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June 3, 2005

Survey: Region’s residents like governor,
lukewarm on his reform ideas

Full Report

Most residents of the Sacramento Region approve of the way Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is handling his job, but aside from merit pay for teachers they aren’t excited about his political reform ideas, according to survey results released today by researchers at Sacramento State.

The governor’s job approval in the region is 56 percent, down from 65 percent last year. That’s still much higher than in the state as a whole, which is around 40 percent according to other surveys.

The results are from the fourth "Annual Survey of Public Opinion and Life Quality" in the Sacramento Region, conducted by Sacramento State sociology professor Amy Liu and her students. It covers El Dorado, Placer, Sacramento and Yolo counties.

On four political reforms the governor has proposed, only one has majority support in the region – merit pay for teachers (63 percent).

The governor’s proposal to impose automatic cuts on spending that exceeds revenues has 48 percent support. His proposal to replace the state pension program with a 401k-like system has 38 percent support, and his proposal to give a panel of judges the duty of drawing political districts has 23 percent support. There were large numbers of respondents who were undecided on the reform ideas, particularly the one regarding political districts.

The survey included 1,002 randomly selected adults in the Capital Region who were interviewed from Feb. 15 to March 16. The margin of error is 3 percent.

Media assistance is available by contacting Sacramento State Public Affairs at (916) 278-6156.

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