Both Political Parties Courting Him : State Sen. Kopp--He’s a Man of Independent Means

Quentin Kopp, the first California state senator elected as an independent in this century, is the most politically courted man in the Capitol these days.

Democrats rush to provide him with briefings on major issues by top-level staff consultants, special attention seldom lavished on a freshman member. Republicans just as eagerly woo the unaffiliated new legislator, anxious to please and answer any question he may have.

Why all the pampering of the often brusque, sometimes dour Sen. Quentin Kopp (Ind.-San Francisco), the man the Democrats spent heavily to defeat in the Nov. 4 elections and who Republicans backed financially at the expense of their own GOP nominee?

Both suitors want him eventually to abandon his nonpartisan status and register with one of them in the fiercely partisan Senate--a decision that Kopp says, coyly, he may consider making, but not for a couple of years, until after he sees how “productive and effective” he can be as an independent.

“Sure, we’re courting him with discretion and subtlety,” said Democratic Senate leader David A. Roberti of Los Angeles. “To make an overt attempt to have him change registration would not be appropriate at this moment. I don’t know whether that would be received well by him or by the voters so soon after the election.”

Roberti and other legislative Democrats poured more than $300,000 into the campaign of Kopp’s Democratic opponent, Assemblyman Lou Papan of Millbrae, in an especially nasty fight for the vacant Senate seat that represents part of San Francisco and northern San Mateo County.

Kopp narrowly defeated Papan, who was strongly supported by Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco), a longtime political foe of Kopp. Battle wounds have yet to heal.

On the Republican side, Senate GOP leader James W. Nielsen of Rohnert Park pumped about $120,000 from political committees he controls into Kopp’s race and said he helped raise at least an equal amount from other sources for Kopp.

‘An Open Invitation’

“He has an open invitation to become a Republican,” Nielsen said of Kopp, a veteran San Francisco supervisor who in 1985 switched registration from Democrat to independent (officially called “declined to state”).

But Nielsen added: “I am very satisfied with him being an independent.”

Translation: As an independent, Kopp cannot be counted on by Roberti to vote with the Senate Democrats, whose majority in the 40-member chamber fell at the polls last month from 26 to 24. This is only three more than the 21-vote majority needed to transact most Senate business, including electing a president pro tem, the Senate leader.

To narrow the gap further, Republicans believe that they have a good chance of taking the seat of Democratic Sen. Paul Carpenter of Norwalk, who was elected to the state Board of Equalization.

The long-term goal of the GOP is to move from the minority to the majority party and control the Senate so Republicans can draw the next reapportionment map based on the 1990 federal census. The party in control traditionally writes political district lines favorable to itself and thus is likely to remain in power for the next decade regardless of demographic and political shifts. Democrats do not want to lose their current advantage.

The tall, intense Kopp, 58, is a trial lawyer and seasoned combatant in San Francisco’s often bitter political wars. He ran for mayor in 1979 and lost to Dianne Feinstein. He declared himself a candidate for the state Board of Equalization in 1982 (at the suggestion of Assembly Speaker Brown, he said), but dropped out when he concluded that membership on the relatively obscure board probably would mean obscurity for him, too.

First elected a supervisor in 1971, Kopp has built a reputation as the “Great Dissenter,” a maverick “Lone Ranger” who often voted no, a leather-hided curmudgeon and a complainer. Supporters viewed him as a tight-fisted conservative with the taxpayers’ money who defends his decisions and principles despite strong political opposition.

Kopp said he has been told that he is the first unaligned candidate to be elected to the Senate since 1851. Secretary of state records indicate that he is at least the first of this century, while documents in the State Archives are inconclusive on whether he is the first since the Gold Rush era.

During the last 86 years, several state senators have listed themselves as independent, the records show, but each was elected with a party designation, which they abandoned after taking office.

One-Way Courtship

Clearly savoring his status as most-courted man in the Legislature, Kopp told a reporter that “it’s too early to see how I handle it, except just try to be a pleasant person and not be partisan. So, I ask for help from the Democrats and I ask for help from the Republicans and so far it has been forthcoming.”

So far, the courtship has been all one-way. Asked what he owed Senate GOP leader Nielsen and other Republican lawmakers who donated to his campaign, Kopp replied without pause: “Friendship, which I give with pleasure.”

Memories of election defeat run long in the Capitol, where often the prevailing but unspoken attitude is, “Don’t get mad; get even.” Asked how he expected his legislation to fare in Speaker Brown’s Assembly in the wake of Papan’s defeat, Kopp put it this way:

“I think it is noteworthy that Mr. Brown has neither telephoned nor written me a letter of congratulations or good wishes. I’m not looking for a fight with anybody, but I won’t back away from a fight. . . . The speculation is that he has, in the vernacular, advised his confederates that there will be war on all my legislation.”

‘Not So,’ Says Brown Aide

“Oh, that’s not so. His legislation will be treated like anyone else’s,” said Brown press secretary Susan Jetton. “Willie Brown is not out to get revenge. He doesn’t believe in treating people that way.”

But while expecting to do battle with Brown in the Assembly, Kopp himself in an interview declared war on one of Brown’s bills, a measure that would enable out-of-state banks such as Citicorp of New York City to qualify to buy troubled BankAmerica, parent of Bank of America, a San Francisco financial landmark.

“I will fight it (the bill) with all the means and abilities I have,” Kopp declared, reflecting a widely held, though disputed, view that the measure is specifically written for Citicorp. “Bank of America is a venerated, respected San Francisco institution. And, here is a San Francisco legislator introducing legislation to allow Citicorp of New York City to buy San Francisco’s beloved bank. Why? Why?”

Brown, like other legislators, is a recipient of major campaign contributions from Citicorp. He has insisted, however, that Bank of America shareholders, and returns from public employee pension investments, would come out better if out-of-state banks joined the bidding competition. Under current law, those banks are prohibited from participating in the purchase of a California bank until 1990.

As for Kopp’s own legislative agenda, he conceded that key pieces may never be enacted but he will proceed anyway.

Cigarette Ad Ban

For example, he said he is exploring legislation that would prohibit cigarette advertising on billboards. He added such a bill would probably be defeated by the tobacco and billboard lobbies but that “inexorably” Americans will be a smokeless society by the year 2000.

For another, he would seek to prohibit the transfer of campaign contributions from one candidate to another, even though he received such financial help and such legislation has failed previously. “I don’t think the chances are good, legislatively, but it will be a (ballot) initiative in 1988,” Kopp forecast.

Times staff writer Tillie Fong contributed to this article.