GOP Protests Layoffs of 7 Longshore Staffers : But Assembly Aide Defends Willie Brown, Calls Firings Routine When a Member Leaves

Curt Pringle, the Republican candidate to succeed Assemblyman Richard E. Longshore (R-Santa Ana), on Monday criticized Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco) for using his political power to all but shut down Longshore’s offices here and in Sacramento after his death in June.

An administrator in Sacramento said later, however, that seven members of Longshore’s nine-member legislative staff were laid off in compliance with a longstanding rule calling for staff members to be fired when a legislator leaves office for any reason.

Flanked by four Orange County Republican legislators and another from Los Angeles County, Pringle spoke outside Longshore’s 72nd District office in Westminster. Just one Longshore staff member, Scott Taylor, remains at the office, which was not open Monday because Taylor was tending to a family illness.

“On his own, without consulting with anyone here in Orange County, at the state or local level, Willie Brown decided to do something which is outrageous,” said Pringle, a Garden Grove resident. “In effect, by his action, Willie Brown told those of us who live here that we didn’t matter.”

State Sen. Edward R. Royce (R-Anaheim) and Assembly members Gil Ferguson (R-Newport Beach), Doris Allen (R-Cypress), John R. Lewis (R-Orange) and Dennis Brown (R-Signal Hill) joined Pringle in criticizing Brown.

Lewis said Brown’s action “is clearly without precedent. We’re all very, very disappointed.”

But Bob Connelly, chief administrative officer of the Assembly Rules Committee, which oversees administration of all Assembly members’ offices, said the firings were not politically motivated.

Connelly has held his present position since the 1960s. He said from Sacramento that one staff member in the Sacramento office and another in the home district office are retained whenever a legislator dies or vacates the seat before the term expires. Longshore’s office in Sacramento still has one staff member.

“The staff is personally selected by the members themselves,” he said. “Whenever the office is vacated, the staff members are terminated because they served the member who is no longer there.”

Connelly also said that the rule has been in effect at least 25 years and that laying off employees of legislators who have vacated an office “has happened repeatedly.”

The staff members of Democrat Art Agnos were laid off last year when Agnos was elected mayor of San Francisco and resigned his Assembly seat, Connelly said.

Susan Jetton, Brown’s press secretary, said Pringle and the legislators had criticized Brown without first checking to see whether Brown was responsible for laying off the seven Longshore staff members, five of whom were part-time employees.

“They will blame Willie Brown for anything,” Jetton said.

But Pringle, when told of the legislative rule, said he stood by his criticism of Brown: “If there is such a rule, it is antiquated and it needs to be changed.”

Pringle, who was chosen to run in the 72nd District by the county Republican Party after Longshore’s June 8 death, said he had hired Longshore’s former field representative, Rose Anderson, to deal with constituent business. Anderson will work out of Pringle’s campaign headquarters.

Avoiding Real Issues

Christian F. (Rick) Thierbach, Pringle’s Democratic opponent in the Nov. 8 election, said Pringle’s attempt to “make Willie Brown an issue in this campaign” was the Republican candidate’s way of avoiding real issues, such as crime, education and transportation.

Thierbach, a Riverside County deputy district attorney who lives in Anaheim, also said Pringle has “no authority” to take over the duties of Longshore’s district office.

“I would love to perform those services myself, but I have no authority to do so,” Thierbach said.