I did not vote for Arnold Schwartzenegger when he ran for Governor of California during the recall of Gray Davis. I find the recall-process in California to be very broken, as shown by the latest cynical attempt to recall Gavin Newsom. However, Schwartzenegger was a good governor, especially in his endorsement of Senate Bill 375, the Sustainable Communities and Climate Protection Act of 2008. This Act challenges local jurisdictions to explain how they will help reduce carbon-emissions. This is an incredibly important policy not just because it addresses climate change, but because it focuses on the hardest nut to crack: local control of all land-use decisions. The Supreme Court’s opinion in the Euclid v. Ambler case in 1926 established that the ‘most-local jurisdiction’ would have the sole power to invade the property-rights of landowners and restrict how they can use their land.
“Euclidean” zoning has resulted in 100 years of local jurisdictions planning for their own exclusionary sprawl. This results in tree-lined suburban streets, and heavy dependency on automobile travel for almost every type of daily trip. The “hard policy nut to crack” is to change cities so that we can do most of our daily trips without using motorized transport of any kind–by either walking or riding human-powered vehicles (motorized wheelchairs being the exception). Most communities have resisted these needed changes through local control of land-use, even as we have faced increasing geopolitical threats due to our energy-dependence. SB 375 avoids violating the Euclidean principle of local control by turning around the policy question and asking local communities to answer: How will you plan to reduce carbon-emissions in your community? This is consistent with a conservative ethic of asking Americans to consider not just our rights, but also our duties to defend this society and to act as conservative stewards of our environment.
On January 10, 2021, Schwartzenegger posted a YouTube video condemning the January 6 attack on Congress. He has exceptional credibility in arguing for the active defense of democracy as an immigrant-citizen, as a former state governor, and as the son of a man who was haunted by his involvement in the wars of the Third Reich. Schwartzenegger does not treat rights as unlimited privileges, the way that white supremacists do. The limits to rights are the duties and obligations we have towards each other as citizens, and the need to continuously defend democracy–because it can go away as it did for Germans after voting in the National Socialists in 1933, and for Austrians (his family) after the Anschluss of 1938. Part of that mutual obligation is to accept electoral defeat rather than imposing your political will on others by blocking an election. The people opposed to certifying the 2020 US presidential election were aligned with and supported by the Republican Party, which seemed to be a very painful betrayal to Governor Schwartzenegger.
Arnold has, once again, found a way to frame an effective political message that sees beyond immediate hostilities, prejudices, and fears. His address to the Russian people is spreading on Telegram in Russia, because he addressed the Russian people with love, compassion, and respect. He warned them that they are being misled by state propaganda, as his father was misled when he went with the Nazi army to “liberate” Leningrad. It is a brilliant example to use, because Russians are painfully aware of the brutality of the siege of Leningrad. To hear from the son of one of the Nazi besiegers who returned to Austria as a broken man, is to hear a warning that cannot possibly be taken as a scolding.
And that is why Arnold Schwarzenegger is my favorite Republican American politician.