Nominee for Treasurer Backed by Senate Panel, Bucked in Assembly

The Democratic-dominated Senate Rules Committee, which earlier this year helped block the confirmation of Republican treasurer nominee Daniel E. Lungren in a partisan jab at Gov. George Deukmejian, voted unanimously Tuesday to recommend that the governor’s latest choice--Auditor General Thomas W. Hayes--be confirmed.

But Hayes ran into a partisan buzz saw in the Assembly as top Democrats on a select committee maneuvered to keep acting Treasurer Elizabeth Whitney in the job so she can run as a Democratic incumbent in 1990.

“We know you are a good technocrat,” Assembly Speaker Pro Tem Mike Roos (D-Los Angeles) told Hayes. “But we already have a good technocrat in the job. . . . The burden is on (Hayes) to tell us why we should change in midstream.”

The vote in the Assembly committee was delayed until January after a contentious two-hour hearing chaired by Assembly Majority Leader Thomas M. Hannigan (D-Fairfield).

Not a single witness came forward to oppose Hayes in either house. Several supporters, including Democratic Mayor Art Agnos of San Francisco, praised Hayes as a man of ability and unquestioned integrity.

The good-natured mood of the Senate was in stark contrast to that of the Assembly and far different from the atmosphere that surrounded the fight over Lungren, who was characterized by Democrats as a right-wing ideologue out of step with California voters.

Senate President Pro Tem David A. Roberti (D-Los Angeles) said after Tuesday’s Rules Committee hearing that Hayes’ qualifications “are quite outstanding and I intend to vote for him. That doesn’t mean come the (1990) election I won’t support a Democrat who is more qualified. But it’s not our job now to engage in comparison shopping.”

Hayes, 42, has never run for office and is not registered in any political party. But he told Deukmejian that he would become a Republican as soon as he is confirmed and would seek election to the office in 1990.

The hearings before the two legislative committees are preliminary to floor votes in both houses. The nomination can be rejected by a vote of either house, although Hayes can automatically take office if no action is taken by Jan. 9.

Although Roberti and the Senate’s other top leaders appear unwilling to get into another fight with Deukmejian over the treasurer’s office, acting Treasurer Whitney reportedly is waging a behind-the-scenes struggle in the Assembly to keep her job and use it as a base to run for election in 1990.

A number of Democrats, however, are likely to back Kathleen Brown, a member of the Los Angeles Board of Public Works and sister of former Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr. Kathleen Brown has already declared her intent to run for the post.

Assemblywoman Maxine Waters of Los Angeles, who chairs the Assembly’s Democratic caucus, joined Roos in critical questioning of Hayes, asking why he decided to register as a Republican rather than a Democrat. Then Waters declared: “If you have a Republican with incumbent status it is much more difficult to get a Democrat in that seat--it costs more money.”

Other Democrats, including Assembly Ways and Means Committee Chairman John Vasconcellos of Santa Clara, successfully elicited a promise from Hayes to avoid using votes they might cast for him in campaign mailers that imply an endorsement of his candidacy for treasurer. “We could simply hold out (on the confirmation) until the next election,” Vasconcellos said.

Deukmejian, who is considering whether to run for a third term, has expressed frustration at his inability to work with the Democratic-controlled Legislature and, at one point, indicated that those frustrations might have an impact on his decision.

As for the Republicans, a number of GOP lawmakers were angered by Deukmejian’s decision in September to name a nonpartisan bureaucrat to the highly coveted job, which was held for more than a decade by the late Jesse M. Unruh, a Democrat. But it is uncertain whether many Republicans will want to openly defy the governor by voting against his nominee.