CAPITOL JOURNAL : Public Gets a Peek at GOP Back-Room Spat

An internal Republican leadership fight and a spat between the Republican leader and Assembly Speaker Willie Brown provided a rare glimpse Monday behind the invisible curtain that usually separates the public from what is really going on in the Legislature.

What emerged was a picture of back-room plotting and what appeared to be vote-trading, and of a curious, cross-party friendship between the liberal Democratic Speaker and a Republican assemblywoman from the conservative suburbs on the Los Angeles-Ventura county line.

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 attempts since he assumed the post in 1988, and 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 attempting to remove the GOP leader.

But this time, Harvey, who had been expected to support Yucaipa Assemblyman Paul Woodruff, sided with Johnson when the vote was taken in a private meeting 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, 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.

In order to appoint Harvey to the Rules Committee, the Republicans had to remove one of their four members. The natural choice to be sacrificed was Assemblywoman Cathie Wright of Simi Valley, 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 is usually a formality, this was an unusual day.

Wright, the intended victim, has a special relationship with 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.

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. Brown denied doing anything improper.

So when Republicans asked Brown and his Democrats to ratify their decision to dump Wright, Brown refused. 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. Don’t do that to us.”

During the debate, Brown revealed that Johnson and four members of his leadership team had gone 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.”

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.

That left the Rules Committee as the last place where Republicans could exert some internal discretion.

Now Brown has signaled that, once appointed, no one will be forced from the committee without his consent.

Brown, Johnson said, is “reasserting his domination of the process, his ability to control the process.”