While our ‘professional’ politicians whimper and cower in the face of hard decisions and a hostile media, Governor Schwarzenegger is making an incredibly bold move in CA. After months and months of battling a stubborn and careless legislature (how do you think CA got into the fiscal mess it is in now?) The Governator is calling for special elections. The year I thought was going to be boring just became historic.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Monday called a special election for November to try to change the way California spends money, picks its politicians and hires its teachers.

He said the election would continue momentum from the historic 2003 recall that brought him to power, saying he was elected to put “California’s financial house in order and reform a government that no longer listened to the people.”

“I did not come to Sacramento, and you did not send me here, to repeat the mistakes of the past,” he said in a brief broadcast address from his Capitol office.

“I know some people say, ‘Arnold, why not wait until next year? Why have a special election now?’ But how can we just stand around while our debt grows each year by billions of dollars? If you break your arm, you don’t wait until your next physical. You get it fixed now.”

This is necessary, unfortunately. The legislature is too entrenched and too liberal for anything meaningful to be done. Liberal policies are sending French and German economies into the abyss, so it is no surprise they can take CA down with them. In the light of cold hard logic, the changes required make sense:

The most controversial of Schwarzenegger’s three proposals is a spending cap that would impose automatic cuts if revenues fall below projected income. It would do away with a voter-approved 2000 measure that sets a minimum funding requirement for public schools.

He also wants legislative and congressional districts to be drawn by a panel of retired judges, which Schwarzenegger hopes will send more moderates to Sacramento. And he wants to extend from two years to five the amount of time teachers would have to work to get tenure.

Why couldn’t the legislature suspend automatic spending increases during their fiscal crisis? Because they honestly do not care that CA’s economy is sinking under unnecessary and unproven socialist policies that extend to their army of illegal immigrants. The liberal politicians in CA want to experiement with CA to show socialism is better than capitolism. And like their predecessors they are wrong and the people are paying for it. So they slow the rate of school spending a couple of years? Better than to have millions of kids graduate into an economy with no jobs.

So the Governator proposes district boundaries that are geographical rather than political. He rightfully understands that a legislature which can carve out their own constituents can keep themselves in power regardless of how badly the screw things up. That is the essence of his second plan – give the people the choice to govern again.

And the last one is so marginal it is not worth mentioning. But to become an expert in any field requires more than 2 years, and more than the 5 he is recommending before making a teacher a permanent fixture in their school system.

If CA is feeling enough pain they will realize they need to change direction. Without it the pain they are feeling will continue and deepen and their great state will become a fiscal ruin.

Pay attention to the democrat responses – no susbstance, no alternatives to fix the problem – just personal attacks and threats. Washington Post and the NYTimes weigh in, of course.