Assembly Republicans--Wilson’s Big Frustration : Politics: He was warned about the discontented ‘obstructionists,’ the governor says, ‘but not adequately.’

They routinely are called “ideologues,” “obstructionists” and “cavemen,” and on occasion “ignoramuses” or even “orangutans.”

Gov. Pete Wilson said last week that former Gov. George Deukmejian had warned him about them, “but not adequately.”

A former top aide to Deukmejian contends that most would have a tough time holding a job in the “real world.” Wilson advisers deride many as “politically paranoid” and some as “intellectually dishonest.”

They are the Assembly Republicans. By rights, they should be the Republican governor’s strongest supporters in the Legislature. But they have been his greatest frustration, just as they came to be his predecessor’s.

They now represent the biggest roadblock to his winning passage of a budget package that he negotiated with Senate leaders--a delicately crafted compilation of tax increases and program cuts designed to erase an unprecedented $14.3-billion deficit and balance a $56.4-billion spending plan for the fiscal year beginning in less than two weeks.

Assembly Democrats put up 40 votes for the governor’s spending plan Saturday night after it had passed the Senate. It needed 54 votes. Republicans put up zero. In fact, the Assembly GOP leader, Ross Johnson of La Habra, urged his colleagues to vote against the measure.

“Gov. Wilson and his supporters have declared war on the taxpayers of California,” charged Assemblyman Tom McClintock of Thousand Oaks--not a member of the opposition party, as one might think from the rhetoric, but a fellow Republican.

What is it with these Republicans, who seem to give political independence a bad name? Basically, they are demanding fewer tax hikes, more spending cuts and substantial “structural reform” of government. One former GOP leader, Assemblyman Pat Nolan of Glendale, described it during an interview as nothing less than “a struggle for the heart and soul of California; what direction we’ll be going in during the next century.”

“We’ve had three decades of growth in state government, under Democratic and Republican governors,” Nolan complained. “And what we’ve had is failed socialism in California, like they’ve had in Eastern Europe. Government tries to educate, feed, clothe, house and medically care for our poor and does all of it poorly.”

But much more also is fanning the flames of discontent among Assembly Republicans.

They think their Republican governor has ignored them while paying heed to Democrats, who control both legislative houses. They are also very bitter about that. “We want to be listened to, we want to be taken seriously, we want to be relevant, we want respect,” said a key Republican lawmaker, echoing many of his colleagues and, like most, not wanting to be identified.

Said another of Wilson and his advisers: “They’ve ‘consulted,’ but consultation is a very elastic term. They’ve announced what they’re going to do and said ‘take it or leave it.’ There’s no partnership. Their main problem is arrogance. They don’t think we have anything valuable to offer. They’re looking for saluters--people who will snap to attention and say, ‘Yes, sir!’ ”

The Republicans are especially incensed because Wilson began his negotiating in April with a proposed $6.7-billion tax increase and not enough spending cuts, in their view. He took their votes for granted, they believe, and went after the Democrats’ votes.

This atmosphere of alienation was aggravated later by Wilson’s deal-cutting with the Senate. “The last time I checked it was still a bicameral Legislature,” Johnson remarked when asked by reporters how he felt about Assembly leaders being excluded from the negotiations.

Sen. Frank Hill (R-Whittier), who was an assemblyman before being elected to the Senate last year, said Wilson erred politically by not including Johnson and Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco) in the budget deal. “Willie and Ross are ticked off because they were cut out and not invited to the table,” Hill said.

Actually, Brown and Johnson have been barely speaking to each other--in contrast to the Senate hierarchy, where relations could not be smoother between President Pro Tem David A. Roberti (D-Los Angeles) and Republican Leader Ken Maddy of Fresno. This has handicapped the budget negotiations, many say.

Wilson until recently had been trying to negotiate a budget package with all four legislative leaders--Johnson, Brown, Roberti and Maddy. There were several private “leadership meetings” with little visible progress. At the last session, two Fridays ago, Brown showed up two hours late after a long lunch in San Francisco. He and Johnson got into a shouting bout that the governor had to quell, according to several sources.

Brown and Johnson never have gotten along and do not trust each other. For good reason. Brown and Nolan, when he was the GOP leader, had a pact: Brown let Nolan choose Republican committee members and disperse other perks in exchange for a pledge not to help Democrats who might challenge his speakership. Johnson would not agree to that. Consequently, Brown has taken away the minority leader’s ability to reward and punish fellow Republicans.

Brown also has played mischief within the Republican caucus, rewarding Johnson’s adversaries and punishing his allies. The Speaker’s aim has been to weaken Johnson’s leadership and keep the GOP off balance, Democratic insiders confide.

This has not been difficult. Assembly Republicans, in many ways, have been their own worst enemies. McClintock--described by colleagues as an ideologue’s ideologue--spent much of last year trying unsuccessfully to topple Johnson, a fellow conservative. Recently, Johnson narrowly survived another attack on his leadership by two-term Assemblyman Paul A. Woodruff of Yucaipa.

“The problem with them,” a Wilson adviser said, “is they spend half the day saying, ‘No, no, no,’ and the other half saying how much they don’t like the others in their caucus.”

There are plenty of politicians and lobbyists in and around the Capitol who routinely denigrate the Assembly GOP caucus without the members doing it themselves. The members basically are seen as too doctrinaire, uncompromising and impractical.

Another gubernatorial adviser described these Assembly members as “paranoid” in their belief that voters will rise up and throw them out of office if they support a tax increase. Several Wilson strategists characterized some as “intellectually dishonest” for opposing any tax hike while objecting to the suspension of Proposition 98, the constitutional school funding guarantee.

Wilson talked about intellectual honesty Monday in pleading with Assembly Republicans to support his budget package, which he contended “represents a little honesty and a little realism.”

The governor has come under fire from Democrats for not “playing hardball” with the Republicans and prying loose votes with gubernatorial carrots and sticks, such as bill signings, vetoes and other political favors. So far, Wilson has offered just little carrots.

“There’s a certain lack of intellectual honesty in playing hardball,” a Wilson adviser said. “How uncivilized has this Legislature become?”

Typical of Democratic attitudes about the Assembly GOP was the one expressed by Senate Majority Leader Barry Keene of Benecia, who declared Tuesday in a prepared statement that the budget is being “held hostage by cavemen ready to vote us back into the Stone Age. . . . They’re acting as if they’re from another planet. . . . They’re talking about politics and worn-out ideologies.”

Republican political consultant Doug Watts, a veteran of Capitol politics who now operates in New York, recently told the Sacramento Bee: “The orangutans in the Assembly Republican caucus are an unmanageable bunch of louts and always will be.”

At the root of the problem, many political scientists believe, is the Democratic gerrymander of legislative districts during the last reapportionment. That produced “safe” seats for incumbents of both parties and some districts very high in Republican registration. It resulted in the election of conservative ideologues who do not have to appease moderates to stay in office.

Quite understandably, the Assembly Republicans believe that they are greatly misunderstood and unappreciated. They see themselves as holding Wilson’s feet to the ideological fire, trying to keep him an honest Republican. In their view, they are the only truly relevant GOP body in the Legislature--they have 31 votes, enough to block a tax increase; there are only 13 GOP votes in the Senate, and Democrats, on most issues, can control the agenda.

“We’re the best friends (Wilson) has in the Legislature,” said one important Assembly Republican. “He’s going to need us. For one thing, we’re the only people standing in the way of a veto override.”