State Senate Confirms 1 Education Board Appointee, Rejects Another

In the first showdown of the new legislative session, the Democratic-controlled Senate on Friday sent Gov. George Deukmejian a mixed response to his appeals for cooperation: It confirmed one of his appointees to the state Board of Education and rejected another.

“It may be politics as usual,” said Senate Republican Leader Ken Maddy of Fresno.

The Senate reversed its initial rejection last Sept. 1 of former Beverly Hills Unified School Supt. Kenneth L. Peters and voted 32 to 1 to approve him for a second four-year term on the board.

But on a 23-8 vote, four short of the 27 required for approval, the upper chamber refused to overturn its previous rejection of college economics professor Gloria Sun Hom to serve a second term on the board.

In a statement several hours later, Deukmejian said it was “petty and unprofessional for eight senators to vote to deny this caring person the opportunity to continue to serve.” The governor said the action is “a good example of why many fine, dedicated citizens don’t wish to get involved in serving in government.”

Deukmejian made no mention of the overwhelming approval of Peters.

Both appointees were rejected on the last day of the 1988 legislative session. Democratic lawmakers said at the time that their objection to the nominees was based on Hom’s and Peters’ opposition to legislation that would have extended until 1992 controversial state controls over bilingual education. Deukmejian ultimately vetoed the bill by Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco).

In September, both appointees fell far short of the 27 votes needed for Senate approval. However, Peters and Hom, a professor at Mission College in Santa Clara, were given a second chance to win confirmation from the 1989 Senate.

This time, Democratic opposition to Peters melted as Senate Leader David A. Roberti (D-Los Angeles) led the floor debate to approve him. The single “no” vote was cast by Sen. Henry Mello (D-Watsonville), an outspoken advocate of state controls over local bilingual education programs.

Roberti asserted that while Democrats may not agree with Peters on the bilingual education issue, the nominee represents on the board a “voice of moderation, reason and understanding. He has an open mind.”

Roberti said that as a board member Peters fought back attempts to “minimize and trivialize” the Holocaust of World War II and led the fight to treat the Nazis’ execution of an estimated 6 million Jews as a major event in the teaching of history and social science in schools.

“He fights, he stands tall for his convictions,” Roberti said of Peters. “I think we have a duty to back him up.”

Maddy suggested that letters of support for Peters, such as one from the Jewish Affairs Committee, apparently neutralized Democratic opposition during the months between his two confirmation votes.

Last week, when Deukmejian announced that he would not seek a third term, he said the remaining two years of his term offered a “window of opportunity” for him and the Legislature to cooperate in resolving important problems. “Let’s work together,” he said earlier this week in an appeal to the lawmakers.

Sen. Becky Morgan (R-Los Altos Hills), who pleaded for Hom’s confirmation, urged Senate Democrats to put aside philosophical differences with the Republican governor in the interest of giving Hom a second term. “We as members of the Senate should set a spirit of cooperation that the governor has asked for,” she said.

But Mello accused Hom, who was reared in a household where Chinese was spoken, of “leading the fight on the board” to oppose state controls over bilingual education programs, an assertion strongly denied by Maddy.