Conservative Joins Wilson Panel : Politics: A Glendale consultant active in the governor-elect’s campaign is appointed to his transition team.

A Glendale business and political consultant with strong ties to the conservative wing of the Republican Party has been named to an advisory council formed to assist Gov.-elect Pete Wilson in his transition to power.

Louis Barnett, 43, long a quiet Republican Party insider, on Tuesday became one of 35 members of Wilson’s transition team, a bipartisan group of appointees including people in government and business, women and minorities, and experts on education and social services.

The council will convene next month and disband in January when Wilson is inaugurated, said Otto Bos, the team’s director of communications.

Barnett said he has worked out of his Glendale house since the summer of 1989, advising a wide range of organizations on government regulations, legislation and marketing strategies.

His clients have included the Western States Petroleum Assn., nonprofit groups such as the California Conservation Coalition and several Indian reservations, which he tried to help with economic development projects, he said.

But Bos and Republican Party officials said Barnett was chosen for the advisory team mainly because he communicates well with conservative party members.

“Lou has served as a very valuable sounding board for what’s in the hearts and minds of the people in the social conservative movement,” Bos said. “We also chose Lou because he served us exceptionally well on the campaign.”

Barnett, a self-described devout Catholic who has seven children, has worked through the state Republican Party for “traditional values” and conservative groups, such as the California Families Coalition, he said. He is a former national political director of Citizens for the Republic, a political action committee formed in 1976 by former President Ronald Reagan, who was then former governor of California and the leading spokesman for the conservative wing of the Republican Party.

He has mostly worked quietly in the background for Republican Party candidates and interests, said Dan Schnur, a party spokesman. Barnett worked as both a volunteer and paid consultant for Wilson’s campaign, recruiting support from conservative black and religious groups.

Barnett said he expects Wilson, whose ideology is not as conservative as his own, to be a “very acceptable governor.”

“I expect Pete to go down in the record books as a proactive type of governor,” he said. “I just think he’s a prince of a guy.”

Barnett ran for the state Assembly in 1978, losing to Assemblyman Pat Nolan in the 41st District primary. But, he said, he is not interested in an appointment to Wilson’s staff.