Last week our former governor announced a new partnership (from the LA Times):
The University of Southern California and former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Wednesday announced a partnership to establish a think tank that will seek bipartisan solutions to environmental problems, economic policy, political reform and other public policy issues.
The USC Schwarzenegger Institute for State and Global Policy will be funded with a commitment of $20 million from the former governor that will include a personal donation as well as money from his fundraising efforts. USC officials said the endowment is expected to be fully funded within two or three years. Schwarzenegger’s initial gift is confidential, officials said.
Schwarzenegger is on a growing list of people trying to find a bipartisan route—and putting his own money up—to fixing our broken democracies. He’s committing the same amount that global plutocrat Nicolas Bergrruen offered to the Think Long Committee (that committee included Condoleezza Rice, Google’s Eric Schmidt, former governor Gray Davis, and Eli Broad among other big California thinkers). In coming weeks, we’ll post our profile of Berggruen, by Joe Mathews, author of The People’s Machine: Arnold Schwarzenegger And the Rise of Blockbuster Democracy. Joe’s story is part of our California package that also includes a long interview with Governor Jerry Brown, by Marc Cooper—that we previewed here.
