Little Political Gain Seen for Governor

Gov. Pete Wilson’s veto of legislation that would have outlawed job discrimination against homosexuals sparked the rage of gay rights advocates Monday but apparently did little to boost his sagging stock among the Republican right.

The consensus of activists on both sides of the issue, as well as that of relatively neutral political strategists, was that the governor probably alienated the homosexual community forever but cut his losses among GOP conservatives who already were angry at his tax increases.

“I don’t know if there is anything he can do to help himself with the right wing, but this might stop the bleeding,” said attorney Steven A. Merksamer, who as Gov. George Deukmejian’s first chief of staff was deeply involved in Deukmejian’s veto of a similar bill. “We devoted more time and energy to that bill than any other measure,” Merksamer recalled.

Howard Phillips, chairman of the Virginia-based Conservative Caucus and a veteran of national politics, said that if Wilson had signed the bill “he would have been an absolute dead duck” in any campaign for the Republican presidential nomination. Wilson, as governor of the nation’s biggest state, is regarded by many as a presidential prospect for 1996.

“He would not even have gotten into the ballpark, let alone in the ballgame,” Phillips said. “The homosexual agenda is just a non-starter with the grass-roots (Republicans) and rank-and-file contributors.”

“At the same time,” Phillips added, “Wilson has not solved his problems with conservatives by any stretch of the imagination. Many of the people in the pro-family wing of the party have been unhappy with his position (in support of) abortion. But the big bomb he has to carry around his neck is his tax and spending policies. Even people who don’t buy the pro-family agenda don’t buy taxes.” Wilson supported roughly $7 billion in tax increases as part of a plan to eliminate a staggering state budget deficit.

But there was another view that Wilson--given his unpopularity among right-wingers--missed an opportunity to enhance his national image as a progressive, New Age Republican--a “creative conservative,” as the governor has dubbed himself.

“A lot of people who saw him as an enlightened Republican are going to be disappointed,” said William Schneider, a political analyst with the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. “He seems to be caving into the right. And an awful lot of people thought he was getting set to take on the right. He could have been the knight in shining armor, the guy who purged the loonies from the Republican Party.

“This looks like too much of a political calculation and a lot of people expected a lot more.”

The governor’s office flatly denied that there were political motives in Wilson’s veto on Sunday. In his veto message, which aides said the governor crafted himself, Wilson asserted that he rejected the measure because it could have burdened the business community with unnecessary lawsuits. He contended that there are enough laws on the books to protect homosexuals from job discrimination.

Wilson on Monday telephoned a leading gay activist Republican to explain why he vetoed the bill. Frank Ricchiazzi, executive director of the Log Cabin Political Action Committee of California--a GOP homosexual organization--said the governor convinced him that he vetoed the measure based on what he perceived to be the merits of the issue, not the politics.

“But I’m extremely disappointed,” Ricchiazzi said. “And I was very surprised.”

Nationally, gay rights advocates were not as generous toward the governor.

“We saw Wilson as a potential presidential candidate and we would have loved to have worked for him. That is not going to happen now,” said Rich Tafel of Boston, national president of the Log Cabin Federation of Republicans. “He has jumped in bed with the religious right and he is going to find they are not good bedfellows. He sold out the gay Republicans in California. I’ve talked to a lot of people and there is incredible anger.”

Tom McFeeley, executive director of the Washington-based Human Rights Campaign Fund, which claims to be the nation’s largest lesbian and gay organization, called Wilson’s veto “an unconscionable act of political cowardice.”

Robert Bray, public information director for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, reported that there was a spontaneous anti-Wilson demonstration by approximately 50 homosexuals in the Hall of States of the nation’s Capitol when word of the veto reached Washington on Sunday night.

“In the long run, there’s real doubt he has picked up any points with the extremist elements of his party, or even the moderate elements,” Bray said. “And he certainly has alienated the gay and lesbian and progressive communities.”

Mike Schroeder of Santa Ana, president of the conservative California Republican Assembly, said the veto means “politically very little.” He added, “I don’t think the governor has helped himself at all in terms of his relations with conservatives. Taxes are the No. 1 issue on the minds of the conservatives and the voters.”

Assemblyman Tom McClintock (R-Thousand Oaks), one of the governor’s harshest critics in the Legislature, said that “as a fiscal conservative, the (anti-discrimination) bill is a relatively minor issue compared with the unbearable burden which Wilson has imposed on this economy.”

But although GOP conservatives on Monday were downplaying the significance of the vetoed bill, the message two weeks ago was far different from the Republican state convention in Anaheim. Delegates there adopted a resolution demanding that Wilson reject the bill, calling it “anti-family.”

U.S. Sen. John Seymour, who had announced his opposition to the bill one day before Wilson vetoed it, predicted that both he and the governor will suffer a net loss of political support. Seymour, Wilson’s hand-picked successor as senator, said he expects gay Republicans to cut back on their campaign contributions and votes.

“It’s going to have a negative impact, I suspect,” said the senator, who is up for election next year. Seymour agreed with the thesis that neither he nor the governor--both regarded as moderates on social issues--are likely to gain much ground with conservatives. “That group is going to demand one litmus test after another,” he lamented.

One outspoken leader of the religious right was happy with Wilson’s veto but angry at his veto message. The Rev. Louis P. Sheldon, chairman of Traditional Values, took offense at the governor’s denunciation of the “abhorrent excesses” of a “tiny minority of mean-spirited, gay-bashing bigots” who vehemently opposed the legislation. The clergyman said the governor owed an apology to religious and Republican leaders “for his ill-chosen words.”

Meanwhile, Wilson apparently lost an important Democratic ally in the Legislature, Assembly Ways and Means Committee Chairman John Vasconcellos of Santa Clara. Vasconcellos, a strong supporter of gay rights, had been the Capitol’s No. 1 Democratic cheerleader for the new governor. But on Monday, he wrote Wilson a letter charging that he had “forfeited . . . moral leadership and any right to expect anything positive from me.”

“The only real reasons that could have moved you are cowardice (fear of the fundamentalist right) or avarice (your own political ambition),” Vasconcellos wrote the governor.

Wilson decided to quickly announce his veto on Sunday after learning that the California Poll, directed by Mervin Field, planned to shortly release poll results on the issue. The governor did not want people to think he had been influenced by public opinion. Ironically, the poll showed that 62% of Californians wanted Wilson to sign the bill and 29% thought he should veto it. Among Republicans, the measure was supported by 53% to 36%. Only “strongly conservative” Republicans opposed the measure, by 62% to 25%.

Times political writer Cathleen Decker contributed to this story.