EDITORIAL SOMETHING TO CELEBRATE BOND DEAL IS RARE BREED IN SACRAMENTO.

ON Monday, the three most powerful elected politicians in California turned up in Burbank and other SoCal towns for a public victory party.

It was a rare sight: Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Legislature's top Democrats, state Senate President Don Perata and Assemblyman Fabian Nunez, traveling together, united in doing the right thing for the people of California. What a rare event it was, indeed.

On Friday, state lawmakers overcame petty politics to pass a bipartisan bond package that benefits all Californians, rather than just themselves, their friends and contributors.

More than two-thirds of both the state Senate and Assembly endorsed a $37 billion bond measure for public infrastructure. It is the first part of the $222 billion public-works construction project Schwarzenegger proposed in January.

Should the voters endorse the plan in November, the long-overdue rebuilding of California's parks, schools, dams, roads, transportation, libraries, hospitals and other public facilities will commence.

Considering the fiasco in March, in which weeks of late-night meetings produced nothing in time for the June ballot, it was far from certain that legislators could get beyond the annoyance they have for the governor and the political points he would get during an election year.

But the reality is that there's always an election brewing in state politics, and the legislators saw that their obstructionist politics could cost the Democrats in the coming elections.

``People are tired of the partisanship,'' Perata said, as if he had just awakened from a 20-year sleep to find the public holds him and his colleagues in low esteem. ``And I think if we didn't do something, they would have thrown us out of office.''

When politicians know voters will turn out in droves and throw them out of office, they deal with the public's problems. Fear is the currency of politics these days, and it seems that our elected officials are finally afraid. That surely is something to celebrate.