Wilson Names Deukmejian Veterans to Top Staff Jobs : Politics: Only one newcomer is among seven appointments of key executive aides.

Gov.-elect Pete Wilson, who campaigned as a candidate for change, on Tuesday named six Deukmejian Administration veterans and one newcomer to top jobs on his executive staff.

Among the five men and two women Wilson appointed were the aides who will help him pick judges, choose political appointees and lobby the Legislature.

The seven will join Wilson’s longtime chief of staff, Bob White, and a handful of other top aides who were named shortly after the Nov. 6 election. Wilson has about 10 more jobs to fill in his inner circle, as well as more than two dozen cabinet secretaries and department directors to name.

The only newcomer in the group named Tuesday is Mark Davis, who will leave a speech-writing job with President Bush to become Wilson’s chief speech writer and solicit ideas from California’s universities and private policy think tanks. His job will be director of writing and research.

The others on the list are:

* Janice Rogers Brown, legal affairs secretary. Brown has worked for the Legislature and the state Department of Justice and was deputy secretary of Business, Transportation and Housing under Gov. George Deukmejian. Most recent, she worked for a Sacramento law firm that includes among its partners Steven Merksamer, Deukmejian’s former chief of staff.

* Allan Zaremberg, legislative secretary. Zaremberg has worked for Deukmejian for 10 years, first as his legislative representative when he was attorney general, then as deputy legislative secretary in the governor’s office and finally in the top job.

* Maureen Higgins, deputy legislative affairs secretary. Higgins is now Deukmejian’s director of housing and community development. She worked in Deukmejian’s legislative unit from 1983 to 1988.

* Terrance Flanigan, appointments secretary. Flanigan has known Wilson since he was a deputy city attorney and Wilson was mayor of San Diego. Before becoming Deukmejian’s appointments director in 1988, Flanigan was a deputy in that office and a lobbyist for the California State Bar and the California Manufacturers Assn.

* Chuck Poochigian, chief deputy appointments secretary. Appointed by Deukmejian to a seat on the state Fair Employment and Housing Commission, Poochigian has been deputy appointments secretary since 1988. Before that, he was a lawyer in private practice in Fresno.

* David Caffrey, deputy chief of staff for administration. Caffrey, who has been an aide to Deukmejian since his days as attorney general, is now the governor’s Cabinet secretary.

Wilson’s press secretary, Bill Livingstone, said the governor-elect chose several Deukmejian aides for his Administration to take advantage of their expertise. Livingstone said Wilson may give his assistants different marching orders than they have had under his predecessor.

“Wilson has a different style,” Livingstone said. “It is going to be Wilson’s agenda that these individuals are supporting.”

Livingstone said Flanigan’s knowledge of the process will enable Wilson to move “much more quickly” to make the appointments needed to get the government running “at full speed.”

Despite Deukmejian’s reputation for not getting along with the Legislature, Livingstone predicted that the chief legislative liaison, Zaremberg, will be a valuable asset.

“He is very familiar with the individuals in the Legislature and will have the ability to communicate the views of the Legislature to Wilson and vice versa,” Livingstone said.