An Unplayful Power Play

There is something of a tradition around Sacramento that out-of-work former legislators, if they do not opt to become lobbyists, usually can find a job somewhere in the state Establishment. Over the years such policy-making bodies as the Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board, the Alcoholic Beverage Control Appeals Board and the Public Utilities Commission provided employment for ex-lawmakers not quite ready to ease into retirement.

But with a Republican governor making such appointments, pickings are slim for a displaced Democrat. So it is that former Assemblyman Louis J. Papan (D-Millbrae) has set his sights on an administrative job, the $82,117-a-year position of executive secretary of the state Board of Equalization. Papan, 58, gave up his Assembly seat to run a losing campaign for the state Senate.

Papan’s desire creates a problem, since the job that he wants already is occupied by Douglas Bell, a 39-year professional veteran of the board staff and executive secretary the past nine years. Papan told the Sacramento Bee that he understood that Bell had been ill and “it’s a question of him doing the job.” Board staff members say that Bell is fine now and has no intention of retiring. Hundreds of board employees have signed for him a poster declaring, “We Support Doug Bell.”

Word is out, however, that Papan is lobbying the five elected board members to dump Bell and appoint him when the board is reorganized in the first week in January with a 4-1 Democratic majority. Current members have declined to replace Bell. But two new members will join the board next month: former state Sen. Paul B. Carpenter (D-Cypress) and former Assemblyman Gray Davis (D-Sherman Oaks), who will sit on the board by virtue of his election as state controller. Holdover member William Bennett opposes the Papan-for-Bell move because it would offer the appearance of “a political power play.”

Bennett is right on the mark, particularly given Papan’s reputation as “The Enforcer” for the combative manner in which he ran the Assembly Rules Committee and his close ties to Assembly Speaker Willie Brown. Even if Bell stepped down, the board should fill the position with a professional tax administrator. The politically elected board makes policy. When it comes to administering that policy, it needs a piece of the rock--not a political Rocky.