As an action hero on the silver screen, Arnold Schwarzenegger has thrilled audiences with his powerful physique, his burly can-do attitude, crushing crime and righting wrongs, all within the allotted 110 minutes of a screenplay. His hero image seems to be a natural fit for an alliance with the real heroes of American communities – police officers and fire-fighters.

But the Terminator’s recent endeavour to terminate public safety pensions in California has drawn the wrath of police leaders from both management and labour.

“Arnold Schwarzenegger has done what no other person could do in this extremely diverse state. He has effectively coalesced the entire police population both from management to rank-and-file, from the biggest cities to the smallest rural sheriff’s departments,” reported one Sacramento lobbyist for several big city police associations.

In the halls of the state capitol you usually can’t get rank-and-file cops and administrators to agree on the time of day. And that schism is further compounded with sub-divisional squabbles between the major cities which dot the Pacific Coast and the small inland rural sheriffs agencies that desperately fight for funds from the state’s pot of dwindling gold. But they have all come together on one thing – to denounce Arnold Schwarzenegger and attack his plan on public pensions.

The essence of the Schwarzenegger proposal is to eliminate all defined-benefits pensions for public employees, including the pensions of police officers and deputy sheriffs. Schwarzenegger would replace defined-benefit pensions with defined-contribution pensions.

The proposed changes would take effect on July 1, 2007. Defined-benefit pensions are characterized by establishing, at the beginning of an employment, how much a person will receive in retirement based a formula including the number of years of service and an ending salary level.

Defined-contribution pension plans are like 401(k) plans. The only thing you know for sure about your pension is how much money you are committed to putting into the plan.

Attorney General Bill Lockyer, a Democrat and one-time friend of Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger, has published the official analysis of the Schwarzenegger proposal, which includes the declaration that Schwarzenegger’s proposal “eliminates death and disability benefits” for all public employees including police officers, deputy sheriffs and fire-fighters.

The elimination of death and disability benefits would leave the families of slain law enforcement officers at poverty’s door. Survivors would suffer not only from the great loss of a loved one but they would suffer from the loss of seriously needed family income.

This sick, nefarious proposal would eliminate hard-won benefits such as pensions for the surviving spouse and orphans of an officer killed in the line of duty.

Teri March is the widow of Los Angeles Sheriff Department deputy, David March, who was murdered in the line of duty. She struggled to understand why the Governator would propose such a heartless and cruel initiative.

“My husband was gunned down by a killer who had been intentionally out driving and looking for a police officer to kill,” Mrs March said in a message on local Los Angeles radio.

“I was left alone with my young daughter. Moving forward from that day was difficult in many ways, but death and disability benefits helped us to make it financially.”

It is difficult to understand why anyone would attack the widows and orphans of hero law enforcement officers. This is turning the clock back 120 years.

In another radio message sponsored by the powerful Los Angeles Police Protective League, the association representing LAPD officers, Tammy Monego, herself a California Highway patrol officer, said that her husband, Alameda Deputy Sheriff John Monego, had been shot six times at close range by a robbery suspect.

“I was left alone with a young son. Moving froward from that day was difficult in many ways, but death and disability benefits helped us to make it financially,” she said.

Officer Monego summed up her angst by saying: “I am a CHP officer and I know that, one day, I too could die in the line of duty.

“Signing the governor’s petition will be signing away the security of future officers’ families.”

An unintended consequence of this constitutional change would devastate the ability to recruit and especially retain high-quality employees. When young people become police officers, they often joke that the job is so much fun they would work for free.

However, about the time the officers reach the journeyman-level police officer, about five years on the job, they begin to look around to see if there are greener pastures elsewhere. Under the current pension system, the officers’ pensions become golden handcuffs, keeping them in the profession.

If the golden handcuffs are removed – and they would be removed for all future employees through this proposal – it is estimated that the number of defections from police work will skyrocket. Attrition will become a real and serious problem among police and fire agencies in California.

In another odd twist, the tough-looking Schwarzenegger is turning out to be soft on crime when compared to the prissy-looking former governor, Gray Davis. The California Lawyer Magazine suggests in its April 2005 edition that Schwarzenegger is turning out to be a “Girlieman” on criminals. In a little less than two years he has paroled 79 criminals.

By contrast, Davis in five years paroled only eight criminals. But Arnold gets strong approval from liberal reformers such as Sue Burrell of the Youth Law Center in San Francisco. She calls Schwarzenegger a “delightful surprise”.

One of the most influential voices in California politics is the West Sacramento-based California Correctional Peace Officers Association, which is sponsoring public service messages featuring the victims of violent crimes.

Harriet Salarno, the matriarch of the victims’ rights movement in California expresses her grave disappointment in Schwarzenegger for releasing thousands of prisoners, at least 2,000 of whom committed serious violations since release. In the 2006 race for Governor, will this be Willie Horton West?

It appears that Arnold Schwarzenegger does not measure up to the image that he portrayed when he ran for office. He campaigned on bringing Republicans and Democrats together in order to solve problems and on getting rid of special interest. But he himself has become the king of the special interest groups and the catalyst dividing this state.

He tours the nation to entertain the wealthy corporate interests of the finance, insurance and pharmaceutical worlds.

His tough image is turning out to be just that – image. Facts suggest that he is soft on criminals. In the words of one state law enforcement officer who has requested anonymity: “I voted for him two years ago. He is a great disappointment. He has lost my respect, my support and my vote.”