NEWS ANALYSIS : With Victory, Wilson Looks Toward Election

In the bunker atmosphere of the state Capitol in recent days, the joke among legislators was that the Democrats were like the Iraqi army, wandering all over the Assembly floor looking for someone to surrender to.

But Gov. Pete Wilson wasn’t taking any prisoners. There would be no recognition of a white flag until he had squeezed every possible concession from Democrats seeking more money for public schools.

“We’ve tried to surrender four or five times,” complained Michael Galizio, Speaker Willie Brown’s chief of staff, as he stood in the back of the Assembly chamber Monday night. Added Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sylmar), “We’ve been surrendering for weeks. But he’s wanted a flat-out, all-or-nothing victory.”

Finally, in the wee hours Tuesday, a Wilson aide informed the Speaker’s office that the governor would be receptive to a telephone call to discuss the conditions of surrender. Brown called and asked Wilson what it would take for a cease fire. The result was passage about 24 hours later--on the state’s 64th day without a budget--of an education bill that contained only relatively minor concessions to Democrats and public schools.

After the budget-signing, Wilson tried not to gloat. There would be no formal declaration of victory, only a subtle observation that “I achieved what I set out to achieve: no new taxes, no deficit spending . . . . I am content with the result. I am not content with the fact it took 2 1/2 months.”

But then on Wednesday, the Republican governor called another press conference and showed how he hopes to turn his victory over the Legislature into further victory in the November election. He declared: “Never, never again should Sacramento put the people of California through this kind of budget hell.” And it never will, he contended, if in November the voters pass Proposition 165, the initiative he has sponsored to cut welfare benefits and give him and future governors broad new power over state spending when budgets are not passed on time.

This was the first illustration of how Wilson could use the costly budget stalemate as a campaign weapon.

As for the present, Wilson noted, those on the short end of spending cuts “probably view themselves as having lost” the budget battle. But he chose to focus on the flip side. “The public is a winner in the sense that something much worse has been avoided,” he contended, referring to the dodging of deficits and a statewide tax increase--although taxes may have to be raised on the local level.

And answering a common accusation among legislators of both parties--that he greatly contributed to the gridlock by being too inflexible--Wilson said: “If you’re saying that I was stubborn about no new taxes and no deficit spending, you are absolutely right. I have been and will be. . . . “

And, yes, the governor agreed--as he also had recently in an interview with The Times--the nearly $8 billion in tax increases he approved last year was “a mistake . . . no question about it.”

In post-mortems this week, key legislators and education lobbyists had their own opinions about Wilson’s handling of the budget negotiations and his attitude toward schools.

Conservative Assemblyman Ross Johnson (R-Fullerton), who Wilson helped push aside as Republican Assembly leader last year, said bitterly of the governor during the final floor debate Tuesday night: “He thinks he has become tough. All he has become is mean. . . . He says he’s interested in reform, but virtually all the reform is cutting the level of support.”

Another conservative, who declined to be identified, told a reporter: “I don’t think he hates schools. The reality is he’s out picking fights because he’s had such an image of a wimp.”

Assembly Education Committee Chairwoman Delaine Eastin (D-Fremont), a former community college teacher and a fifth-generation Californian, contended: “He didn’t come out of our public school system so I don’t think he is especially loyal to it.”

Wilson grew up around St. Louis, attending a public elementary school and a private high school. Then he went to Yale University and wound up at UC Berkeley law school. “I spent about as much time in public schools as private,” the governor said in an interview. “I had a great experience (in both).” Did his private schooling make him any less supportive of public schools? “Of course not,” he said.

But Wilson did admit to hostility toward the California Teachers Assn., one of the biggest financial supporters of Democratic candidates, including his own 1990 opponent, Dianne Feinstein.

“I have it in for them because they are opposed to doing what is necessary to improve education,” he asserted. “They fight any kind of accountability. They fight merit pay. They are stout defenders of mediocrity. They go beyond egalitarianism.”

It is hard to get Wilson off the subject once he begins.

“The tragedy is that the performance on the part of the schools is very erratic,” he continued. “There is some superb education going on in California. There are dedicated teachers, wonderful people who do a superb job of teaching. And there are those who are doing a very, very mediocre job.”

He added, “We have treated schools so infinitely better than anybody else. But there is no satisfying (State Supt. of Public Instruction Bill) Honig. There’s no satisfying the CTA. They are being held essentially even (in dollars). Everybody else has taken deep cuts, except prisons.”

But Barbara Howard, chief lobbyist for the California School Employees Assn., charged Wednesday that “the governor targeted education from Day 1 and he aimed his arrow right at our heart.”

Robert Wells, lobbyist for the California Assn. of School Administrators, said: “I think all of us have been surprised at just how tough the governor is. He was willing to risk everything. I don’t know that we were willing to go the whole school year without a budget.”

Added Patrick McCallum of the Faculty Assn. of California Community Colleges: “The idea was to break Willie Brown, Assembly Democrats, break the (education) coalition.”

“No one knew when we started this battle that the governor would be so intransigent and really attempt to hurt the noncombatants--the blind, the disabled, the little children and the people who want a higher education,” asserted Judy Michaels, lobbyist for the California Federation of Teachers.

But Wilson was staunchly defended by his chief legislative ally, Senate Republican Leader Ken Maddy of Fresno. “He was really hamstrung,” Maddy said. “We literally ran out of those smoke and mirrors, those little gimmicks we have used to balance the budget.

“He couldn’t give anything. There wasn’t anything to give, unless he went to taxes.”

Asked why it was that a governor could not lead the Legislature into a budget agreement as California suffered from the Capitol’s political gridlock, Wilson replied: “The governor does not control the Legislature. If he did, we would have had a budget in March.”

And the governor, who for months had been bitterly critical of Brown, portraying him as an obstructionist for not capitulating to the inevitable, added that “in fairness” to all legislative leaders, they could not dictate to their flocks. “The caucus of each leader was hardly monolithic,” he said. “If there had been just the five of us, there would have been no problem.”

But there are many in the Capitol who believe that Wilson’s mistrust of Brown and the schools coalition he was fighting for actually blinded the governor to the victory that several weeks ago had become his for the taking. “He could have closed this a long time ago,” contended Assemblywoman Eastin.

Times staff writer Dan Morain also contributed to this article.