Roberti Gives Control of Key Committees to Party Conservatives

More dominoes fell in the state Senate leadership shake-up Thursday as President Pro Tem David A. Roberti moved to shore up support among Democratic conservatives by giving them control of several key committees.

Roberti’s moves, announced after a closed-door meeting of the Rules Committee that he chairs, appeared intended to cement his leadership by giving conservative and moderate Democrats a greater say in operations of the upper house.

Potentially, the shake-up could result in more conservative legislation coming out of the Senate. Some members of a newly formed coalition of moderate and conservative Senate Democrats have voiced concern that the Senate leadership was too liberal at a time when the political mood among voters is becoming more conservative.

Roberti, announcing a series of committee reassignments, made it official that Sen. Daniel E. Boatwright (D-Concord), a sometimes critic of liberal spending policies, will take control of the key Appropriations Committee, the legislative crossroads through which all money bills pass.

Boatwright will replace Sen. Alfred E. Alquist (D-San Jose), a veteran lawmaker and Roberti ally. Alquist will continue as chairman of the Senate Budget Committee.

In the works for several days, the Boatwright appointment had been expected, along with the naming of Sen. Wadie P. Deddeh (D-Chula Vista) to replace him as chairman of the Revenue and Taxation Committee.

Boatwright has charged the Senate with being too free in spending taxpayer dollars and at times has unsuccessfully urged Democratic colleagues to kill fiscal legislation rather than send it to Gov. George Deukmejian for a certain veto. He considers himself somewhat more liberal on social legislation, although he broke with many Democrats and opposed unsuccessful legislation that would have outlawed job discrimination against homosexuals last year.

“When it comes to spending taxpayer dollars, I have never been afraid to say ‘no’ to my colleagues, but I have also never lacked a heart in meeting the needs of Californians who can’t fend for themselves,” Boatwright said in a statement.

On the other hand, Boatwright also has a reputation for successfully playing upper-house politics, meaning he is not above horse trading when the need arises and he does not shy away from approaching special interests for support and campaign contributions.

For instance, last year Boatwright called for a quick vote with no debate and virtually no testimony on a major tax bill in his committee and then hosted some tax lobbyists later that evening at $500-a-plate fund-raiser for himself.

On Thursday, Roberti released a formal statement, saying that the Boatwright appointment was due to the increasingly heavy workload Alquist was handling as chairman of the two Senate fiscal committees.

But in something of a surprise, Roberti announced that freshman Sen. Marian Bergeson (R-Newport Beach) will chair the Local Government Committee, succeeding Sen. Milton Marks (D-San Francisco). Including Bergeson, Republicans chair two of the Senate’s 22 standing committees.

It was Marks who triggered Roberti’s leadership problems earlier this month when he bolted from the Republican Party and joined the Democrats, touching off a chain reaction.

Marks’ reward for switching was to be named chairman of the Democratic Caucus, which in turn alarmed Democratic moderates and conservatives who already were concerned about the liberal tilt of the Senate under Roberti.

A big loser in the shake-up was Sen. John Garamendi (D-Walnut Grove), who unsuccessfully tried to unseat Roberti as Senate leader by exploiting complaints among colleagues about the Los Angeles Democrat’s liberal leadership.

As punishment, Roberti earlier stripped Garamendi of his membership on the Senate Budget Committee. And on Thursday it was announced that the obscure Senate Long-Range Policy Planning Committee, which had been created last year especially for Garamendi to chair, would be disbanded.

This will mean a loss of committee staff and office space and a further fall from grace for Garamendi, who just four years ago was Senate Democratic leader and a candidate for governor.

In other moves, Roberti said that Sen. Dan McCorquodale (D-San Jose) will replace Deddeh as chairman of the Public Employment and Retirement Committee; Sen. Paul B. Carpenter (D-Cypress), who Marks replaced as Democratic Caucus chairman, will succeed McCorquodale as chairman of the Elections and Reapportionment Committee, and Sen. Rose Ann Vuich (D-Dinuba) will replace Garamendi on the Budget Committee.