Exceptional Exceptions

Over the many years that government in Sacramento stood up squarely to problems of California’s growth, The Times’ rule of thumb for endorsing candidates in election years changed very little. Governance seemed to us a serious line of work whose practitioners were entitled to be encouraged to stay on when they had done an honest term’s work, even if they had not distinguished themselves. The thumb was broad enough to cover politicians with whom we disagreed on issues but who fought hard for their voters’ views.

Like state government, that rule of thumb no longer works. The challenges that growth posesto public services in this state now tower over the intellectual dwarfs of Sacramento who were, presumably, elected to work as hard at their jobs as other citizens work at theirs. In all of Southern California we can count on the fingers of one hand the members of the state Senate and Assembly who even begin to meet what would have been minimum standards for public service two decades ago. Gov. George Deukmejian makes the situation worse, denying that his Administration has any business even trying to solve some of California’s problems, ignoring the rest and coasting to one defeat for good government after another on the need for a two-thirds vote to make any move off dead center.

Not so long ago California’s Legislature was a model for other states. Today it resembles a roller derby more than a body of policy-makers, with people elected to pursue the public interest sapping their political energy by forming little clumps like the Gang of Five and staying out late plotting to knock power brokers like Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco) out of the fast lane. Among them, the governor and the 120 members of the Legislature have turned Sacramento into a Fantasy Island of special interests and of elected officials who for the most part pursue the good life by night, campaign funds by day andpublic problems scarcely ever. More than ever, politics in California is an inside job, with decisions turning on what is comfortable for the elected, not the electors.

There are exceptions:

Sen. Robert B. Presley (D-Riverside) is thoughtful, persuasive and effective in any field that he chooses. He meets every standard that we can think of for governmental conduct. He does not let party lines interfere with the pursuit of goals that he considers crucial, as in his bills during this session that made it possible for Southern California to gain ground against smog.

Sen. John Seymour (R-Anaheim) lobbies without letup against the roller-derby mentality in Sacramento, working issues on a bipartisan basis, focusing on solving problems rather than on how the solutions will look to Democrats or Republicans. His interests range from freeways to Medi-Cal reforms, and he has made his ideas work in both.

Sen. Marian Bergeson (R-Newport Beach) has been in the state Senate for only four years, but in that time she has made a difference in laws involving schools, Medi-Cal for poor women and children, and control of growth. She is an outstanding public official, and is getting better.

The dedication of these three exceptions to the rule of mediocrity to broad public goals contrasts sharply with the singular interest of their colleagues in occupational longevity, and provides a model that all supplicants for elected office should be required to follow.

Since so few have seen fit to do that, The Times in this election year recommends only that voters search for candidates who they expect can in time match the standards that Presley, Seymour and Bergeson have set for public service. California is running out of the years, and perhaps months and hours, in which it can survive as a pleasant and civil society in which to work and live if it accepts less than the best.