Brown Shares the Secret to His Longevity. : No Upward Ambition Lures the Speaker

Assembly Speaker Willie Brown, who next Monday will break Jesse M. Unruh’s longevity record as leader of the Assembly, attributes his staying power to his concentration on statehouse politics and a willingness to give up the pursuit of higher office, something he said his predecessors did not do.

Ticking off the names of other modern-day Speakers--Unruh and Robert Moretti, who are both dead, and Leo T. McCarthy, the current lieutenant governor who is campaigning for the U.S. Senate--Brown noted Thursday that each ultimately ran for higher office.

Not Willie Brown.

“I am not a candidate for governor, I am not a candidate for President, I am not a candidate for any of those things,” the San Francisco Democrat said at a Capitol news conference.

Just One Goal

“My goal in life is really to be Speaker as long as the house will have me,” he said.

Brown, who has been Speaker since 1980, currently has his hands full fighting off an insurrection by five dissident Democrats. Some Capitol insiders are predicting that the challenge to Brown’s leadership may end his reign by the end of the year. But there was no hint that he was thinking about surrendering as he delivered an impromptu lecture on his staying power.

In a blunt assessment of his predecessors, Brown said:

“Jesse Unruh was a candidate for anything that was open, (that was) more important in his mind than the speakership. Bob Moretti couldn’t wait to run for governor. Leo McCarthy was a candidate for almost anything that was open beyond the speakership and absolutely prepared for it.”

The one former Speaker who did not aggressively pursue higher office, Brown said, was Republican Bob Monagan, who served as Speaker in 1969 and 1970 between the terms of Democrats Unruh and Moretti. At the time, Republicans held a slim majority in the Assembly. But even Monagan, when he was GOP floor leader before becoming Speaker, flirted with the idea of running for governor.

Variety of Contests

As for Unruh, he lost the speakership after the 1968 elections when the Republicans took control of the Assembly. He considered running for the U.S. Senate in 1968, but decided against it and ran unsuccessfully for governor in 1970. He lost a primary election for Los Angeles mayor in 1973, then won the treasurer’s job the next year. He died in August.

Moretti resigned his speakership to run unsuccessfully for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in 1974 against a field that included Edmund G. Brown Jr., who went on to become governor.

McCarthy was elected lieutenant governor in 1982, then reelected in 1986 and is challenging Republican Sen. Pete Wilson for his U.S. Senate seat this year.

Unruh, in his seven-plus years as Speaker, was able to put his name on major consumer protection, civil rights and education legislation and is credited with leading the fight to create a modern, full-time Legislature. Moretti helped fashion major welfare and Medi-Cal legislation with then-Gov. Ronald Reagan. McCarthy carried legislation creating the state Office of Administrative Law, and authored bills to improve nursing home care for the elderly and toughen child labor laws.

Brown, when asked to list his own major accomplishments, pointed to a landmark bill he drafted forbidding the prosecution of sex acts performed in private between consenting adults and another requiring motorists to wear seat belts.

Sharing of Power

More than that, Brown said he wanted to share his power with other legislators and create “an environment” where the careers of other lawmakers could flourish, something which he said is difficult when a Speaker is focused on his own ambition.

Brown, who served in the Assembly with Unruh, Moretti, Monagan and McCarthy, said that to further their ambitions they had to have notches on their political belts “reflective of incredible achievements legislatively and you ought to take credit for them, you ought to put your name on them.” But Brown said that if longevity as Speaker is the goal, it is better to let other legislators take the credit.

The Speaker said the power of the office, which some consider second only to that of the governor, ought to be enough to satisfy any politician’s ego.