Opposites Stirling, Peace Agree Liberal Clout Waning

Republican Larry Stirling considers himself a policy man, not a political hack, so he would just as soon avoid the internal jockeying for position that often dominates the time of the California Assembly.

Democrat Steve Peace, on the other hand, has a reputation as a man drawn to action. He is comfortable with political intrigue. If there’s a good brouhaha afoot, you’re likely to find him in the middle of it.

The two differently tempered San Diego-area assemblymen were both in the spotlight last week as Assembly Speaker Willie Brown’s control over the lower house endured under its most serious threat in seven years.

Peace of Chula Vista was there by choice, dividing his party in hopes of shifting its direction closer to his own point of view. Stirling of San Diego was there by obligation, uniting his party at a crucial moment.

The two lawmakers agree that the recent struggle is a sign that the power of the once-dominant liberal wing of the Democratic Party is waning. Both say it is only a matter of time before moderate or conservative Democrats, or even Republicans, gain enough seats to control the Assembly.

“What we have in the house are the liberals from the late 1960s and early ‘70s now in power,” Stirling said of Brown, a San Francisco Democrat, and his inner circle. “They are in power, and the public is coming up behind them a little more conservative. So the more conservative forces are attempting to hasten the day when the liberal control, or the more liberal control, is ‘sunsetted.’ The liberals are attempting to delay that day. That’s the struggle you see going on.”

Peace, one of five Democrats who have rebelled publicly against Brown’s leadership, sees the battle as the inevitable result of the increasingly suburban nature of the state. Soon, probably when legislative districts are redrawn after the 1990 census, he believes lawmakers from suburban and rural areas will wrest control from the urban legislators--mostly from Los Angeles and San Francisco--who have held sway in the Legislature for more than two decades.

If that happens, Peace foresees a Legislature more reflective of the independent-minded California voter and less prone to the bitter clashes between the extreme elements that have come to dominate both parties in Sacramento.

“It boils down to whether you believe in this agenda of confrontation on either side, the hard right and the hard left, or if you believe in an agenda that’s more government-oriented, in terms of producing a product as opposed to making statements about where the respective political parties stand,” Peace said. “Most people do not get up in the morning and exercise their political credentials.”

Brown, of course, weathered last week’s challenge and held onto his speakership. No direct move to replace him was made, and many lawmakers insist that his job is not even in any danger. But the simple arithmetic--36 Republicans plus 5 dissident Democrats form a majority in the 80-member house--demonstrates that Brown can no longer impose his will on the Republicans the way he once did.

That was all too clear last week when Peace and his four colleagues--Rusty Areias of Los Banos, Gary Condit of Ceres, Charles Calderon of Alhambra and Gerald Eaves of Rialto--combined with Republicans to force votes on controversial policy issues that had been bottled up in committee by liberal Democrats.

The first, and most dramatic confrontation, came when Peace made an effort to withdraw from the Public Safety Committee a bill that would require convicted prostitutes to undergo testing for the fatal disease AIDS and make it a felony for anyone to engage in prostitution after being tested positive for the acquired immune deficiency syndrome virus.

The bill had been defeated earlier in the committee, and the move to bring it to a vote of the full Assembly was considered a direct attack on Brown, who controls the committee system. No such attempt has been successful in 25 years.

This one wasn’t either. But supporters of Peace’s bill prevailed anyway, because language almost identical to that in Peace’s measure was amended into another bill already on the Assembly floor and was then approved overwhelmingly by the house. Somehow, in Brown’s eyes, this parliamentary move was less of an affront than pulling the bill from committee.

Peace’s role in the uprising was clear. As the author of the bill and a member of the group of rebel Democrats, he was putting himself squarely on the line against Brown’s leadership.

Peace Feels Brown’s Sting

Peace has been punished for his tactics. Brown earlier this month removed him as a member of two powerful committees--Ways and Means, which votes on all appropriations bills, and Finance and Insurance, a key panel at a time when skyrocketing premiums make insurance reform one of the state’s most volatile issues.

And after last week’s tempest, Peace lost much of his staff, several of whom had worked for him since he came to the Assembly in 1982. The final blow came Thursday, when he received orders to pack for a move from his spacious fourth floor suite to a tiny office on another floor. In Sacramento, the size of a member’s office is the only consistent measure of his clout.

Now, Peace says, he is more comfortable with his role here than ever before. He has already lost his committee assignments, his staff and his office. With nothing more to lose, he can vote however he wishes without fear of retribution.

“I’m more relaxed now,” said Peace, who has admitted that for much of last year, disenchanted with the legislative process, he was considering retirement. “I’ve never felt so absolutely confident that I’m doing the right thing. I’ve never felt so at peace with what I’m doing.”

While Peace has been driving a wedge between himself and his party colleagues, Stirling was playing a different role. As one of only two Republicans to serve at Brown’s pleasure as committee chairmen in the Democrat-dominated house, Stirling’s loyalties are tested in any challenge to the speaker’s ability to control the process.

Stirling clearly enjoys his job as head of the Public Safety Committee, which, before he took over, had a reputation as an unruly, undisciplined panel that was a graveyard for all tough criminal justice bills. Now, under Stirling’s strong hand but still controlled, 4-3, by Democrats, the committee has a reputation as an ordered, disciplined panel where at least some tough criminal justice bills survive.

Though he is often outvoted in his own committee, the job gives Stirling a role in shaping the bills that are approved by the panel, and it puts him in the middle of key decisions over the future of the state’s overcrowded and rapidly growing prison system.

Stirling Weathers Storm

As last week’s confrontation built to a climax, Stirling would say only that, as long as he was a committee chairman, he would vote to “preserve the committee system,” a statement widely interpreted to mean he would either back Brown or resign his post.

He did neither.

When the moment came, Stirling sided with his fellow Republicans, voting to pull Peace’s measure out of committee and force a vote on the floor. One problem: another Republican, Stan Statham of Oak

Run, didn’t vote, and so the move fell one tally short of success, leaving the coalition with the less direct alternative of amending the language into another bill, which succeeded.

Still, Stirling had put his chairmanship on the line when he voted with his party colleagues. So far, Brown has not punished him.

“What it finally boils down to is that Larry Stirling was asked directly and unequivocally, ‘are you with the Democratic leadership or are you with the Republican leadership?’ ” Stirling explained. “The answer to that question is that I’m not a Republican by birth, I’m not a Republican by law, and I’m not a Republican by accident. I’m a Republican by choice. I was asked to choose between those two, and I did.”

The next day, the coalition moved again, this time forcing a vote on a bill to prohibit the sale of pornographic material out of vending machines in areas frequented by minors. Such efforts, once rare, now seem likely to occur whenever Peace and his four colleagues, known collectively as the “Gang of Five,” believe Brown is misusing his powers as Speaker to stop in committee a bill that would enjoy the support of a majority of Assembly members if put to a vote on the floor.

Oddly, though, Brown does not seem in immediate danger of being toppled. One reason is that the Republicans are not sure his replacement would be any improvement, nor do they relish the idea of hitting the campaign trail without Willie Brown to kick around. Some, like Stirling, are content to enjoy the fruits of the Democrats’ intra-party split without going out of their way to offend Brown, who has worked well with Republicans ever since they helped him win the speaker’s job in 1980.

“We shouldn’t obscure the issue,” Stirling said. “The issue right now is that the liberals have the majority vote in the Assembly, elected by the people of California. If we want that house to be more conservative, we should go out and elect more Republicans.

“Do I favor a more moderate leadership for the house? Of course I do. But does that mean that Willie Brown goes? No.”

Peace, too, seems in no hurry to oust Brown. As long as things remain as they are, he and the four other rebels will hold the balance of power in the Assembly. And Peace says he thinks the pace of change, which has been gradual, will hasten now that the split has been so openly exposed.