The Focus Is on Wilson as State GOP Convention Opens Today

The state Republican convention opens here today with a theme that is short and sweet: “Run, Pete, Run.”

A number of GOP politicians and insiders hope to use this convention to unite the party behind a 1990 gubernatorial candidacy of U.S. Sen. Pete Wilson.

Wilson decided to run weeks ago, according to friends, but has delayed announcing it for several reasons, among them the desire to let a consensus build behind his candidacy.

His only potential opponent now is Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl F. Gates, who will attend the convention. Gates says he will not end his exploratory effort just because Wilson is interested.

But state Sen. John Seymour (R-Anaheim), said Thursday the plans to unite behind Wilson at the convention are far along.

“We want to show the broad, broad base of support Pete has,” Seymour said.

The fact that Seymour, a strong conservative, is behind the more moderate Wilson is evidence of how broad Wilson’s support is.

But one high-ranking GOP operative said that the party’s influential conservative wing will be heard from, with a candidate for one office or another in the 1990 state elections.

“They’re going to take a shot somewhere,” the GOP operative predicted.

In contrast to the Democratic state convention last weekend, the GOP affair will have no controversial resolutions and will face no fight for party chairman, the job the Democrats gave to former Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr.

For Republican state chairman, Lancaster businessman Frank Visco is unopposed to succeed Menlo Park lawyer Robert Naylor.

Naylor said that while Wilson is the main story of the convention, “we will take up two potential ballot initiatives.”

One would combine legislative reform with reapportionment guidelines and the other would create a reapportionment commission to come up with a “good government design,” Naylor said.

The state legislative and congressional districts will be redrawn after the 1990 U.S. Census, and the concern Republicans have over this prospect is driven by their belief that the lines drawn after the 1980 Census by the Democrat-controlled Legislature shortchanged the GOP.

Rep. Bill Thomas (R-Bakersfield) said the party must get behind a reapportionment ballot initiative not later than June.

As for Wilson’s dominance of this convention, it is signified by the party’s desire for him to give the keynote speech Saturday night.

Gov. George Deukmejian, who had the right of first refusal on the keynote, will speak Sunday morning as he reduces his party role after announcing in January that he will retire from elective politics at the end of his current term in two years.

The big question about Wilson’s speech here is whether he will use it to announce his candidacy for governor formally or simply lay out some themes that he could run on.

“Pete will indicate his intentions,” said his top political adviser Otto Bos, who refused to elaborate.

Seymour said, “I hope he does announce at the convention, it’s a perfect time.”

If Wilson announces his candidacy, Seymour said, other GOP politicians can then signal their interest in the other constitutional offices on the 1990 ballot.

Seymour himself is leaning toward lieutenant governor, as is state Sen. William Campbell of Hacienda Heights.

New state Treasurer Thomas W. Hayes, who was appointed to fill the unexpired term of the late Jesse M. Unruh and will address the convention Sunday, also is planning a run for the job in the 1990 election.

Convention-goers will be looking for some signal from former U.S. Treasurer Bay Buchanan, a leader of the party’s conservative wing, on whether she intends to oppose Hayes in the GOP primary.

For the Republicans, then, it is a time of waiting and watching up and down the line. Wilson is expected to tell some of the delegates privately why he has delayed announcing his candidacy for governor.

There are two main reasons for the delay, according to close friends.

First, he did not want to announce for governor so soon after being sworn in for a second U.S. Senate term in January because that could cause problems with voters who just reelected him in November.

Second, the friends say, Wilson wants time to size up exactly what he will face in the California governor’s job in the 1990s.

“The job is changing because of the Gann limit and the passage of Prop. 98,” said a close adviser to Wilson who requested anonymity. “Pete wants to know exactly what he has to do if elected.”

The adviser was referring to the limits on state spending recently imposed by the so-called Gann Initiative, which passed in 1979.

That limit has now run up against Proposition 98, the school funding initiative passed last November that sets aside 40% of the state general fund for schools. Critics of the initiative say it reserves money for schools that is needed for other programs.

At the same time, the governor is under pressure to come up with a new source of money to pay for a growing backlog of transportation projects.

Seymour and Naylor, arguing that Wilson was an innovative mayor of San Diego in the 1970s and has earned respect as a U.S. senator, said he is ready to take on the challenges facing the next governor.

They also believe Wilson is the Republican most likely to win in 1990, which would put the GOP in charge of the governorship when the Legislature draws the new legislative and congressional districts. The governor can veto redistricting proposals he does not like.

Times political writer John Balzar contributed to this report.