EVEN compared with Arnold Schwarzenegger’s unlikely personal and cinematic storylines, the script he will read from today is far-fetched.

The Governor of California is due to announce that he is putting the core of his controversial reforms directly to voters in a special election, over the heads of state legislators who refuse to bend to his will.

The move is a huge gamble for Mr Schwarzenegger who has been in office barely 18 months. It could cost the promises that helped fuel his unlikely rise to power and which he says are vital to restoring California’s fiscal health.

And it could wreck his dream, as yet unconstitutional, of following Ronald Reagan from Hollywood to the White House. Already his approval ratings have dropped more than twenty points in the past six months. But the showdown makes for good political drama and is being conducted in the kind of apocalyptic language that earned Mr Schwarzenegger his silver-screen fortune.

The “great battle” about to unfold is part of the “war” or “blood feud” between the governor on one side and the Californian state legislature and public unions on the other.

The “firefight” between now and polling day in November is billed as a “summer from hell”, or a “nuclear winter”. Or possibly both.

“This is the nuclear war we have been dreading and screaming about and trying to avoid,” said Steve Maviglio, a spokesman for Fabian Núñez, the state assembly speaker and a Los Angeles Democrat.

After months of bad blood between Mr Schwarzenegger, majority Democratic lawmakers and union leaders, the governor is expected to announce today that he is to sign a resolution authorising the special election. He has already said that he would push ahead with the poll, “no matter what”.

There are three core issues that he is demanding: spending controls that would trigger automatic cuts if revenue fell below projected income and authority for the governor to cut programmes unilaterally; authorising retired judges to redraw the political map of California with the aim of sending more moderates to Sacramento, the state capital; and making teachers work five years rather than the current two before they receive tenure protections.

Mr Schwarzenegger has made a point of relishing the fight. “No matter how much battle there is, and how many fights and how many protests there are, it makes absolutely no difference to me because I looked at this with great joy,” he said last week.

The move, in line with the Californian tradition of direct democracy, set the stage for an intense five-month struggle that could become the most expensive state election yet.

The cost of staging the vote in a year when there are no local elections has been put at up to $80 million (£44 million). The overall figure could rise as high as $300 million as the affected parties pitch in.

The California Teachers Association, which represents 335,000 teachers, has approved a hike in membership costs to allow it to wage a $50 million advertising campaign.

Mr Schwarzenegger swept to power in November 2003. But after a political honeymoon voters have appeared to become disenchanted with the new governor as he has taken on nurses, firefighters, police and teachers over issues such as pensions. Mr Schwarzenegger has styled himself a warrior against the “special interests” — public service unions — standing in the way of the kind of meaningful reform that he says the economically sick Golden State needs.

Since taking office Mr Schwarzenegger has regularly been mentioned as a possible future Republican presidential nominee, especially since his roof-raising address to the party’s convention last September. He is unable to run at present because the Constitution bans any foreign-born citizen from becoming president. Moves to revoke that particular clause have yet to find momentum.

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