hoch nomination could move in exchange for the Bridge
money flowing. That’s business as usual.