Earlier this month, he threatened a mass veto if legislative leaders didn’t agree to a comprehensive water deal, then backed down at the last minute and signed two-thirds of the 707 bills before him – similar to his annual record on legislation. After twice rejecting bills to honor slain gay rights activist Harvey Milk, he signed a bill giving him a statewide day of recognition without explanation.

He mocked lawmakers over the summer for wasting time debating bills about cows’ tails, honey labeling and a blueberry commission, then approved all three.

Those are among recent examples of Schwarzenegger’s erratic style that have both puzzled and angered lawmakers and policy advocates in the capital. The Republican governor has said he likes to remain flexible, while others say he is just untrustworthy.

His recent flip-flops prompted Assembly Minority Leader Sam Blakeslee, a fellow Republican from San Luis Obispo, to warn his caucus that Schwarzenegger isn’t always good to his word. He cited the governor’s “shocking reversal of position” on a number of bills.

The governor’s flair for drama helped propel him to international stardom, first as a bodybuilder and later as a Hollywood action star. In politics, that style has sometimes been misused by Schwarzenegger or misread by those he is trying to influence, leaving lawmakers and interest groups wondering whether he is telling them what he believes or merely saying what he thinks is convenient.

The questions about Schwarzenegger’s reliability come at a time when he has called lawmakers into special sessions on water policy, education reform and an overhaul of California’s tax system – issues fraught with partisan differences that will require cooperation to solve.

Schwarzenegger has defended his reversals by saying there is nothing wrong with him changing his mind, telling ABC’s George Stephanopoulos last year that “flip-flopping is getting a bad rap.”

This week, he said he was not bothered if others get upset during negotiations, what matters in the end is whether he and lawmakers reach a deal.

“People sometimes get upset if you sign a certain bill that they don’t like – you know, the Harvey Milk bill or something like that. You know, he (Blakeslee) sees it and says, ‘Oh my God, this is outrageous.’ So you know, that’s his problem,” Schwarzenegger told reporters. But, he said, “We want everyone to work together to make sure that we have the water infrastructure, because … it will be a historic accomplishment.”

Questions about whether Schwarzenegger was a reliable negotiating partner arose shortly after he took office in 2003, when he lost the trust of a key political constituency, education lobbyists. They charged him with reneging on a promise made behind closed doors to repay billions of dollars he wanted to borrow from schools to balance the state budget.

Schwarzenegger denied making the promise, but the disagreement was resolved only after education groups filed a lawsuit. Now he has icy relations with the California Teachers Association, whose input will be crucial to his special session on education reform.

More recently, Schwarzenegger has upset the largest state employee union with what its leaders claim is a similar backpedal.

The Service Employees International Union Local 1000 said it spent nine months negotiating a contract for its 95,000 employees with the Schwarzenegger administration, only to see the governor pressure Republican lawmakers not to approve it.

“He has set in place the notion that you can negotiate with the governor of California and it really doesn’t mean anything,” said Yvonne Walker, president of the local.

Adam Mendelsohn, a political adviser and former communications director for Schwarzenegger, called the governor “absolutely trustworthy.”

He characterized Schwarzenegger’s actions as attempts to cajole lawmakers into agreeing on issues of statewide significance. Resorting to threats only shows the governor’s frustration with legislative gridlock and lawmakers’ inability to compromise, Mendelsohn said.

“One of his greatest frustrations is that he doesn’t understand why it’s so difficult to meet in the middle to address these issues,” Mendelsohn said.

Schwarzenegger also infuriated city and county leaders earlier this year by opting to borrow about $2 billion in tax revenue from local governments, requiring the suspension of a law he had championed to prevent such raids. Local governments responded by suing the state to get the money back.

In September, Schwarzenegger vetoed a bill to honor Vietnam veterans with a day of remembrance, saying lawmakers should have other priorities. When lawmakers rushed through an identical bill weeks later, Schwarzenegger not only signed it but held a photo-friendly ceremony at a Marine Corps base in Southern California to promote his action.

Jack Pitney, a political science professor at Claremont McKenna College in Southern California, said Schwarzenegger’s recent mass veto threat may have done the governor more harm than good.

“Empty threats are worse than useless,” Pitney said. “They undermine credibility and make it harder to influence legislators.”

Anyone voicing hateful or violent rhetoric, she told reporters, must take responsibility for the results.

“I have concerns about some of the language that is being used because I saw this myself in the late ’70s in San Francisco,” Pelosi said, suddenly speaking quietly. “This kind of rhetoric was very frightening” and created a climate in which violence took place, she said.

Former San Francisco Supervisor Dan White was convicted of the 1978 murders of Mayor George Moscone and openly gay supervisor Harvey Milk. Gay rights activists and some others at the time saw a link between the assassinations and the violent debate over gay rights that had preceded them for years.

During a rambling confession, White was quoted as saying, “I saw the city as going kind of downhill.” His lawyers argued that he was mentally ill at the time. White committed suicide in 1985.

Pelosi is part of a generation of California Democrats on whom the assassinations had a searing effect. A resident of San Fransisco, Pelosi had been a Democratic activist for years and knew Milk and Moscone. At the time of their murders, she was serving as chairwoman of her party in the northern part of the state.

On Thursday, Pelosi was answering a question about whether the current vitriol concerned her. The questioner did not refer to the murders of Milk or Moscone, or the turmoil in San Francisco three decades ago. Pelosi referenced those events on her own and grew uncharacteristically emotional.

“I wish that we would all, again, curb our enthusiasm in some of the statements that are made,” Pelosi said. Some of the people hearing the message “are not as balanced as the person making the statement might assume,” she said.

“Our country is great because people can say what they think and they believe,” she added. “But I also think that they have to take responsibility for any incitement that they may cause.”

Pelosi’s office did not immediately respond to a request for examples of contemporary statements that reminded the speaker of the rhetoric of 1970s San Francisco.

The public anger during health care town hall meetings in August spilled into the House last week when South Carolina Republican Joe Wilson shouted “You lie!” at Obama, the nation’s first black president, during his speech. On a largely party-line vote, the House reprimanded Wilson.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and First Lady Maria Shriver unveiled the list of 2009 inductees on Tuesday. They said the latest 13 “embody California’s innovative spirit and have made their mark on history.”

The others are entertainer Carol Burnett, “Star Wars” creator George Lucas, footballer John Madden, former Intel chief executive Andrew Grove, former Gov. Hiram Johnson, decathlete and philanthropist Rafer Johnson, industrialist Henry J. Kaiser, philanthropist and peace activist Joan Kroc, artist Fritz Scholder, author Danielle Steel, bodybuilder and Schwarzenegger mentor Joe Weider and Air Force pilot Chuck Yeager.

Schwarzenegger last year vetoed a bill that would designate a day each year to honor Milk, the first openly gay man elected to public office in California. He was assassinated in 1978.

A nearly identical bill by Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, has passed the Senate and is expected to be taken up in the Assembly in the next few weeks. It would designate Milk’s birthday, May 22, as a “day of special significance,” but not an official holiday.

“This honor, as well as the Presidential Medal of Freedom awarded to Harvey by President Obama, should only underscore to the governor the need for Harvey Milk Day in California,” Leno said in a statement Tuesday.

Francisco Castillo, a spokesman for the governor, said Schwarzenegger would not take a position on Leno’s bill before it reaches his desk.

The nominees will be inducted in a Dec. 1 ceremony at the California Museum in Sacramento. Shriver started the program to honor artists, sports figures and others who’ve helped shape the state.

Film star Sidney Poitier, civil rights icon the Rev. Joseph Lowery and tennis legend Billie Jean King are among those set to receive the medal, the nation’s highest civilian honor.

Other recipients include Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., who has been battling brain cancer, former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and retired Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa.

Kennedy will remain on Cape Cod following the death Tuesday of his sister, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, but the senator’s spokesman said his children will attend the ceremony and his daughter, Kara, will accept the award on his behalf.

Obama, awarding his first presidential medals, also will make posthumous awards to former Republican Rep. Jack Kemp of New York, the quarterback-turned-politician who died in May, and gay rights activist Harvey Milk, who was assassinated in 1978.

The recipients have diverse backgrounds and achievements in fields ranging from sports and art to science and medicine to politics and public policy. The White House has said the individuals were selected for their work as “agents of change.”

President Harry S. Truman established the Medal of Freedom in 1945 to recognize civilians for their efforts during World War II. President John F. Kennedy reinstated the medal in 1963 to honor distinguished service.

The other recipients are:

- Nancy Brinker, founder of Susan G. Komen for the Cure, a leading breast cancer grass-roots organization.

- Dr. Pedro Jose Greer Jr., assistant dean of academic affairs at Florida International University School of Medicine.

- Stephen Hawking, the Cambridge University physicist and mathematician known for his work on black holes and his best-selling 1988 book “A Brief History of Time.” He has been almost completely paralyzed for years and communicates through an electronic voice synthesizer.

- Joe Medicine Crow, the last living Plains Indian war chief, who fought in World War II wearing war paint beneath his uniform.

- Chita Rivera, actor, singer, dancer and winner of two Tony Awards.

- Mary Robinson, Ireland’s first female president and one-time U.N. high commissioner for human rights.

- Dr. Janet Davison Rowley, professor of medicine at the University of Chicago.

- Muhammad Yunus, the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize laureate for his global, pioneering work extending “micro loans” to poor people who don’t have collateral.

When I read the White House announcement about the recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom I laughed out loud. Wasn’t too boisterous because the day job is getting funkier by the minute (if my boss is reading this I only mean that as a compliment). Only President Barack Obama would think to honor both Jack Kemp and Harvey Milk.

Milk’s importance doesn’t have to be justified here (at least I hope so). While I have nothing against Gus Van Sant’s biopic, it wouldn’t hurt folk to check out Randy Shilt’s The Mayor of Castro Street for a more nuanced vision of the man and his history. However, when Milk’s family goes to the White House on August 12, they will  bump into Jack Kemp’s kin. The former HUD Secretary will also be given the same award. Kemp and Milk. I’m willing to bet  both would appreciate the irony  of their honors because they looked at each other from across the political divide. Milk, knocking the door open for gay political participation; Kemp, doing his best to slam that very door.

For partisans honoring both men cheapens what they stood for. That’s fair and worthy of conversation, but the past shows people of good will can be found all over the political map. Yes history judges us, but that rearview look doesn’t mean we can’t honor those who were political opposites.  Our battlefields have made this point already.

America’s highest civilian honor, the Medal of Freedom is awarded to individuals who make an especially meritorious contribution to the security or national interests of the United States, world peace, cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.

From the White House press release:

“This year’s awardees were chosen for their work as agents of change.  Among their many accomplishments in fields ranging from sports and art to science and medicine to politics and public policy, these men and women have changed the world for the better.  They have blazed trails and broken down barriers.  They have discovered new theories, launched new initiatives, and opened minds to new possibilities.

President Obama said, “These outstanding men and women represent an incredible diversity of backgrounds.  Their tremendous accomplishments span fields from science to sports, from fine arts to foreign affairs.  Yet they share one overarching trait: Each has been an agent of change.  Each saw an imperfect world and set about improving it, often overcoming great obstacles along the way.   

“Their relentless devotion to breaking down barriers and lifting up their fellow citizens sets a standard to which we all should strive.  It is my great honor to award them the Medal of Freedom.”

President Obama will present the awards at a ceremony on Wed., Aug. 12.”

Other awardees include Nancy Goodman Brinker, the founder of Susan G. Komen for the Cure, the world’s leading breast cancer awareness organization; Stephen Hawking, the internationally-recognized theoretical physicist; Sen. Edward Kennedy; Desmund Tutu; Chita Rivera; Mary Robinson, the former President of Ireland; and Sidney Poitier.

Billie Jean King

Billie Jean King was an acclaimed professional tennis player in the 1960s and 1970s, and has helped champion gender equality issues not only in sports, but in all areas of public life.  King beat Bobby Riggs in the “Battle of the Sexes” tennis match, then the most viewed tennis match in history.  King became one of the first openly lesbian major sports figures in America when she came out in 1981.  Following her professional tennis career, King became the first woman commissioner in professional sports when she co-founded and led the World Team Tennis (WTT) League.  The U.S. Tennis Association named the National Tennis Center, where the US Open is played, the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in 2006. 

Harvey Milk

Harvey Milk became the first openly gay elected official from a major city in the United States when he was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977. Milk encouraged lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) citizens to live their lives openly and believed coming out was the only way they could change society and achieve social equality. Milk, alongside San Francisco Mayor George Moscone, was shot and killed in 1978 by Dan White, a former city supervisor.  Milk is revered nationally and globally as a pioneer of the LGBT civil rights movement for his exceptional leadership and dedication to equal rights.

Call it a cultural confluence, call it a comeback. Now 54 and the closest the gay rights movement has to a living legend, the former protege to a political martyr and creator of the AIDS Memorial Quilt is busily planning his next act – a march on the nation’s capital that he hopes will usher in the final era in his community’s struggle for acceptance.

“There was a time when I thought I would never be happy again,” Jones says, standing barefoot in the tiki-torched yard of the California desert bungalow where he has lived since 1999 but is rarely home long enough to enjoy. “I feel so connected to the movement again.”

That he feels compelled to comment on his good fortune says a lot about the twists Jones’ own life took after 1978, the year openly gay San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk was assassinated.

Culture watchers will remember that Jones, the 23-year-old City Hall intern portrayed in “Milk,” went on to create the 47,000-panel quilt that humanized the lives lost to AIDS. Less widely known is that during the decade he spent weaving one of the world’s largest folk art projects into the nation’s fabric, Jones was preparing to die himself.

Instead, he became one of the AIDS epidemic’s earliest survivors.

“If I’d known I was going to live this long, I would have saved money and joined a gym,” laughs Jones, who shows the puckish sense of humor actor Emile Hirsch exhibited as his on-screen alter-ego.

When talk turns to the National Equality March scheduled for the second week of October in Washington, however, Jones turns serious.

His goal is to build an army of activists drawn from each of the nation’s 435 congressional districts. Afterward, participants will be sent home to pressure their representatives and the White House into removing the remaining barriers to gay equality, such as the policy that prevents gays from serving openly in the military.

If successful, Jones’ vision would represent a sea change in the gay rights movement’s strategy of securing victories piecemeal on the local or state level.

“We got locked into this pattern of fighting for fractions of crumbs – ‘Oh please, sir, in this county could we please not be fired for being gay if it’s all right in this county for you to evict us for being gay?’” he says. “It’s been this ping-pong with our basic civil rights….If you are a free and equal people, why would you settle for this?”

Jones agreed to organize the march at the urging of veteran activist David Mixner, who proposed it as a way to lobby President Barack Obama to follow through on his campaign promises.

“When he has a sense of righteousness about a mission, he has a tenacity I have rarely seen,” said Mixner, who has known Jones since the 1970s. “He is not a person who has ever put himself before the mission.”

Many gay leaders quickly dismissed the march idea as a waste of time and money. Jones took to the Internet and the gay political circuit to address the nay-sayers.

During more than 35 years of activism, friends and associates say that Jones has weathered criticism before.

In 1986, when he was trying to amass support for a giant quilt stitched by people who lost loved ones to AIDS, even fellow activists refused to get on board, according to Jones. Many saw the project as a morbid endeavor that would distract them from the serious work of persuading the government to invest in AIDS research.

Jones persisted. The NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt is now recognized as not only a powerful symbol of loss, but a turning point in the public’s perception of the disease.

“I thought who is going to grieve the most when I die? It’s going to be my family – my parents, my little sister and my grandmothers. I wanted a place in this movement for my grandmothers,” he says.

With his health waning, Jones in 1990 relinquished control of the quilt to a nonprofit foundation that eventually moved the 54-ton quilt to Atlanta. He continued to serve as its public face until five years ago, when tensions between him and the foundation’s new leadership bubbled over with his firing and an unsuccessful wrongful termination suit.

In recent years, Jones has worked as a gay community liason for the national hotel workers union, an outgrowth of his activism.

He credits Milk, the middle-aged camera store owner turned politician, with transforming him from a shy and somewhat aimless young hippie into a committed activist unafraid to use his voice or to be open about his sexuality.

“Harvey was never a shadow to me. He was an inspiration, a light. His biggest gift to me was to not fear straight people,” he said.

Jones’ determination not to let Milk’s legacy fade was key in getting the movie made, said screenwriter Dustin Lance Black, who won an Oscar for his work on the film. Jones served as the movie’s historical adviser.

“Cleve never lost his belief in the power of the grass roots,” Black says. “I remember when I first met him, over those first few years of research and even when shooting ‘Milk’ he would say, ‘What is your generation doing? I can’t imagine how empty it must be not to have a really strong generational purpose.’”

In Jones, Black sees an heir to Milk’s role as an inspirational leader. “Milk” opened last November just before the 30th anniversary of Milk’s assassination and just after California voters passed a ballot measure rescinding the right to wed the state Supreme Court had granted gays five months earlier.

For weeks, young activists protested in major cities across the country.

“I saw this man’s eyes light up in a way I had never seen,” Black says of Jones. “I saw him come to life when the young people started to rise up. I think he recognized in them a purpose he hadn’t seen since his own days with Harvey Milk.”

Cleve Jones said the march planned for Oct. 11 will coincide with National Coming Out Day and launch a new chapter in the gay rights movement. He made the announcement during a rally at the annual Utah Pride Festival.

“We seek nothing more and nothing less than equal protection in all matters governed by civil law in all 50 states,” Jones said.

He stirred up a crowd of thousands just blocks from the Salt Lake City headquarters of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, part of a conservative coalition that worked last fall to pass California’s Proposition 8, which overturned a court ruling legalizing gay marriage.

“I’ve got a message for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,” Jones shouted. “I’ve got two words from California … I’ve got two words for the prophet … Thank you. Thank you for uniting us. Thank you for galvanizing us.”

Mormons were among the campaign’s most vigorous volunteers and financial contributors, giving tens of millions of dollars to back Proposition 8, which Jones said has helped awaken and unite the gay rights movement in all 50 states.

Like many faiths, Mormons hold traditional marriage as a sacred institution. The church has been active in fighting marriage equality legislation across the U.S. since the 1990s and, in 2006, joined other faiths in asking Congress for a marriage amendment to the Constitution.

Gay marriage is legal in six states. A handful of others allow civil unions for same-sex couples and about 40 either bar the recognition of same-sex marriage or have explicitly defined marriage – through legislation or constitutional amendments – as between a man and a woman.

Jones was a protege of Milk, San Francisco’s first openly gay elected official, who was shot and killed by a fellow member of the Board of Supervisors in 1978. In the mid-80s Jones founded the NAMES Project, the AIDS memorial quilt that recognizes the more than 80,000 Americans who have died from HIV/AIDS.

In an interview Friday, he said a confluence of events – a new president, the success of the movie “Milk” and Proposition 8 – makes this the right time to intensify the fight for equality.

Since November, Jones said he has received hundreds of e-mails from Latter-day Saints who apologized and said they were uncomfortable or ashamed by the faith’s fight against Proposition 8.

“It’s unfortunate that a church and a people who experienced persecution in the past could not come to some accommodation that would allow them to maintain their faith without so vociferously seeking to deny other people their rights,” Jones said.

David Blair-Loy, legal director of the ACLU of San Diego County, said the principal of Mt. Woodson Elementary School in Ramona violated the free speech rights of 6th-grader Natalie Jones, who was the only student in her class prevented from giving an in-class presentation.

Principal Theresa Grace concluded last month that the subject of the girl’s project triggered a district policy requiring parents to be notified in writing before their children are exposed to lessons dealing with sex, according to Blair-Loy and Natalie’s mother.

After the principal sent letters to alert parents about the “sensitive topic,” Natalie was allowed to give her 12-page PowerPoint report during the May 8 lunch recess, but not in class, Blair-Loy said. Eight of the 13 students in her class attended, he said.

In a letter to the Ramona Unified District on Wednesday, the ACLU demanded that school officials apologize to Natalie and clarify its sex education policy. It also wants the girl to be given the chance to present her biographical account of Milk’s life and death in class.

“It’s not about sex, it’s not about sex education. It’s a presentation about a historical figure who happened to be gay,” Blair-Loy said.

The school district superintendent did not immediately respond to a telephone call and e-mail from The Associated Press.

Milk became one of the first gay men elected to political office in the United States in 1977 when he won a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. He was assassinated a year later along with Mayor George Moscone. Former supervisor Dan White was convicted of voluntary manslaughter for the killings.

A bill passed recently by the California Legislature would establish Milk’s May 22 birthday as an annual “day of significance” in the state, a move designed to encourage schools to discuss his career and legacy.

Bonnie Jones said her daughter was inspired to choose Milk as the subject of her research report after seeing the movie “Milk,” which earned Academy Awards for actor Sean Penn and screenwriter Dustin Lance Black.

“First my daughter got called into the principal’s office as if she were in some kind of trouble, and then they treated her presentation like it was something icky,” Jones said in a statement.

“Harvey Milk was an elected official in this state and an important person in history,” Jones added. “To say my daughter’s presentation is sex education because Harvey Milk happened to be gay is completely wrong.”

Why?

He was afraid of it coinciding with the 30th anniversary of the San Francisco White Night riots, which were held when the court sentenced Dan White, who murdered Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone, was given the most lenient sentence possible: voluntary manslaughter.

Smart call on Newsom’s part most likely – it’s easy to imagine another riot after the massive Prop 8 protests of November. But I bet the Supreme Court was probably hoping that people would have their reactions muted by the long holiday weekend.

And – I’m really anxious to hear. I’m not hopeful, but I just want to know the decision, so we can move on to the next step.