Key Democrats Rebuff Brown’s Party Strategy

After arguing passionately that the future of the state Democratic Party was at stake, as well as his own power, Assembly Speaker Willie Brown was rebuffed Saturday by party leaders, who voted down his strategy for strengthening the party in the aftermath of Proposition 73.

At a meeting of the Democrats’ State Central Committee at the Hyatt Wilshire, Brown pushed unsuccessfully for a rules change that he said would revitalize the party, enabling it to raise more money and exercise more influence on behalf of Democratic candidates.

Some critics of the rules change, which was voted down, said it would have allowed Brown and key allies to assure themselves of control of the party for the next four years. Others saw the vote less as a rebuke to Brown than as an assertion of independence from Sacramento by grass-roots party members.

To Retain Control

Brown contended that he was merely trying to ensure that Democrats--by building a more muscular party organization--would be able to perpetuate Democratic control of the Legislature in the wake of voters’ approval last month of Proposition 73. Starting Jan. 1, that measure will sharply restrict political fund-raising techniques used by Brown and other legislative leaders.

The Speaker--who was accompanied Saturday by political allies including Assembly members Maxine Waters, Michael Roos and Richard Katz--said before the vote that if he did not get his way, he would run for the state party chairmanship. After the vote, he backed off a bit, saying that “maybe” he would run.

It was the first time since Proposition 73 passed that Brown has given any indication that he thought the ballot measure could have a crippling effect. But Brown was in full throat Saturday as he warned of an approaching Armageddon for his party and himself.

“Under Proposition 73, I have exactly six months to be effective. After (that), I am out of business,” he told a group of party officials before the vote. “If we don’t (vote for his plan), I’m going to be history and we are not going to be the majority party any longer.”

The 120-99 vote against Brown was the latest setback in a year marked by an erosion of the Speaker’s influence--a slippage due in large part to the dissident votes of a group of Assembly Democrats known as the “Gang of Five.”

Undermining Power

For many years, the power of the speakership has depended to a great extent on the Speaker’s ability to raise large amounts of money and distribute it to Assembly candidates who support him. Democratic Party dominance in the Legislature has relied heavily on the Speaker’s war chest and upon his powers to appoint committee members and control the flow of legislation. Now, Proposition 73 threatens to undermine the Speaker’s power by prohibiting one candidate from giving campaign money to another and by limiting the size of campaign contributions.

Until Saturday, however, Brown had pooh-poohed the effects of Proposition 73 on his own talents as a money raiser and power broker.

“It’s going to change our life somewhat, but from an incumbent’s standpoint, it’s an annoyance, not a problem,” Brown said less than a week ago.

The rules change that Brown fought for on Saturday would have ended a 40-year-old practice of rotating the party’s chairmanship back and forth from Northern to Southern California. It would have allowed Peter Kelly, the current chairman and a Brown compatriot, to run for office again in January despite the fact that he is from Southern California. Backers of the rules change believe that Kelly is the kind of leader and money raiser the party needs in order to prevail in the post-Proposition 73 political climate.

‘The Operational Arm’

“The party must become the operational arm it used to be,” Brown argued. He said it must be run like the party’s national organization with a staff of 15 to 40 people, a war chest of $20 million by 1990. He said the party should be based in Sacramento, where it would carry out many of the functions, such as lobbying and withholding support for disloyal Democrats, now performed by the Speaker’s office.

Brown insisted that such an organization can not be built if the chairmanship has to change hands every four years.

“It’s crazy to sacrifice the Democrats’ dominance of both houses of the Legislature on the altar of regional politics or because you don’t like Peter Kelly,” Brown said.

Carla Dillard Smith, a member of the party’s executive board from Alameda County, listened patiently as Brown tried to persuade her that the rules change was vital to preserving the power that his own office was losing as a result of Proposition 73.

‘A Difficult Year’

“The Speaker has had a difficult year because of the Gang of Five and now Proposition 73,” Smith said. “But I think we can have a strong party organization without changing the rule.”

Party Chairman Kelly was philosophical about the vote, which deprives him of the chance to succeed himself.

“A fight like this raises all sorts of tough, sensitive matters. There are the North-South feelings and the dynasty issue,” he said, referring to the unwillingness of some Democrats to extend Kelly’s reign. “And there is the feeling of some grass-roots Democrats that the long-standing tradition of rotating the chairmanship ought to be observed.”