Underneath It All, ‘Fires Still Burn’ for McCarthy : Politics: Race represents a capstone to career, chance to set to rest his long-held desire to serve in U.S. Senate.

The issue was whether the UC Board of Regents would approve a 24% fee increase for the next academic year, and Lt. Gov. Leo T. McCarthy found himself on the losing end of a 20-to-1 vote.

With most of the regents convinced the fee hike was necessary because of budget problems, the issue was never really in doubt. But it posed a more personal question for McCarthy. Could McCarthy, at 61 and campaigning for the U.S. Senate, his fifth statewide race in the last 10 years, still get excited at such things?

“You bet,” McCarthy snapped at an interviewer who raised the question. “Underneath, the fires still burn.”

Frequently described as controlled and bland, despite a political career of almost uninterrupted conflict, McCarthy got highly emotional just thinking about the regents’ vote last month. His bright blue eyes and gravelly deep voice alternated between anger and compassion as he talked first about the regents and then the students.

McCarthy called the regents “detached,” and said they considered problems of the students “abstractions.”

“Read those,” he said, pointing at about 400 letters neatly stacked in four bundles on his desk. The handwritten letters contained pleas by students and McCarthy hears a touching, human voice behind each one.

The veteran Democrat said that each time he gets embroiled in a fight on behalf of a relatively powerless group he feels a sense of renewal, a rediscovery of the intense Irish-Catholic kid who grew up in San Francisco’s Mission District with an appetite for political combat that enabled him to jump from a seat on the local Board of Supervisors to Speaker of the state Assembly in just over six years.

“I’ve never backed off a good fight,” said the veteran officeholder, who is in the thick of another one as he campaigns for the Senate seat held by incumbent Sen. Alan Cranston, a fellow Democrat who is retiring.

McCarthy finds himself at the top of early public opinion polls, leading his two primary opponents--Rep. Barbara Boxer, from Marin County, and Rep. Mel Levine, who represents parts of West Los Angeles and beach communities in Congress.

But both Boxer and Levine, helped by their positions in Congress, have been raising more money than McCarthy, and no one is predicting an easy race.

As the lopsided vote on the student fees indicates, McCarthy is a long way from being the political presence he was as Assembly Speaker during the 1970s when he made his political reputation.

For McCarthy, the race for Cranston’s seat represents both a capstone to his career and a chance to finally set to rest, one way or the other, his longstanding desire to win a seat in the Senate.

McCarthy almost ran for the Senate in 1982, but he said he was still recovering from losing a bitter fight for the speakership of the Assembly and decided that he would run for lieutenant governor instead.

Beginning a succession of statewide races, McCarthy won his first term as lieutenant governor in 1982, and a second in 1986, defeating Mike Curb, a former lieutenant governor and recording industry figure. Then, unable to shake his desire to run for the U.S. Senate, McCarthy challenged then-incumbent Pete Wilson in 1988 and lost decisively.

Just two years later, he was reelected lieutenant governor, becoming the first Californian to win three terms to the office.

The lieutenant governor’s job is the least powerful of the state constitutional offices, an office considered so useless that critics periodically say it ought to be eliminated. The office basically exists to provide an independently elected official to fill a vacancy in the governor’s office should one occur or to fill in for the governor when he is out of the state. Though the office carries with it the lofty sounding title of president of the Senate, the lieutenant governor can only cast a vote in the case of ties, which hasn’t happened since McCarthy has held the post.

McCarthy contends he has made the most of the job by each year sponsoring a number of bills that allow him to draw on his legislative experience.

He also said he has used the lieutenant governor’s seat on the three-member State Lands Commission, which oversees management of millions of acres of state-owned land, including offshore oil leases, to pursue policies that have effectively balanced environmental concerns with a need to provide for business development and growth. In addition to being a UC regent, the lieutenant governor also serves on the Board of Trustees of the California State University system.

Among the bills McCarthy currently is sponsoring or actively supporting is legislation to stiffen penalties for persons convicted of hate crimes; a bill that would allow the state to turn alien felons serving sentences in California prisons over to federal authorities or even be deported to their native countries, and several measures that would provide tax breaks and financial benefits to companies creating jobs in California.

Already signed has been a bill to reduce the environmental and economic impact on California in case of a major oil spill and another bill establishing protections for residents of nursing homes.

“The stuff I’ve done as lieutenant governor has been imaginative and very useful. We come up with three or four good projects a year. We have succeeded unlike any other lieutenant governor in terms of getting more bills signed into law,” McCarthy said.

Even so, his “projects” don’t come close to the legislative agenda that filled his plate when he served as Speaker and was a key player in forging some of the most important legislation of that era.

McCarthy took the speakership in 1974 after a fierce power struggle with Assemblyman Willie Brown, another San Francisco Democrat, and held it until he was forced to surrender it to Brown in 1980 after a long leadership battle with Howard Berman, then an assemblyman and now a member of Congress. Brown emerged as a compromise candidate.

As Speaker, McCarthy was a central figure in the successful fight to block efforts to construct a huge liquefied natural gas facility in Southern California. He became the point man for opposition to Proposition 13, the landmark property tax-reduction initiative. He fought then-Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr.’s efforts to cut welfare benefits for the aged, blind and disabled and against Brown’s proposal for a balanced budget amendment.

Before he became Speaker, McCarthy’s first major legislative effort, which earned him a legislator-of-the-year award from a top environmental group, was to tighten restrictions on housing developments in rural areas.

“That was an absolutely great fight--one of the most enjoyable fights I ever had,” McCarthy said of the rural housing legislation.

In speeches, McCarthy frequently refers to his years as the top legislator in the Assembly.

Addressing several hundred members of the League of Conservation Voters in Sacramento last month, McCarthy reminded the audience of his efforts as a member of the State Lands Commission to protect the California coastline from offshore oil drilling, safeguard wetlands areas in Orange County against commercial development, and the commission’s joining in the fight to save Mono Lake.

Then he brought the discussion around to his experience as Speaker.

“I not only have deep convictions about the issues that you devote so many of your private hours to . . . I have the innate ability that I demonstrated as Speaker of the Assembly, time and time again, to translate those convictions into policy, to go get the votes necessary, and to play hardball when it’s necessary to pull together coalitions that are necessary to make things happen,” he said.

During an interview, McCarthy said he still considers himself a legislator. “I love it,” he said. “I love the whole challenge of being able to come up with something to deal with a bad economy, or a bad school system, or a dirty environment.”

As might be expected, McCarthy has made his share of enemies over the years.

A naturalized American, Leo Tarsicius McCarthy was born in Auckland, New Zealand, the youngest of four brothers, and moved to San Francisco with his family when he was 3. His Irish-born father owned several bars and restaurants.

After a stint in the Air Force during the 1950s, McCarthy returned home, got a degree at the Jesuit-run University of San Francisco and married his college sweetheart, Jackie Burke.

McCarthy got his start in politics as a member of a group of Irish-Catholic Democratic politicians in San Francisco that included the late Sen. Eugene McAteer, his early mentor, and John Foran, a onetime law partner who served with McCarthy in the Assembly and is now a lobbyist in the capital.

During the 1960s, the McAteer-McCarthy-Foran faction fought for political power in the Democratic Party against a powerful group of rivals headed by two San Francisco political legends, both now dead: onetime Mayor George Moscone and Rep. Phillip Burton.

In a hard-fought race still remembered in San Francisco political circles for its hostility, McCarthy challenged Moscone for a seat in the state Senate in 1966 and lost.

A longtime adversary, Assemblyman John Burton (D-San Francisco), Phillip Burton’s brother, said McCarthy became Speaker by becoming “the young voice for what then was the old guard.”

One of the old guard in the Assembly, current state Sen. Daniel E. Boatwright (D-Concord), said he broke with McCarthy many years ago. “Somewhere along the line, I think ambition got in the way of everything else,” Boatwright said of McCarthy during a recent interview.

Foran, a teen-age chum who remains a friend, remembers that even in high school McCarthy was intensely interested in politics. Foran said McCarthy and Phillip Burton were more obsessed with politics than anyone else he has ever known.

“Whenever the phone rang at 3 a.m., I knew it could only be one of two people: Leo or Phil (Burton), wanting to talk politics,” Foran said.

For his part, McCarthy contends that he carries very few hard feelings from those days. His two opponents both have ties to old opponents. Barbara Boxer was once an aide to John Burton, and Levine draws heavy political support from Rep. Berman, who helped oust McCarthy as Speaker. But McCarthy professes to carry no grudges.

“Distant, past battles are best forgotten. You absolutely have to do that. Your spirit needs to be fresh. You can’t be poisoned by those things,” he said.

Both friends and foes say the only thing more important than politics to McCarthy is his family.

McCarthy, throughout his career, has insisted on being home every night, a practice he continues even now, even though his four children are grown and living on their own. He and Jackie McCarthy have been married 36 years, and have lived in the same house in San Francisco for the last 25 years.

Whether it was during a reelection campaign or negotiations on important legislation when he was Speaker, Jackie McCarthy said, “If you are married, you come home at night.”

Furthermore, Jackie said that once her husband arrived home, she would allow no discussion of politics at the dinner table. “We didn’t allow politics in the house,” she said. She said the results proved her right. “If you met our children, you would see that they are quite normal and wonderful.”

Despite McCarthy’s longtime interest in the Senate, both husband and wife agreed that Jackie McCarthy had veto power over the race. “If I didn’t wish him in politics, he would be out of it tomorrow,” she declared.

In McCarthy’s view, the central issue in the Senate race will be the economy. He does not think his opposition to the U.S. invasion of Iraq will be a factor. McCarthy was among those who favored continued use of economic sanctions in an effort to get Iraq out of Kuwait.

McCarthy began his race by unveiling a relatively detailed proposal to get the state and the nation out of the current recession. The plan laid out concrete proposals for middle-class tax cuts, investment tax credits, financial incentives for employers, and even a cut in financial aid payments for welfare recipients who move here from other states.

“Voters are worried about the deep recession we are in. They are worried about whether they will still have their jobs, about whether their business is going to stay open,” he said.

He believes that with the end of the Cold War and a general lessening of international tensions, the United States should dramatically reduce its military presence in Europe, Japan and Korea, saying that the savings from these reductions could finance the tax cuts.

McCarthy recently angered some fellow liberals by supporting one element of Wilson’s welfare reduction plan, the proposal to reduce benefits for welfare recipients moving into California from other states. Some believe McCarthy, a longtime supporter of welfare programs, did it to defuse a potentially troublesome issue.

Said one McCarthy observer, who requested anonymity: “I really don’t believe Leo McCarthy believes it is going to solve any problem other than his political problem.”

McCarthy bristles at such criticism. He said he opposes all other elements of the governor’s welfare initiative, and contends it was dreamed up to take attention away from the economy.

“The governor is throwing some raw meat out there in the hope that a deeply concerned middle class, many members of which are losing their jobs, are going to be distracted,” McCarthy said.

Given such differences with the governor, McCarthy sometimes is asked whether he is bothered by the fact that Wilson would appoint his successor if he is elected to the Senate. Not at all, he said. “I could accomplish so much more there than here,” he said thinking of his possible return. “The making of laws is what it is all about.”

Profile: Leo T. McCarthy

Leo T. McCarthy is seeking the Democratic nomination for a six-year term in the U.S. Senate, the California seat held by Sen. Alan Cranston, who is retiring. Born: Aug. 15, 1930, Auckland, New Zealand. Hometown: San Francisco Education: University of San Francisco, San Francisco Law School Career highlights: After discharge from Air Force in 1952, attended University of San Francisco. Worked as legislative aide to late Sen. Eugene McAteer, attended law school, 1959-63. Served as elected member of San Francisco Board of Supervisors, 1963-1968. Served in state Assembly from 1969-82; Assembly Speaker, 1974-1980. Elected lieutenant governor, 1982, reelected 1984 and 1990. Family: Wife, Jacqueline Burke McCarthy; children, Sharon, Conna, Adam and Niall.