A Mother’s Love and Willie Brown

As election day nears, Republican Assemblywoman Cathie Wright is counting on the fruits of her friendship with Democratic power Willie Brown to overcome the excesses of mother love.

Wright, a Republican state assemblywoman from the San Fernando and Simi valleys, has become famous for her beyond-the-call-of-duty efforts for her speed-demon daughter, Victoria--the recipient of 27 traffic tickets, 24 of them for speeding, and some suspiciously light treatment from certain judges.

At key times, Speaker Brown stepped in to help. In Wright’s district, Republican activists consider Brown the living symbol of Democratic liberalism.

And so Wright, campaigning for reelection in the June 5 GOP primary, finds herself in the awkward position of both defending her relationship with Brown and trying to capitalize on it. Let me explain.

At first glance, Cathie Wright resembles a decorous member of a suburban Republican women’s club. Her blonde hair is worn in a tight bun and her clothes are crisp. But she fights with the fury of an old pol from her native Pennsylvania.

When her 24-year-old daughter faced a license suspension, mom wrote a letter to the motor vehicles director, who assigned a top official to the case. The man found Victoria’s driving “horrendous” but lifted her suspension so she could drive to work. Another time, a judge dismissed two tickets after Wright visited him at his house one night to discuss her daughter.

And when things really got rough, Willie Brown offered a hand. One day, according to a Wright aide, Brown overheard her trying to find a lawyer for her daughter. The speaker located one.

On another occasion, the speaker called Ventura County Municipal Court Judge Herbert Curtis III just 15 minutes before the judge was to sentence Victoria for driving without a license. Curtis said Brown told him he was a friend of Wright’s and that he didn’t think Victoria deserved to go to jail.

Curtis fined Victoria $225, gave her a 30-day suspended sentence and put her on three years’ probation. Later, Victoria violated the probation by failing to tell the court of additional traffic violations, and served 20 days on a jail work-furlough program.

Now why, you may ask, would Willie Brown help a Republican--and a conservative one, at that? Because, although Democrats have controlled the Legislature for more than two decades, they need the Republicans to win in the Sacramento power game.

In the Assembly, for example, the Democratic speaker always has to have a few Republicans in his pocket to remain in office. That’s because he’s in perpetual danger of political assassination by fellow Democrats.

He always calls on a certain kind of Republican, one from a district so Republican that no strong Democrat runs. This assures that, in befriending a Republican, he has not stepped on the toes of any aspiring Democrat.

The befriending of Wright came in 1988--before her daughter’s lead-footed tendencies became public fodder. At that time, rebellious Democrats known as “The Gang of Five” were mounting an effort to dump Brown as speaker. They got most of the Republicans to join them to replace Brown with one of the gang members, Charles Calderon of Montebello. Wright abstained from the vote. It was a decisive move, helping turn the tide for Brown. And it put him in Wright’s debt.

Furious, the Assembly Republican caucus demanded that Wright be removed from the patronage-rich Rules Committee, whose members assign cars, staff and other fringe benefits to themselves and their colleagues. Traditionally, each caucus nominates its Rules Committee members. This time, Brown ignored the Republicans and kept Wright on the committee. He also gave her a couple more top committee assignments.

Now Wright is facing reelection. Wright’s use of clout, including the Brown connection, provides the cutting edge of the attack by her opponent, Hunt Braly, aide to Sen. Ed Davis (R-Valencia).

Last week, they debated at a Republican women’s group meeting in Simi Valley. He brought up the daughter--”Cathie Wright’s abuse of power.” He blasted the assemblywoman for “creating a political alliance with Willie Brown.”

Wright emphasized the benefits of that alliance--without, of course, naming the benefactor. She took credit herself for bills and appropriations won for her district. These are the kind of small but important measures that the speaker speeds along for friends and bottles up for enemies.

They are the rewards of the big favor she did for Brown. As for the many strings she pulled for Victoria, her campaign manager, Mark Thompson, told me, “If she’s guilty of anything, it’s that she loves that daughter too much.”