Democratic Party Feels Impact of Broader Role

In the good old days, Steve Westly would have uncontested claim on the chairmanship of the California Democratic Party.

Never mind that you haven’t heard of Westly. If these were the good old days, that would not matter. Westly and the few thousand Californians who thrill to the long meetings and high-minded resolutions and tradition-bound organization charts of California’s long-neglected Democratic Party would be conducting business as they always did--which is to say quietly gardening in the grass roots.

But these aren’t the good old days. Westly has worked his way up through the ranks of the party to the threshold of the chairmanship just at time when the organization has been invested with important new powers and when former Democratic Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr. has decided to make the party chief’s job his first objective in a long-awaited political comeback.

As next week’s election of the chairman approaches, however, Westly, vice chairman of the party, is not going to slaughter quietly.

True enough, this mop-topped 32-year-old investment banker from Menlo Park seems vastly outmatched by the former two-term governor.

Westly has never had a real leadership role in any campaign for public office. (Brown has been through many campaigns including two runs for President). Westly has raised but several thousands of dollars for Democratic politicians and causes (contrasted to $18 million claimed by Brown).

Brown is outspending Westly probably 3 to 1 or more and has hired 13 full-time field organizers to help him campaign for this part-time job, which pays nothing except the promise of visibility.

But Westly has something Brown cannot match. For eight years, Westly has been a diligent, friendly and attentive leader in the small, closed society of California Democratic Party politics. He has moved up from office to office to his position as vice chairman from Northern California.

One Rung at a Time

These credentials are important in an organization steeped in a tradition of leadership earned one rung at a time. Brown is anything but a one-rung-at-a-time politician in the eyes of many party regulars who say that, until the former governor decided to run for chairman, he just laughed in their faces.

“The question is,” Westly said, “is the party going to be run from the elected officials, top down? Or from the grass roots, bottom up?”

Whoever wins will have something new and bigger on his hands in 1989. Everyone agrees on that.

For the last three-quarters of a century, the political parties of California have been on the decline. First came reformers with uncommon determination to prevent bossism. Add to that the modern power of television, a mobile migrant population and an electorate stubbornly determined to vote “for the candidate, not the party,” and the organizations known as the Democratic and Republican parties receded.

They hold conventions; they argue like the dickens and debate many worldly resolutions; they divide up into countless caucuses and committees, hear many speeches, and then they disappear until next time.

They have provided virtually none of the money for campaigns. Sometimes they could field a few volunteer workers, but often not that either. Today, there are only a handful of people on the Democratic Party payroll and only two small offices.

Court Decision

But tomorrow: Change. A recent court decision overturned a prohibition on parties supporting candidates in contested primaries. A minor matter to outsiders, perhaps. But up-and-coming politicians must now cultivate the local Democratic Party Central Committee. No more making fun of the party.

More importantly, the voter-approved Proposition 73 campaign financing reform will broaden--perhaps vastly--the powers of the political parties. Candidates for state office face dramatic new limits on raising money. And that will make them increasingly dependent on a once-moribund party for money, old-fashioned help in voter registration and get out-the-vote drives.

Westly, contrasting himself with Brown, is campaigning as a man who will listen to the concerns of the rank and file, who will not let the party be dominated by elected officials and who is eager to tackle the pick-and-shovel work of daily management.

Both candidates promise to make the party function as a partnership of elected officials, the rank and file and traditional power brokers such as contributors.

But convention delegates are split along fairly clear lines.

Brown is strongest among delegates who believe that elected officials and political professionals need a bigger voice now that the party is becoming more important in elective politics. Westly is the favorite of those in the grass roots who insist that elected officials already meddle too much in party affairs.

‘In the Politicians’ Pockets’

“He’s in the politicians’ pockets!” says Dianna Ludington in reference to Brown. Ludington is a Fontana activist and typical of Westly supporters. They oppose an expanded role for “politicians” in the party. “We’re the ones--me and hundreds like me--who get these people elected.”

A volunteer at Westly headquarters put it even more bluntly: “Legislators and officials are there to legislate and make policy. We’re there for politics. Don’t tell us how to run our business.”

Given such a split, some Democrats believe Westly is not to be counted out in this campaign.

“The rank-and-file grass-roots Democrats have always shown themselves to be independent from the political power brokers. There is a possibility of a very strong backlash against the power brokers, i.e. Jerry Brown. He is muscling in on what they see as their own turf,” said one pro-Brown Democratic insider.