Seeking Villains in a Sacramento Swamp : California: 80 years ago, state government freed itself from railroad robber barons; today a new kind of political clout paralyzes legislative action.

This year marks the 80th anniversary of California’s political revolution--the election of reformer Hiram Johnson as governor and the immediate end of an era when railroad robber barons ruled the state with an iron fist.

Johnson and the Republican Progressives led a citizens’ rebellion to halt corruption that ran rampant through the instruments of state government. As a result of their reforms, Californians got the tools of direct democracy--the initiative, referendum and recall, along with weakened political parties. For many years thereafter, California’s system of government was held up as a model for the nation.

But now, in the century’s final decade, the California political system again stands in a state of gross disrepair and disrepute. Historians claim the 1980s produced more political scandals and less public benefit than any decade since the end of railroad rule.

Could a latter-day Hiram Johnson lead the state out of the morass of political corruption, legislative paralysis, initiative excess, voter manipulation and citizen cynicism? Anyone attempting such a feat would find the challenge monumental, compared with the successful campaign of Johnson’s Lincoln-Roosevelt League. The current evils, the product of an evolutionary process, are much more complex and without an easily identifiable villain.

Yet some of the same medicines employed by Johnson to cure the ailments of his time are being blamed for the political diseases of today. Many California political scientists claim the state would be far better off in 1990 with stronger political parties and less direct democracy.

Considering how much the state has changed in 80 years, Johnson’s reforms have had remarkable staying power. California government avoided a systemic breakdown for roughly 70 years, although the image of the Golden State was periodically tarnished by occasional scandals and political outrages.

But Johnson’s model system started to fail in 1966, when two politically momentous events caused a radical change in Sacramento--the passage of a proposition creating a full-time Legislature and the first election under the U.S. Supreme Court’s one-man, one-vote decision.

Lawmaking became a full-time profession with significantly higher pay and excellent fringe benefits. Lobbyists by the hundreds became full-time residents of Sacramento. Associations and professional organizations moved their headquarters to the capital. Grass-roots political campaigning became almost extinct, and elected officials sought more and more money to pay for expensive media campaigns.

The next shoe dropped in 1978, when California voters launched the tax revolt by approving Proposition 13, sponsored by Howard Jarvis and Paul Gann. Proposition 13 launched a new era; major public-policy decisions were made through the all-or-nothing initiative process, instead of the give-and-take of representative government.

Proposition 13 demonstrated the potency of direct democracy to a new generation of Californians, and a record number of initiatives were placed on the ballot during the ‘80s. No longer is the initiative a safety valve of the citizenry, as envisioned by Johnson, but rather an economic tool of interest groups.

Upon election as governor in 1910, Johnson inherited a government essentially owned by the Southern Pacific Railroad. The governor elected in 1990 will be forced to deal with a Legislature in which the interests of lawmakers and lobbying organizations are also intertwined--in a far different way.

Lawmakers, deciding that their careers depend on the constant flow of contributions from numerous sources into their campaign coffers, are afraid to offend any benefactor. The result is often an inability to reach decisions. Legislators try to act as referees in bouts between contributors representing rival groups, and problems continue to fester when agreements cannot be hammered out. James R. Mills, a San Diego historian who once served as president pro tem of the state Senate, says the Legislature now acts as though “there are no problems but political problems.”

This massive linkage of public weal and private wealth has produced the current tide of scandal in California. Eugene C. Lee, a UC Berkeley political scientist, says he cannot think of any time in modern history when so many high-ranking California public officials faced charges of corruption. “And I can’t remember a time in which the role of money and campaign finance seems so dominant,” he added.

Political spending escalated at the start of the 1980s, when internecine warfare erupted within the Democratic Party over the Speakership of the Assembly, and no effort was spared in extracting funds from special interests.

The current Speaker, Willie Brown, has elevated the art of political fund-raising to new heights. Elected officials like Brown are the power brokers of today, just as the unelected railroad barons called the shots in 1910. There was a prime example of Brown’s clout last week, when he was credited with killing the only active legislation to provide low-cost automobile insurance to California’s poor. While the bill had support from Democrats and Republicans, consumer groups and several insurance companies, it was opposed by trial lawyers, who stood to lose income from a reduction in auto-accident claims. The trial lawyers have been heavy donors to Brown’s campaigns.

In theory, the two-party system is supposed to provide the public a way to change such a dysfunctional system. But, compared with most states, political parties are almost irrelevant in California. “We have 121 political parties in California, 120 legislators raising their own money in their own way, and the governor does his thing too. The result is chaos,” said political scientist Randy H. Hamilton of the Institute of Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley.

Hiram Johnson weakened the parties because he saw them as tools used by the powerful against the people. But now, in an era of mass media hard-sell, it is difficult for voters to assess candidates. Legislative districts are drawn to maximize incumbent protection and citizens turn away from the ballot box in ever-increasing numbers.

With problems unresolved in Sacramento, a variety of interests--environmentalists and consumerists as well as doctors, lawyers and insurance chiefs--turn to Johnson’s “direct democracy” to promote economic goals.

But the public is being victimized by “bait-and-switch” initiatives with highly visible provisions that appeal to voters; buried in the small print are the provisions designed to enrich the sponsors, according to UC’s Lee.

While the initiative process retains sacrosanct status with the public, voters have tried to cure perceived ills through limitations on lobbyist activities and campaign contributions. But these measures have largely been ineffective, often producing more confusion than reform.

So-called reform proposals again are headed for the ballot this year, among them measures that would limit the terms of lawmakers. But there is no quick fix on the horizon, as there was in 1910. “At least in those days, you knew who to blame,” said historian James Rawls of Pleasant Hill. “Now there is a Hydra-headed monster, instead of the Southern Pacific.”