A part time Governor?

Does California have a part time Governor? Some people apparently think so, and given the Governor’s commute times the evidence is on their side. When Governor Schwarzenegger was first elected, there were a few raised eyebrows because he was so slow in moving to the State capital. Then the press coverage on this just faded away and I think most people assumed the Governor keep a home or some kind of residence in Sacramento. It turns out he does not and in fact has been commuting on a daily basis to his mansion in Brentwood on his private jet. Other officials and politicians have apparently been grumbling about this for some time but have been “reluctant to risk alienating Schwarzenegger by publicly criticizing him for it”. As the Los Angeles Times reports “there have long been complaints in Sacramento that his attention is too often focused elsewhere”:

Like many of the Californians he represents, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger now spends more than three hours commuting because he lives so far from the office. But his ride is a private jet. After flirting briefly with buying a Sacramento abode for his family, then living alone for a while in a 2,000-square-foot hotel penthouse across from the Capitol, the governor has decided to stay nearly every night at his Brentwood mansion.

The commute costs hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, which aides say the governor pays for himself. Some environmentalists say the trips expand his carbon footprint enough to undermine his image as a crusader against global warming, despite the pollution credits he buys to offset the damage.

Abandoning more glamorous parts to settle in Sacramento has long been a trade-off governors made for the privilege of running the state. But Casa de los Gobernadores, the 12,000-square-foot suburban ranch home that Ronald Reagan and his family had built when they ruled the town, did not lure Schwarzenegger and kin, despite five visits to the home by California first lady Maria Shriver and a Realtor.

“I just don’t have a home in Sacramento,” Schwarzenegger said in a recent interview at a Starbucks in Washington, D.C., where he had flown — by private jet — to attend the winter meeting of the National Governors Assn. “The question is how can I be with my family, because that is extremely important, to be with my kids. They are all growing up. They are in their teens. They need their father around,” …

Schwarzenegger has used his vast financial resources to create a kind of roving governorship, with almost constant travel in and out of California. He spent more than $591,000 in campaign funds, donated mostly by special interests, for travel in 2007 — a year in which he was not running a major campaign.

The governor rarely sleeps now in the $62,000-a-year hotel penthouse paid for by a tax-exempt charitable foundation. But in the early years of his administration, Schwarzenegger spent most weeknights there, working late, receiving visitors and playing chess, former aides said.

“When I worked for him, he was there almost every night,” said Donna Lucas, a public relations consultant who was a senior advisor to the governor and first lady during Schwarzenegger’s first term. “We were working so hard, I can’t even tell you. I know it was important for him to have an opportunity to be up here in Sacramento.”

When he went out, his security detail would knock loudly on the door of the hotel garage where his caravan of SUVs was parked, wave to the workers and bring the governor down from his suite, as garage and hotel employees took pictures. Now he is rarely sighted. “I didn’t see him in a very long time,” a cashier said from inside a booth at the garage, speaking on condition of anonymity out of fear of losing the job.