State Democrats Strive to Shed ‘Fat and Sassy’ Image

Assembly Democrats say they are undertaking a “rigorous self-examination” to determine whether their losses in the November election coupled with declining Democratic registration across the state could cost them control of the lower house by the end of the decade.

At the same time, there is concern that a poor legislative image--tarnished further by the mail fraud conviction of former Democratic Assemblyman Bruce E. Young and public distaste for the escalating emphasis on campaign fund raising--may be turning off potential Democratic voters.

“There is a sense of tension,” Assemblyman Mike Roos (D-Los Angeles) said of recent closed-door Democratic caucus meetings. Roos, who surrendered his job as majority floor leader in a post-election leadership shake-up, added, “That’s what happens in the aftermath of being fat and sassy and maybe not as quick as you should be.”

Leadership Shuffled

So far, Assembly Democrats have shuffled their leadership and fired their chief political consultant. They also have held a lot of meetings. But, despite the private agonizing of individual legislators, basically “it’s still business as usual,” in the words of controversial and charismatic Assembly Speaker Willie Brown of San Francisco.

The big worry among party insiders is reapportionment four years from now when the political party in control of the Legislature will take charge of the once-a-decade task of redrawing voter district lines.

The Democrats did the job last time and carved out what were widely regarded as “safe districts.” That has enabled them to maintain control of both the Assembly and Senate despite declining voter registration. As of last November, Democratic registration in California was down to 50.84%, the lowest in 53 years.

Republicans captured three Democratic Assembly seats in November, not nearly enough to gain majority control, but sufficient to trigger what one Democratic Party stalwart called “an agonizing reappraisal.”

“It’s what happens when you don’t listen to messages,” said Roos, now speaker pro tempore. “And three losses are a message.”

Democratic Finger-Pointing

Richard Ross, Speaker Brown’s chief of staff and the party’s top election strategist, was unceremoniously pushed aside--literally sent back to campaign school--in the most visible sign of Democratic finger-pointing. Ross said he would attend Stanford Research Institute, as Brown put it, “to dedicate some time to self-study in an effort to master the skills of his craft.”

Few members will openly criticize Brown for his Democratic election losses in the Assembly or for pushing the art of raising campaign money to the limit.

But he, too, appears to have made at least one concession to reform elements in the Assembly by appointing Assemblyman Thomas M. Hannigan of Fairfield to replace Roos as majority leader. Hannigan, a longtime political insider, has garnered a reputation for honesty and putting policy above political wheeling and dealing.

“When the majority leader is someone who is incredibly policy-oriented and to a large part disdains the back room deals of politics, that is an important signal,” said Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Los Angeles). Katz, a member of the Speaker’s inner circle of advisers, said the move was a conscious decision on Brown’s part to help improve the image of Assembly Democrats.

Hannigan, however, urged caution in assessing its significance. “The more I read about changing the (Assembly’s) image, I guess there is something to it,” he said. “But I think it’s overplayed.”

Among other party insiders, Brown’s choice of Hannigan is viewed as an attempt to soothe those Democrats who were uncomfortable with Roos holding so visible a position. Roos, who insists that switching to speaker pro tempore was his own idea, has been under investigation by a federal prosecutor in connection with his business ties to convicted political corrupter W. Patrick Moriarty.

Guilty of Mail Fraud

As a result of that probe, former Assemblyman Young of Norwalk was found guilty Tuesday of five counts of mail fraud for failing to report outside income while he was a legislator and of laundering campaign contributions to Assembly colleagues. During his four terms in the Legislature, Young was close to Brown and other Assembly leaders.

That association was surely on the Speaker’s mind when he issued a statement a day after the verdict was announced, declaring: “We as legislators are all too aware of the public perception . . . that politics is a dirty business. We must--and we will--work to change the perception.”

Hannigan, saying he was “saddened” by Young’s conviction, predicted: “It will raise the visibility of the need for campaign financing reform, and that’s good.”

Still, neither the fallout from that scandal nor the prospect of losing control of the house seems to have brought any fundamental changes in the way Brown and his top lieutenants run the Assembly.

Money Is Power

The power brokers continue to be the Democratic incumbents who raise large amounts of campaign money from powerful special interests. Because many of these Assembly leaders face relatively weak opposition in their own races, they are able to give much of the money to the Speaker. The Speaker, in turn, doles out the money to other Democratic candidates he favors who face tough campaigns.

Brown has criticized the process for giving the public the impression that special-interest contributions have undue influence over legislative actions. And he reiterated his call for sweeping campaign finance reforms following Young’s conviction. The Speaker’s plan would include limits on contributions and expenditures, plus the use of some taxpayer money to help pay for campaigns--a move opposed by Republican Gov. George Deukmejian and many GOP lawmakers.

Yet Brown in recent months has appeared to be at odds with himself over what to do.

In a speech to the Democratic state convention two weeks ago, for example, he told delegates: “The money issue didn’t hurt us (in the November elections) nearly as badly as it will hurt us in the future unless we reorient the process of campaigning in this nation.” A few minutes later, however, he declared that the most important lesson learned in 1986 was “that we have to raise every single solitary dollar that we can raise. We have to be prepared to equalize the Republicans in expenditures--in every campaign.”

It is clear from the recent leadership shake-up that the willingness to raise money remains a key test for those hoping to advance in the Assembly.

For example, Assemblyman Tom Bane (D-Tarzana), the new chairman of the powerful Assembly Rules Committee, gave a campaign committee controlled by Brown $254,000 last year. Bane’s wife, Marlene, is a political consultant who runs most of the Speaker’s major fund-raising dinners.

Roos also was among the Assembly’s top money raisers, giving Brown $115,000. Likewise, Assemblyman Philip Isenberg (D-Sacramento), who was named by Brown to become assistant speaker pro tem, handed over $97,000 to the speaker. Even Hannigan, who is said to have a particular dislike for fund raising, collected and gave Brown about $100,000 last year.

“It’s not a hidden thing; it’s a criteria,” Roos said of the link between leadership and fund raising. “It is a hand-and-glove relationship because you can’t govern unless you have the majority and the majority is determined by a political, electoral system that is driven by (money).”

Possible Brown Replacements

Of those now at the top, Hannigan and Isenberg are most often mentioned as possible replacements for Brown, should he step down or lose support within his caucus. Isenberg once worked for Brown as a committee consultant and successfully ran for mayor of Sacramento with the Speaker’s blessings. In addition, Isenberg is the Democratic coordinator of election campaigns.

But for now at least, no Assembly member is willing to say that Brown’s speakership is in trouble. He insists that he is happy with his job after six years--almost a record for a Speaker--and has no plans to step down in the foreseeable future.

Assemblyman Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica), who is among those that view the appointment of Hannigan as symbolic of an emerging reform movement in the Assembly, said Brown “is just as strong as ever.” But he cautioned that “trouble would begin to surround him if we lost more seats in 1988,” two years before the 1990 “showdown election.”

By losing three seats in November, Democrats in the Assembly saw their margin drop to 44-36 from the previous 47-33. Forty-one votes is a majority in the 80-member house. So a loss of five seats in 1988 or 1990 would be enough to hand control to the GOP.

The November defeats came at a time when nationally the party gained control of the U.S. Senate and captured an estimated 187 seats from Republicans in state legislatures across the country. In California, the Democrats handily won all partisan statewide offices, except for governor, and retained control of the congressional delegation.

Outwardly, at least, Brown is unwilling to concede that any root problem exists and has labeled the losses in the house “isolated aberrations.”

In a boastful testament to the fact that he retained his power, the Speaker told delegates to the recent state convention, “Republicans (still) have to come to Willie Brown in the Assembly to ask for, to pray for, to petition for. Now you tell me who won in 1986 in the legislative races.”

Asked later if he is doing any soul-searching in view of the three losses, Brown said, “No, why should I? I didn’t do any soul-searching when we won.”

But other Democrats are expressing more concern about what went wrong in the fall campaigns and, more importantly, what can be done to prevent such a reoccurrence in 1988.

‘Our Image and Our Message’

“There is a dialogue over whether there was something wrong with the execution of the campaigns or whether there is something wrong with our image and our message,” Hayden said. “We’ve had several retreats, long discussions, careful reassessment of what went wrong in the campaigns. There have been some changes. So we are trying to improve.”

Critics contend that two of the losses resulted because Brown and his election advisers mistakenly put their money behind politically well-connected candidates who had serious, built-in problems.

In one case, the Speaker backed Edward K. Waters, the son of Assemblywoman Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles), the caucus chairwoman and a close confidante, even though the younger Waters was a “carpetbagger” who moved into the southeast Los Angeles County district in order to run. Brown and the elder Waters pumped more than $425,000 into the losing campaign against Republican Paul E. Zeltner, an entrenched Lakewood city councilman.

In a hotly contested Sacramento Assembly race, Brown put his muscle and money behind Jack Dugan, director of crime prevention for the attorney general’s office. Unbeknown to his backers, Dugan had not voted in a decade. That dubious record surfaced late in the election, handing a victory to Republican Tim Leslie and costing Brown more than $725,000 in wasted campaign contributions.

Even in the June Democratic primary, Brown ended up a loser when he threw his support to Mike Nevin, a San Francisco policeman who also happens to be the brother-in-law of a close associate, Assemblyman Patrick Johnston (D-Stockton). Jackie Speier, a popular member of the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors, narrowly won the nomination without any support from the Democratic power brokers.

Hannigan blamed “internal politics” for taking the place of good judgment in those races. “There were less than objective decisions made,” he said.

But another general election loss in the Garden Grove seat vacated by Democratic Assemblyman Richard Robinson was directly tied to increasing strength among Republicans.

“There are a lot of people in the party who believe that we have gone away from our traditional constituency over the years, that we have not been broad based enough in our approach,” Katz said.

‘No Sacred Cows’

While “no consensus” has yet been reached on how to expand that base and attract new voters, Katz contends that the debate triggered by the lost seats “for the first time has no sacred cows.”

The most visible sign of that, he said, was a recent letter signed by more than two dozen Democratic lawmakers declaring their support for “imposition of the death penalty in appropriate cases.” It is a stand historically identified with Republicans, but one increasingly held by “mainstream” and conservative Democratic assemblymen.

Hayden, meanwhile, is pushing a plan to open Democratic primaries to independent voters--a growing segment of the voting public that is considered up for grabs by either party.

For the immediate future, the debate over how to broaden Democratic appeal is focused on Deukmejian’s 1987-88 proposed budget, particularly his decisions to eliminate the state worker safety program, Cal/OSHA, and to limit the growth in educational spending at a level far below that sought by state Supt. of Schools Bill Honig.

The challenge, Roos said, is to “take (the governor’s) mask off, without being caught in the trap of becoming the big budget-buster Democrats.”