Brown Helps Wright Prevail in GOP Feud : Politics: The Simi Valley assemblywoman keeps a coveted committee seat. The Democratic speaker shows his power.

SACRAMENTO — Simi Valley Assemblywoman Cathie Wright on Monday found herself at the center of a Republican leadership fight and may have been saved from losing her seat on the powerful Rules Committee by liberal Assembly Speaker Willie Brown.

The scenario provided a rare glimpse behind the invisible curtain that usually separates the public from what is really going on in the Legislature.

The occasion was yet another futile attempt by disgruntled members of the Assembly’s Republican Caucus to overthrow their leader, Ross Johnson of La Habra. The dispute is not based on philosophical differences as much as it is on Johnson’s style, which the dissidents consider autocratic.

Johnson has turned back at least three of these coups, including one that sought to install Wright in his place, since he assumed the post in 1988. This time, he survived by a single vote. The Republicans voted 16 to 15 to keep Johnson atop their heap, which now stands at 31 to the Democrats’ 47. There are two vacancies.

The swing vote that kept Johnson in power came from Bakersfield Republican Trice Harvey. Harvey has criticized Johnson in the past and as recently as December voted for another of the failed plotters in the last official attempt to remove the GOP leader.

But this time, Harvey, who had been expected to support Yucaipa Assemblyman Paul Woodruff, sided with Johnson in a private meeting held down the hall from the Assembly chambers.

At the same closed session, the Republicans who backed Johnson voted to name Harvey to the powerful Rules Committee, replacing Wright on the nine-member panel that decides which committees will hear which bills, settles internal disputes and votes on perks for the membership.

Harvey flatly denied that he changed his vote in exchange for the plum committee assignment. But the back-bencher’s conversion from rebel to loyalist on the eve of his selection to an influential position left other members of the Assembly wondering if a deal had been done.

“It’s kind of funny the way things work out, isn’t it?” noted one Republican.

If there was a deal, it quickly unraveled.

To appoint Harvey to the Rules Committee, the Republicans had to remove one of their four members. The natural choice to be sacrificed was Wright, a former Johnson ally who broke ranks and earlier this year tried to seize the top job for herself.

Wright refused to resign, so the Republicans’ internal decision had to be ratified by the full Assembly. Although that’s usually a formality, this was an unusual day.

Wright, the intended victim, has a special relationship with Speaker Brown. In 1988, when Brown’s decade-long grip on the speakership was threatened, Wright abstained rather than join her Republican colleagues in voting for an alternative candidate.

In the wake of that abstention, former Assemblywoman Marian W. La Follette (R-Northridge) unsuccessfully sought to oust Wright from the same spot on the Rules Committee.

Later it was disclosed that Brown had called a Ventura County judge on behalf of Wright’s daughter, Victoria, who was facing jail time after receiving 27 traffic tickets.

On Monday, when Republicans asked Brown and his Democrats to ratify their decision to dump Wright, Brown again refused to join in the effort. If Wright wasn’t willing to resign her seat on the panel, he said, the Democrats were not going to push her out.

“I don’t want this house involved in your internecine warfare,” Brown said. “You have a problem in your Republican Caucus. What I don’t want to get involved in is disciplining members of your caucus using Democratic votes.”

During the debate, Brown revealed that Johnson and four members of his leadership team had come to his office last week to ask him to help them fire Wright. He said he told them that he would not go along.

Johnson characterized the meeting differently. The Republican said he merely told Brown what he intended to do and asked for his reaction.

According to Johnson, Brown replied: “Cathie Wright is a good friend. I’m going to see to it that she stays on that committee.”

“Under the circumstances,” Johnson said, “if she were a person of any real integrity and principle, she would resign.”

In an interview, a defiant Wright said she was asked to resign on Monday morning. But, she said, “I have no reason to resign. I think I’m doing a good job.”

Wright said the Republican leadership had “to have somebody to punish as a whipping boy, and of course they chose to use me.” She said there has been dissension in the GOP caucus over the top leadership.

Wright said Brown is “not keeping me on this committee. If you want to characterize it that way, you can. I would characterize it that the members on the floor voted in favor of me because I do a good job on Rules.”

Johnson said the incident shows just how powerful Brown can be. Although the speaker allowed Johnson’s predecessor as Republican leader to choose the GOP members of the Assembly’s policy-making committees, Brown began naming all the members himself when Johnson assumed the top Republican post.

Times staff writer Mark Gladstone in Sacramento contributed to this story.