By Judy Lin - Bee Capitol Bureau
Published 12:00 am PST Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger gets a D and the state Legislature a C-minus when it comes to supporting bills that bridge California's racial divide, according to a report card put out by an advocacy group Tuesday.

Despite the governor's pledge to represent all Californians, authors of the 2006 racial equity report card gave him poor marks for vetoing bills to provide universal health insurance and allow separate textbooks for English learners. The Governor's Office called the report flawed.

The report card called "Facing Race" was compiled by the Applied Research Center, a privately funded public policy institute headquartered in Oakland. The governor and the Legislature were graded on 20 bills addressing racial inequities in education, economic justice, health and civil rights.

While the governor and the Legislature struck a bipartisan deal last summer to raise the state's minimum wage to $8 per hour in 2008, the report criticized the legislation for failing to include automatic cost-of-living increases viewed by some as a necessary tool for working families to keep up with inflation.

"This serves as a good wake-up call, a good indicator of where we are in California," said Grantland Johnson of the Sacramento Labor Council. "I don't think we fully appreciate that race really matters in California."

Johnson and other advocates say politicians are making decisions based on the electorate -- which tends to be white, more affluent and better educated -- at the expense of all Californians, 56 percent of whom are minorities. The disparity has created "two parallel societies" such that neither the Legislature nor the governor take the initiative to protect against discrimination, he said.

An exit poll done for The Bee found that 68 percent of voters in the Nov. 7 election were white. They tended to be 45 and older, had no children at home, held some college education and family incomes of $50,000 or more.

"The electorate is becoming less representative of the population," said Mark Baldassare, director of research at the Public Policy Institute of California. "Voters do not come close to reflecting the ethnic and economic diversity of the state."

In last year's report card, the Applied Research Center gave Schwarzenegger a D and both houses scored a C. Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez received an A, and Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata got a C.

Overall, Democrats fared better than Republicans this year. Assemblywomen Lynn Daucher of Brea and Bonnie Garcia of Cathedral City were the only two Republicans to receive passing grades.

Menachem Kracjer, lead author of the report card, said Schwarzenegger gave mixed messages when he signed legislation to expand health care coverage for children but vetoed Sen. Sheila Kuehl's bill to create a single-payer health care system to cover all California residents.

Previous studies suggest that of the state's estimated 6.5 million uninsured residents, 71 percent are minorities, the report card stated.

The governor also vetoed a bill by Sen. Martha Escutia, D-Whittier, to support the use of special textbooks for non- native speakers to help build vocabulary. At the time, the Republican governor said he didn't want to compromise education standards required of all California schoolchildren.

The report failed to account for some of the year's more important bills, such as expanding preschool at California's lowest-performing schools, providing financial assistance to disadvantaged students and improving access to health care for the uninsured, said the governor's spokesman, Francisco Castillo.

"This report does not accurately reflect the significant accomplishments that Gov. Schwarzenegger was able to deliver to the communities in discussion," Castillo said.

The Legislature's performance was only slightly better, said Tammy Johnson, public policy director of the Applied Research Center.

Johnson said that while Republicans blocked certain civil rights bills, such as one providing interpreter services in civil court, Democrats capitulated on a key economic issue: indexing the minimum wage.

When Democrats got the governor to agree to a minimum wage hike after turning down earlier pay increase proposals, the governor refused to agree to an automatic cost-of-living adjustment.

Last week, six states -- Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska and Ohio -- joined four other states that tie the minimum wage to inflation. The labor-backed push was seen as a way to get around the federal minimum wage, which has been unchanged for nearly a decade.

Advocates are hoping California lawmakers will resurrect indexing in the new year.

Assemblyman Mervyn Dymally, chair of the Legislative Black Caucus, said he's also hoping the Legislature will better represent California on issues such as consumer protection and health. With a net gain of three African American Assembly members on Nov. 7, he expects his caucus will have more clout.