Taking On Arnold

 In the topsy-turvy world of Governor Arnold, few have had more of a paradoxical relationship with the former action superstar than Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez. Although Nuñez has emerged as Schwarzenegger’s most persistent antagonist, the Weekly learned that the former L.A. labor leader spent most of the weekends of August 6-7 and August 13-14 meeting with the governor at his Los Angeles mansion to negotiate compromise initiatives for the November special-election ballot.

The sessions, limited to only four people, were mediated by Schwarzenegger’s friend and former Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg, the Valley Democrat and erstwhile L.A. mayoral candidate. With much of Schwarzenegger’s senior staff in revolt against a deal with Democrats, the only Arnista participating was state Finance Director Tom Campbell, the former Silicon Valley congressman.

Nuñez described the lengthy sessions as encounters with a different Arnold, “without the façade,” a man looking for a way “out of the box” of a special election in which his so-called Year of Reform initiatives are mostly in deep trouble. But with interests yanking on the elbows of both leaders, the negotiations ultimately did not work, so we can expect a very tumultuous election season, more in the vein of Nuñez and Schwarzenegger’s recent past.

The Weekly shadowed Nuñez earlier this summer to get a bead on this little-known politician who has emerged as one of the most important figures of post-recall California, at one point catching up with him right after a very contentious encounter with the Terminator. Nuñez, mindful of risks for Democrats and widespread disdain for both the Legislature and the governorship, was in the Governor’s Office to negotiate an end to the special-election showdown. At one point, Nuñez decided to confer privately with his colleague, state Senate President Don Perata, outside the governor’s earshot. So they stepped out of the room and left Schwarzenegger cooling his heels, a tactic that he was not used to in his Hollywood heyday and distinctly does not enjoy.

They returned after about a half-hour to resume talks about the November 8 election. Schwarzenegger made a crack about the former labor official Nuñez checking in with “union bosses.” Nuñez took offense, saying he didn’t have to listen to that kind of “bullshit,” and he and Perata stormed out. As they did, Schwarzenegger called after them: “You are dismissed.”

Nuñez assumed the role of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s chief antagonist earlier this year, when the governator’s lofty and historically popular centrist course veered sharply into the harsh-sounding Republican partisanship that fed his rapid decline in the polls.

In his imposing, history-laden Capitol office, the 37-year-old speaker operates from behind the massive desk made famous by the legendary wheeler-dealer Willie Brown in the era before term limits, with a Mexican soccer match playing in the background on a large-screen TV. There are a number of personal mementoes. (Though fewer than you might think, as it is the custom of the Capitol to retain the office’s historic decor.)

Along with photos of his family, his friend Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa (Nuñez is proud to have been the first elected official to endorse him in his recent campaign), and his mentor, the late L.A. County Federation of Labor chieftain Miguel Contreras, there is a framed and personally inscribed picture of the speaker with another politician of an immigrant background. On it, the smiling inscriber pledges to work closely with Nuñez for the betterment of all Californians. It is signed, “Your friend, Arnold.”

“We got along better last year,” says Nuñez, an Angeleno who grew up in San Diego and Mexico, of his relationship with the governor.

Engagingly, he’s come out from behind the massive Willie Brown desk and is sitting next to me on a sofa. (Nuñez, who can be very direct and profane, is also something of a charmer and flatterer. At one point he refers to me as “a younger version of Warren Beatty.” Which is not, shall we say, accurate.)

“John [Burton, then president of the state Senate] was taking the lead last year instead of ‘The Kid,’” Nuñez says, referring to the famously irascible Burton’s nickname for him. The speaker is little more than half Burton’s age. “They [Burton and Schwarzenegger] got along great.”

Later, when I spent a day shadowing the speaker, Nuñez expanded on that. “John led the Hollywood stuff,” he said, “and the governor was in a different place, much more moderate. Except when he did a few things like try to take out my members,” referring to Schwarzenegger’s failed plan to defeat a raft of Democratic Assemblymembers last November.

Some Capitol insiders, including key Arnold advisers, had expected Nuñez again to be eclipsed by the Senate president pro tem, Oakland Democrat Perata. But Perata, a political veteran who worked with L.A. Congressman Howard Berman before going into elective politics, and who had repeatedly signaled his intention to work with Schwarzenegger, was hobbled by two major factors: an ongoing federal investigation into his Bay Area business dealings and the governor’s rightward lunge. Meanwhile, Nuñez, buoyed by his success in defeating every one of Schwarzenegger’s efforts to take out his members, became very aggressive in combating Arnold.