Not Talking to the People, Reiner Says : State’s Democrats Gather in a Thicket of Splinters

Gathering for the first time since the 1984 elections, California Democrats convened here this weekend to take a look at themselves and where they are heading. Many did not like what they saw.

“Today we are paying the price for ignoring the most intensely felt concerns of the American public--crime and violence, taxes and spending and education,” Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner told the conventioneers in the sternest lecture delivered at the gathering.

“We’re getting what we’ve got coming to us,” Reiner continued later in an interview. “The American public is not supporting us because we left them a long time ago. The only people who are talking to the American public are the Republicans.”

The state Democrats remain strikingly splintered, if not controlled, by no fewer than 14 single-issue caucuses, ranging from the disabled, to environmentalists, to gays, to senior citizens, to organized labor and peace caucuses.

Their separate agendas consumed one of the three days of the California Democratic Party Convention. Democrats unaffiliated with any of the groups might well have skipped the Friday session altogether for lack of much to do.

“We have to ask, are we really hearing the voice of the working men and women of the middle-class who don’t fit into these separate categories,” said Betty Smith, the Oakland widow and activist who was elected to chair the state party for the next two years.

“Somehow we have to find a better system,” shrugged Assemblywoman Gwen Moore, who represents an ethnically and racially diverse district in Los Angeles, stretching from Culver City to Marina del Rey .

Assemblyman Lloyd G. Connelly, whose Sacramento constituents are predominantly white and middle-class, surveyed the caucuses, which have grown in number over the years, and concluded:

“The Democratic party is not speaking to the majority of people I represent . . . Yes, we are the sum part of these little pieces but we have to recognize that we are much bigger than that.”

Some Democrats, among them Assemblyman Tom Hayden of Santa Monica, yearned for something of a new beginning.

“We are at a turning point between now and 1988 when our party either will be reconstructed into a winning party or relegated to minority party status for the rest of the century,” said Hayden, who organized several convention events around the theme of the party’s future. He was joined in the effort by Los Angles lawyer John Emerson, who managed U.S. Sen. Gary Hart’s California presidential campaign.

Hayden predicted a “coast-to-coast fight” over the future of single-group caucuses. He defended their place in the party organization but said “the caucuses are going to have to discuss whether the party is going to be an assemblage of caucuses--a tower of babble . . . (or) whether they want to win.”

Several Democratic leaders said the challenge they face is to refrain from yielding to the caucuses. “Saying that these groups exist is not the same as saying yes to their every demand,” said Conway H. Collis of the State Board of Equalization.

Some Democratic caucus leaders, however, showed little interest in relinquishing their voice in party affairs.

Women’s Caucus chair Marcela Howell convened her group to discuss the future of the party, declaring: “The purpose of the forum is to allow women to vocalize in what direction they believe the party should move before the men decide to tell us where they plan to push us.

“Right now, there is a great deal of discussion on a national level about dissolving constituency caucuses. At a time when women are just beginning to move into positions of power on a national and state level, it would be a mistake.”

And Emerson pointed out that because they attract enthusiastic volunteers, the party’s many interest groups “are very effective organizing tools for an election.’

That was also the view of U.S. Sen. Alan Cranston, who was eager to address all of the caucuses because he believes he will need their members’ help in registering and turning out Democrats in 1986 when he tries for a fourth term.

Borrowing a line from President Reagan’s playbook, Cranston said in an interview: “On the economy, we have to convince the party’s interest groups that the general good advances their concerns.” But he added: “I do think that in terms of equality issues, we cannot overlook the importance of the separate groups.”

There seemed to be a good deal of affection for Cranston among the Democratic activists at the state convention. And the only major Democrat who has not endorsed him, San Francisco Mayor Dianne Feinstein, did not attend. Feinstein has been considering a challenge to Cranston in the primary.

Also missing from the convention was the last person to carry the party standard for governor, Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley. Bradley was in Sacramento for a speech but he did not go by the party gathering. His chief rival in the current mayor’s race, Councilman John Ferraro, has charged that Bradley is gearing up to run again for governor in 1986. Thus an appearance at the convention would have given Ferraro some ammunition.

In the absence of Bradley and Feinstein, it was Reiner who created the biggest stir.

Reiner said the state Supreme Court, which is dominated by appointees of former Democratic Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr., was part of the party’s problem because it “reflects an attitude (toward criminals) that I do not think is realistic or that follows the letter or intent of the law.”

This was the second time in two days that Reiner attacked the court, suggesting that it would be a political liability for Democrats who run in 1986 with controversial Chief Justice Rose Elizabeth Bird and two other justices also on the ballot for confirmation by voters.

Reiner said he would not endorse or oppose Bird, but his comments and the concern expressed about the court’s image by other Democrats, including Smith, brought a swift rebuke from Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco).

“The worst thing that could happen to us is to have judges voting on decisions like they were politicians having to worry about voter appeal,” Brown said.

Atty. Gen. John Van de Kamp also took issue with Reiner.

“I don’t think it serves anyone well to issue blanket characterizations,” Van de Kamp said. “When you try to tag them (the state Supreme Court) with all the ills of the criminal justice system I think you’re being unfair.”