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Zaremberg Loves to Lobby

By David M. Drucker

In the hyperbolic world of state politics, where even Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s provocative, challenging rhetoric is sometimes eclipsed by the invective leveled by his opponents, Allan Zaremberg — the chief spokesman for California’s business community — seems oddly out of place.     
     Professorial in demeanor and almost unnervingly unflappable, the president and chief executive of the California Chamber of Commerce leads the state’s largest business advocacy group with all of the verve exhibited by former Gov. George Deukmejian, his boss for eight years.     
     “Since 1983, I’ve been working with governors,” Zaremberg tells Prosper matter-of-factly during an interview in his spacious 15th-floor midtown office. “I don’t think it’s high-profile, low-profile; it’s what I do.”     
     But his placid personality and resistance to verbal bellicosity belie the aggressive approach he’s taken in recent years, especially in 2003 when he led the chamber to bestow the first candidate endorsement of any kind in its 112-year history upon celebrity Arnold Schwarzenegger.     
     Is Zaremberg happy with what he got for his effort? The response is an emphatic, “Yes.” Especially when it comes to reducing the workers’ compensation insurance premiums that most business leaders agree were driving companies out of business and out of state.  

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