He’s Busy Grooming Himself for a Run in 1990 : Seymour Takes Aim at a Statewide Office

Sen. John Seymour has been having trouble lately getting people to believe him.

Hardly anyone believed the Anaheim Republican when he denied plotting to overthrow Senate leader David Roberti, a Los Angeles Democrat.

People snickered when Seymour, about to be stripped of his own leadership post as chairman of the Senate Republican Caucus, said he had intended to quit anyway but had kept his decision a secret.

And despite Seymour’s protestations, few of his colleagues seemed to believe that he had not tried to seize credit for himself by prematurely leaking word of Gov. George Deukmejian’s recent decision to open a California Department of Transportation office in Orange County.

But on one subject, at least, Seymour is taken at his word: his desire to run for statewide office in 1990.

For in a place where ambition is king and political plotting is second nature, Seymour is seen as the ambitious plotter par excellence .

At a time when many Republicans are grumbling about the party’s meager crop of up-and-coming leaders, Seymour has stepped to the front of the line and raised his hand. Not waiting to “be groomed” for statewide office, he has decided to groom himself.

So if you ask John Seymour about his future, don’t expect to hear any modest dodges.

The office of governor would be his first choice, Seymour says, if Deukmejian weren’t talking about running for a third term. Given that obstacle, he says he would settle for just about anything else except secretary of state.

“I like to do things,” Seymour said in a recent interview. “I’ve been a doer all my life. I don’t like to sit around sucking my thumb. I like to resolve problems. I like to meet challenges. So I wouldn’t run for a statewide office just to run for a statewide office. I’d have to know you can do something with this job.”

For that reason, state treasurer--an office now occupied by the the aging and ill Jesse Unruh--provides the strongest lure.

By managing the state’s portfolio of investments, the treasurer can have a major impact on the budget available for government services, Seymour figures. “You can make a difference of half a billion to a billion dollars a year,” he said.

But there are signs that Seymour’s undisguised quest for power grates on his colleagues in the Legislature. Seymour has problems with conservatives who think he is too liberal, with moderates who think he double-crossed them in a leadership battle four years ago, and with some of his Orange County colleagues who see him, perhaps jealously, as the darling of the county establishment.

“For anyone in leadership, their first responsibility is to keep the members happy,” said Sen. Marian Bergeson (R-Newport Beach), without discussing Seymour directly. “Anyone who forgets that is generally going to find themselves with some dissatisfaction on the part of the caucus. People have got to feel they have a role in the caucus and their agendas are being met.”

Another senator, who spoke on the condition that he would not be identified, said Seymour’s independent style irritates his fellow party leaders. Although he took his leadership post in 1983 under an agreement that partisan affairs would be run by a five-member “board of directors,” Seymour after a while was seen as less than interested in what the other four members had to say.

“He does his own thing to the exclusion of other people,” the senator said. “He doesn’t think he needs the rest of us. He’s got his long-range plans, being governor or United States senator or whatever, and we’re just so many actors in the play, his play. I can’t think of one senator that would stand up for him.”

Like almost any politician, Seymour enjoys the spotlight, and he maneuvers to capture it. But the openness with which he does so often shocks his colleagues.

“When it comes down to it, he’s a good politician, and he probably exhibits it more than others because he’s so successful,” Assemblyman Gil Ferguson (R-Newport Beach) said. “The others may have been knocked down a couple of times. While they’re still ambitious, they don’t show it so much. They don’t approach every issue as ‘how could this make me look better?’ If you’ve won every time, you still might be more naked in your approach.”

When Seymour was quoted recently confirming the details of Deukmejian’s decision to open a Caltrans office in Orange County, he set off an angry reaction among some of his Orange County colleagues who had promised the governor that they would remain silent until the deal was officially announced. Seymour’s action was seen as an attempt to take the credit for something the entire delegation had worked toward.

“John is just so overtly ambitious and so eager to thrust himself to the head of the parade,” said an Orange County legislator who agreed to be interviewed on the condition that his name would not be used. “He doesn’t simply try and make John Seymour look good. He does it in a way that by implication makes others look bad.”

Seymour doesn’t apologize for his habit of grabbing hot issues and running with them.

“I do it because I believe in the issues and because it’s good business--it’s good political sense,” Seymour said. “I call it catching a wave, and I’ve caught a number of them. But I think that is what my job’s all about. Identify what people want done, and get it done.”

Seymour, who will turn 50 in December, has always wanted to get things done.

A former Marine Corps sergeant and a graduate of UCLA, Seymour became wealthy in the real estate business--his latest financial disclosure statement showed him with a net worth of at least $750,000 -- and then turned his full attention to politics.

He was elected to the Anaheim City Council in 1974 and became mayor in 1978. In 1980, he won the presidency of the California Assn. of Realtors. That post allowed him to begin expanding his network of political contacts outside Orange County and Southern California.

As Anaheim mayor, Seymour made his biggest splash when he helped negotiate the deal that brought the Los Angeles Rams to town, a move that boosted the image of both the city and Seymour in one dramatic swoop. By 1982, when then-Sen. John Briggs decided to resign, Seymour was well positioned for the special election to fill the seat. He won easily.

Seymour’s friends and foes predicted then that he would become a major player in the Senate, and he did. Little more than a year after he took office, Seymour joined an internal uprising that dumped two party leaders and replaced them with Sen. Jim Nielsen of Rohnert Park and Seymour. Seymour, who was, and is, seen as a moderate Republican, sided in that instance with a group led by arch-conservative Sen. H. L. Richardson (R-Glendora) to topple the moderate leadership of Sens. William Campbell (R-Hacienda Heights) and Ken Maddy (R-Fresno).

Though Seymour had what he wanted--the caucus chairmanship--his rise left behind a residue of distrust in what should have been his natural niche. That suspicion would come back to haunt him.

Seymour worked steadily as caucus chairman for more than three years, raising millions of dollars in campaign contributions and handing them over to Republicans hoping to join the Senate or hang onto their seats. At the same time, he used his position to seize a leading role on such issues as education funding, transportation, child care, and drug and alcohol abuse.

Several Republican senators were bothered when Seymour was suspected of dealing on his own with conservative Democrats in an effort to dump Roberti as Senate leader. But the Republicans stood by him when Roberti punished Seymour for his alleged transgression by stripping him of several key committee posts.

A month later, however, when Assemblyman Wayne Grisham (R-Norwalk) failed to win a March 17 special election to fill the 33rd Senate District seat, several of Seymour’s colleagues hinted that maybe he was spending too much time on his broad legislative program and not enough time working toward building a Republican majority in the Senate, which is supposed to be the caucus chairman’s first priority.

A week after that election, Seymour got wind of a budding effort to dump him and called a meeting to announce that he had intended to quit after the May 12 runoff between Grisham and his Democratic opponent, Norwalk City Councilman Cecil Green. The Republicans agreed to let him serve until then.

As Seymour returns to the rank and file this month, the question for him will be whether the animosity toward him within the Legislature will hamper his expected bid for statewide office. Many think it will not.

“There is a lot of self-sacrifice in a leadership position,” said Robert Naylor, a former Republican leader of the Assembly who is now state party chairman. “The schedule you keep, asking people for money for other causes and candidates--you use a lot of your own equity to help others, and very often that help is forgotten by the ones you’re helping. If a person in order to put up with that is motivated by wanting to advance his own political career, what’s wrong with that? The alternative is to find someone who’s not as motivated and doesn’t do as good a job.”

Seymour has been chosen to head up all the volunteer arms of the reelection campaign of U.S. Sen. Pete Wilson, and longtime Wilson aide Otto Bos says the Wilson and his advisers aren’t at all troubled by the recent grumbling about the Anaheim legislator.

“If you never get on a boat, you can’t ever leave a wake,” Bos said. “The fact is, the price of leadership is that once in a while you step on toes. No doubt about it. It’s kind of like a thunderstorm that comes and goes. They do damage, and then they disappear. All that’s left behind is that it replenishes the earth.”

Bos and Naylor say the key for Seymour is building on the statewide network of party activists he established as caucus chairman. Naylor, a friend and ally, believes Seymour is well on his way.

“He has been a tireless caucus chairman, raised tremendous amounts of money, given hundreds of speeches,” Naylor said. “He’s a dynamic, feisty speaker. I think as legislators go, he’s got to be among the top four or five who could make a credible race for statewide office.”

Seymour says his departure from the Senate leadership will allow him to concentrate on raising a campaign war chest for himself rather than his colleagues. Seymour’s role in Wilson’s campaign will give him first-hand knowledge of how a statewide race is run. He will probably continue to speak at events around the state. And he will keep seeking out issues that find their way to the top of the public agenda.

If that irritates his colleagues, Seymour says, then so be it. Ultimately, it is the local party regulars and the voters who will have to judge him.

“I think the people in the business, the people who are political activists in this state--they know John Seymour,” he said.

JOHN SEYMOUR AT A GLANCE

John Seymour, a 49-year-old Republican, will step down May 13 as chairman of the state Senate’s Republican Caucus. He will remain in the Senate and intends to run for reelection in 1988 and for statewide office in 1990.

Residence: Anaheim.

Current job: State senator representing the 35th District, which covers much of central and western Orange County, including all or parts of Anaheim, Santa Ana, Garden Grove, Tustin, Placentia, Huntington Beach, Irvine and Newport Beach.

Previous job: Self-employed real estate broker. Owned two companies with about 125 employees.

Family: Son of John and Helen Seymour of Garden Grove. His wife, Judy, is a part-time escrow officer. They have six children, John, Lisa, Shad, Jeffrey, Sarena and Barrett.

Education: Bachelor’s degree in business from UCLA in 1962. Also attended Santa Monica City College.

Background: Born Dec. 3, 1937, in Chicago. Moved to California after his discharge from the Marine Corps in 1959. After graduating from UCLA in 1962, he went to work as a trainee in the real estate loan department of California Bank. From June until December, 1964, Seymour sold real estate for Walker and Lee before founding Seymour Realty and Investment. In 1970, he was appointed to the Anaheim Planning Commission, and in 1972 he lost a City Council race. He was elected to the council in 1974 and was elected mayor in 1978 and 1980. In April, 1982, he won a special election to fill a seat vacated by the resignation of Sen. John Briggs. He was elected GOP caucus chairman in 1983 and was reelected to the Senate in 1984.