Speaker Taps Right Man for His Right Hand

Minutes before Assembly Speaker Willie Brown announced his new leadership team on Dec. 5, he buttonholed Democratic Assemblyman Thomas M. Hannigan and told him that he would be his majority floor leader. Though fellow lawmakers would later say Hannigan was just the man to help restore some luster to the tarnished image of Assembly Democrats, he got off to an unpromising start.

“I said, ‘What’s a majority leader do?’ ” Hannigan recalled in an interview. “The Speaker said, ‘There is a description of the job in the little black book, somewhere.’ ”

Thus the 46-year-old legislator from Fairfield began his new and elevated political role in the Assembly thumbing through the black book, a small volume about the size of a pack of cigarettes that contains the rules of the Legislature, thumbnail sketches of lawmakers and election results.

Hannigan learned, among other things, that he would be responsible for “promotion of harmony among members,” a task which, though fraught with peril, did not deter him.

Otherwise there was little to be learned about his new job from the book. In truth, a broad mandate goes along with the post. He is the Speaker’s right hand on the floor of the Assembly, with enough room to make a name for himself or simply serve out the assignment as little more than a figurehead.

Speaker’s Point Man

Traditionally, the majority floor leader is the Speaker’s point man in delivering his party’s position on a partisan issue, coaxing reluctant members to vote with the party and, perhaps most importantly, raising political campaign money.

The appointment of Hannigan, who succeeded Assemblyman Mike Roos (D-Los Angeles), served Brown immediately as a nifty bit of good public relations.

Hannigan, chairman of the Assembly Revenue and Taxation Committee, has one of the best reputations in the Legislature--clean-cut, straight-arrow, honest. Some think he represents the mold of “good government.” And so a series of laudatory editorials and positive news stories followed the appointment.

That provided the Speaker with the kind of good press he has found in short supply in recent months.

Assembly Democrats lost three seats to Republicans in the November election, but this is only one of their problems.

One of the Speaker’s erstwhile lieutenants--former Assemblyman Bruce Young (D-Norwalk)--was indicted in August on charges stemming from dealings with convicted political corrupter W. Patrick Moriarty. Another--Assemblyman Jim Costa (D-Fresno)--pleaded no contest in August to a charge of soliciting a prostitute. Still other present and former members of the Speaker’s inner circle are linked to the still evolving sex-money-political favors scandal involving Moriarty.

‘A Clean Liver’

Hannigan, in contrast, seems more like the hero of a Walt Disney movie than a politician.

“He’s the kind of guy who gives the Legislature a bad name,” Assemblyman Richard E. Floyd (D-Hawthorne), said jokingly. “The public thinks legislators are always out whorin’, drinkin’ and gamblin’. This guy runs in 26-mile endurance tests. He’s a clean liver, straight with his wife and kids. I don’t know what we’re going to do with a guy like Hannigan.”

Hannigan is not without his legislative credentials.

The liberal-leaning lawmaker has served for the last four years as chairman of the Assembly tax writing committee and currently is the author of legislation that could produce the most meaningful overhaul of the state tax structure in a decade by adapting California tax codes to the federal tax reform recently signed by President Reagan.

It would be the culmination of Hannigan’s four-year effort to bring state income tax codes into conformity with federal law, a time-consuming chore that has won him respect among colleagues, if not headlines.

Hannigan’s support last year for legislation rewriting the state’s formula for taxing multinational corporations was instrumental in breaking a bottleneck that had tied up the legislation for years.

But it is Hannigan’s personal character that fellow legislators insist sets him apart.

It began forming early.

Growing up during the 1950s, he worked in his dad’s ice cream parlor, serving up sundaes and sodas. In his spare time, he became an Eagle Scout.

After graduating from the University of Santa Clara, Hannigan joined the Marine Corps, rose to the rank of captain and did a tour in Vietnam in 1965, serving in an amphibian tractor battalion.

Hannigan entered politics in 1970, winning election to the Fairfield City Council. He followed in the footsteps of his father, the late Morgan Hannigan, who, after selling his ice cream parlor, was elected coroner in Solano County. The younger Hannigan jumped to the Solano County Board of Supervisors in 1974, then to the Assembly in 1978.

Now, in addition to his new political role, he is known as a devoted family man, married to his college sweetheart, Jan, for the last 23 years. The couple has three children, the youngest of which is a senior at Fairfield High School. A lifelong Catholic, he attends Mass regularly.

For recreation, Hannigan runs 30 miles a week and backpacks into the wilderness. In all, he has completed 12 marathons, including the Boston Marathon in 1981. He has not run in a marathon since 1983.

Assemblyman Lloyd G. Connelly (D-Sacramento), a friend as well as political confidant, said Hannigan is the kind of fellow who will carry extra weight up a mountain so another hiker has a lighter load. He added:

“Let’s say you are dead tired, exhausted. You’ve walked into the campsite, there’s a driving rainstorm, maybe it’s sleeting and hailing. You make your hot soup, maybe fight to get your tent up while the soup’s heating. You have your soup, then you say, ‘Who does the dishes?’ Tom was the guy to volunteer to do the dishes. He will wait for the others to have their soup first.”

Asked about this, Hannigan pleaded guilty.

“Maybe it’s the training,” he said, shrugging off Connelly’s compliment with characteristic modesty. “I was in the Marine Corps three years. You never ate until the troops ate. I don’t go around barking orders on a backpacking trip; there is just this sense that other people eat first. I do the dishes because I can’t cook.”

Lawmakers and friends who have followed Hannigan’s career say that although he may be physically fit, there are questions about how he will stand up to the political pressures of his new post.

In the Legislature, if you, figuratively, pass up your turn in the chow line, someone will probably eat not only your share but take a bite out of your hide just for the pleasure of showing sharp teeth.

And the problem the Speaker has had with some of his past leadership appointments is evidence of a major problem in the Legislature: The need for leaders of both parties to raise millions of dollars to finance reelection campaigns and the sometimes questionable steps they take in eliciting financial contributions from lobbying interests and political action committees.

The little black book has nothing to say about raising campaign contributions, but rounding up political funds has been the role played by past majority leaders.

Until now, Hannigan has enjoyed a relatively charmed life politically. He has represented a heavily Democratic district since his election in 1978 and has not yet drawn a strong Republican election opponent.

This has allowed him to avoid the heavy fund-raising activity that has swept some colleagues into trouble. At the same time he has frequently spoken out about the corrupting influence of money in politics. Even his wife, Jan, refers humorously to “the best Legislature money can buy.”

Hannigan is part of the loosely knit so-called “good government” faction of Assembly Democrats, which includes Connelly and several others. These lawmakers tend to concentrate their efforts on issues and avoid heavy fund raising.

Said Connelly: “The question is: Will Tom raise the kind of money that has historically been raised by the person who was majority leader? I sense that he will not. His personality is such that he won’t play that role.”

Colleagues remember that Hannigan ducked out on one of the Democrats’ bitterest fights--the battle waged by a former majority leader, Howard Berman, now a congressman, for the speakership in 1980.

Hannigan first supported the reelection of Leo T. McCarthy, the former Speaker now serving as lieutenant governor, but withdrew from the fight when McCarthy lost and the contest boiled down to a battle between Berman and the ultimate victor, Brown.

Hannigan said he resented the horse-trading and vote switching he saw going on among the Assembly Democrats, as first one and then another would be offered a job or political goodie if he or she would cast a vote for one Speaker candidate or the other. He calls it “the longest year of my life.”

At one point, he said he told his colleagues during a closed-door meeting that he was disgusted, that he was going home for the Christmas holidays and did not want to hear from any of them. “Nobody came near me for damn near that whole month,” he recalled in an interview.

Some in the Capitol maintain that Hannigan’s high sounding ideals have never truly been tested. One Democratic lawmaker, who spoke on the condition that he not be identified, noted that Hannigan ducked the speakership fight and added:

“The question it raises about Tom is whether he is aggressive in the political crunch. He doesn’t run in a contested area, so he doesn’t do heavy fund raising or get involved in the biennial bloodbaths some of his colleagues are forced into. The sort of integrity he stands for can end when the political wars begin. It will be interesting to see if he gets into the political wars and how he chooses to play the role. His friends wonder where he will be when the crunch comes.”

Hannigan speaks only generally about his plans, but made clear during interviews that he does not see himself in a reformer’s role.

“I think the job entails me being more political than I’ve been,” he said. “I think I can do that all right. With respect to raising money, I’ll raise what I feel I’m capable of, but where there’s a point when I’m no longer comfortable doing it, I’ll stop it at that.”

As for other members, Hannigan said: “I don’t think it’s my place to go around telling somebody whose been elected by a district similar to mine how they should behave and what they should do and what they shouldn’t do. That’s their responsibility.”

As for the future, some speculation suggests that his appointment as majority leader makes Hannigan a candidate for Speaker if and when Brown steps down. But Hannigan insists, “I’m not interested in being Speaker.”