There’s a Fine Bottom Line Between Feinstein, Wilson

This is a quiz. Who made the following statements in the race for governor?

A) “As Governor, I will vigorously promote this state’s agricultural and industrial products abroad, help find new markets for California products and help site new businesses in regions which can benefit and which have the infrastructure to support the investment.”

B) “Am I taking a ‘no-tax’ pledge as Governor? No. I submit that would be irresponsible.”

If you have trouble matching the candidate with the promise, you’re not alone. When it comes to California industry and its concerns in this era of “user fees” and escalating regulations, neither Republican Sen. Pete Wilson nor Democrat Dianne Feinstein has specifically addressed the issues that confront--and confound--the business community.

And while their positions become more evident as Nov. 6 approaches, neither Feinstein (author of statement A) nor Wilson (author of B) has made it clear just how their administrations would balance the electorate’s clamor for quality of life with industry’s call for economic growth.

“There are sexier issues than the business climate,” said Jack Kyser, chief economist for the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce. “It may not make it into the gubernatorial campaign. . . . But whoever is elected in November, this issue’s going to grab their attention pretty quickly.”

Gut feelings and litmus tests like the moldy “I’m Republican, so I’m pro-business,” give Wilson the edge as the “industry candidate” in many California business owners’ minds. But even the most die-hard members of the Grand Old Party admit that personal preference, not cold hard fact, guides much of their decision making.

Still, there are some clues about how a Feinstein or a Wilson administration would enforce the regulations that bind California business, hints from promises and past performance that help to sharpen a fuzzy race.

Feinstein frequently describes herself as a bridge between the more liberal Democratic constituencies--such as environmentalists--and business, with which she was closely allied during her tenure as mayor of San Francisco.

When it comes to water policy, or the state’s insurance crisis, for example, she routinely says that she wants to bring the parties to the negotiating table--literally--and find a solution to pressing problems.

At the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, she recently told business leaders that she wants to extend her bridge-building approach to environmentalists and business leaders.

“On business’s side, there is growing impatience with what seems to be needless--and, if I might say, endless--regulatory red tape,” Feinstein said. “On the environmentalists’ side, there is mounting anger about dangerous environmental degradation. . . . I reject the myth that economic growth and environmental protection are somehow incompatible.”

Wilson, for his part, frequently allies himself with small-business owners and notes that much of the state’s economic growth recently has come from mom-and-pop companies that would be run under if forced to pay for employees’ medical benefits.

He never actually says he’s against the concept of mandatory medical insurance or enumerates how he would revamp the insurance system. But he does say what he would not do: force small businesses to ante up.

“I am very much concerned that we not make so difficult the making of an adequate profit for small businesses that they lose the ability to continue that kind of remarkable job generation,” he said recently.

In this campaign of style over substance, theme over game plan, there is a small handful of business issues about which the candidates are relatively clear: Prop. 128, the sweeping environmental initiative; Prop. 135, the agriculture industry’s response; malathion spraying; health insurance; taxation.

You’ve already heard how the style is manifest. Now for the substance:

Agriculture and manufacturing are two industries that are squawking the loudest during this campaign season, mostly about the regulations that they feel hamper their ability to do business.

Prop. 128--known as Big Green to its supporters and the Hayden-Van de Kamp Initiative to its detractors--causes the greatest fear in these arenas. If approved by the electorate, the initiative would phase out the use of cancer-causing pesticides on food and reduce the use of ozone-depleting chemicals, among other actions.

Feinstein has endorsed Prop. 128: “I am proud to support the most significant environmental protection measure ever placed before the voters,” she proclaims in a position paper. Wilson is against it and has called the initiative the biggest problem facing California agriculture.

Industry’s response is predictable, but goes beyond mere endorsement to worry over how the initiative would be enforced by the candidates if approved by voters.

Wilson has garnered the support of almost every farming organization in the Central Valley, largely because of his opposition to Prop. 128. While not pleased that Wilson is sitting out the fight over Prop. 135, the farmers at least figure he’s not working actively against them.

“I am confident that Pete Wilson, if elected governor, would take a hard look at the impact of those regulations on agriculture and on business in the state,” said Michael V. Durando, president of the California Grape and Tree Fruit League. “I know that there is concern within my industry about what a Feinstein Administration would be like and how that would affect us.”

When pushed to explain his discomfort with the Democratic candidate, Durando points to Feinstein’s malathion stance, a view that was evident in statements made last July at a Los Angeles elementary school:

“When I am sworn in as Governor in January, 1991, I will immediately halt urban aerial spraying of malathion,” she told a press conference. “And I will immediately implement a safer, alternative program to combat the Medfly.”

William Clayton, president of Clayton Industries in El Monte, complains that legislators can take a decade to pass a piece of environmental legislation but will often require businesses to comply with stiffened regulations within months.

His company manufactures heavy industrial equipment and has already shelled out more than $400,000 to comply with changing laws for the cleanup of asbestos and ground water. And while he absolves Gov. George Deukmejian of blame for the conditions that caused him to move one of Clayton Industries’ plants to Tijuana, he holds Feinstein personally responsible for what he views as her incompatibility with business.

“I think she’s demonstrated that she is a somewhat more radical, somewhat less understanding or conservative person,” Clayton said. “I don’t think she gives a damn about industry. San Francisco doesn’t have a lot of industry. Most of the industry has left San Francisco.”

That Feinstein pushed industry out of San Francisco is a favorite rallying cry of the Wilson campaign, which uses corporate flight as proof that Feinstein is no friend of business.

Robert Skinkle, a regional economist covering California for Wells Fargo Bank, acknowledges that corporations such as Pacific Gas & Electric and Pacific Bell have moved workers to the suburbs and that many banks have fled as well.

But “all of the mature, large cities in this nation” are seeing the same phenomenon. And in fact, he said, Feinstein and Wilson are not that different in their views toward business.

“I think Feinstein does have a reputation for pragmatism,” Skinkle said. “The challenge is to be able to strike a balance between business needs and environmental concerns. Both candidates are addressing that.”

When it comes to the workplace, Feinstein and Wilson both believe in parental leave, the ability for parents to take time off from work at the birth of a child, a view that chills the small-business lobby.

At times, Feinstein can come off as a Republican-style protector of business’ prerogatives.

Last spring, for example, she came out for increasing child-care facilities in commercial buildings. But her proposal offered business the option of paying a fee instead of opening a child-care center. Her view is that business should be encouraged, but not required, to be more responsive to child-care needs.

At the issue of health insurance, the candidates come to a parting of the ways. Wilson believes that if small businesses are required to offer their employees health insurance coverage, then that insurance must be subsidized.

Or, in the words of his favorite campaign slogan: “California cannot afford to be an island of mounting costs in a sea of competitiveness.”

Feinstein has pledged that in the first 100 days of her tenure, she would sign a mandatory health insurance plan for working Californians, which sends a ripple of fear up the spine of small business.

“Dianne Feinstein has come out saying she would favor a plan which would mandate an employer-based system,” said Martyn Hopper, state director of the National Federation of Independent Business. “Our position has always been that those of our members who are not providing health insurance--about 38% of our 50,000 California members--don’t do so because they literally cannot afford it.”

While Wilson has remained relatively mute on labor issues, Feinstein has the endorsement of the California Labor Federation, AFL-CIO and the Teamsters. She said she is determined to revitalize Cal-OSHA, “giving it the power to increase employer responsibility and decrease worker hazards in both the public and private workplace.”

She also promises to appoint a labor liaison to the top ranks of her staff, to appoint a labor director to the department of Industrial Relations and to consider other labor-backed appointments to state posts.

“I believe that Dianne will have an active, effective and aggressive enforcement policy of the (labor) laws,” said Michael J. Riley, president of Teamsters Joint Council 42. “Under Deukmejian there hasn’t been an active, effective and aggressive enforcement of the law. It’s been laissez-faire, and I believe that it will be laissez-faire under Peter (Wilson).”

Regis McKenna, founder and president of a technology marketing firm in the Silicon Valley, takes both candidates to task when it comes to the state’s technology future.

Under the Deukmejian Administration, he said, there has been no attempt to encourage California companies to invest in research and development. Semiconductor and computer consortiums have knocked and been turned away under Deukmejian, he said, and the two candidates have been too busy attacking each other to address technology themselves.

“Probably the best thing on the ballot this year is the two-term limit (for elected officials),” McKenna said. If it passes, “then maybe people will start acting courageously and not be trying to justify their long-term existence by not taking on sticky issues.”

Times staff writer Cathleen Decker contributed to this report.

CAMPAIGN CHECKLIST

POSITION DIANNE PETE ISSUE FEINSTEIN WILSON Prop. 128, a sweeping environmental initiative known to supporters as BIG GREEN YES NO Prop. 135, known to supporters as CAREFUL, the industry response to Big Green NO NO POSITION * HEALTH INSURANCE for all UNDER SOME UNDER SOME working Californians CIRCUMSTANCES CIRCUMSTANCES PARENTAL LEAVE YES YES OFFSHORE OIL DRILLING NO NO **PERSONAL INCOME TAX HIKE YES NO MALATHION SPRAYING NO YES

* Feinstein favors health insurance for all working Californians with some employer contribution. Wilson favors health insurance for workers if small business soesn’t have to foot the bill.

** Feinstein would only raise the tax for the most wealthy and then only if necessary after state budget cuts.