Governor Expected To Collaborate With Legislature on Health Care

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) hopes that work on health care in his second term will bring about bipartisan agreements in the Legislature in 2007, the San Diego Union-Tribune reports.

Allen Hoffenblum -- publisher of the California Target Book, which analyzes political campaigns in California -- said that in 2008 "the partisanship will kick in" as legislators prepare for the election that year and begin positioning themselves for leadership positions. Both Senate President Pro Tempore Don Perata (D-Oakland) and Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez (D-Los Angeles) in 2008 will have to leave their respective legislative chambers because of term limits.

Perata said that health care is "the one thing [Schwarzenegger] wants to do as his signature issue" in his second term as governor.

To that end, the governor has hired Richard Figueroa, a former aide to former Gov. Gray Davis (D), to work on a health care proposal. According to the Union-Tribune, the plan could include elements of a Massachusetts law that requires state residents to maintain health insurance coverage (Marelius/Ainsworth, San Diego Union-Tribune, 11/9).

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