Hayden Treated Like a Lame Duck; Staff Fired, Post Gone

Assemblyman Tom Hayden has three months left in office, but he’s already been shown the door.

Earlier this month, Assembly Speaker Willie Brown stripped his fellow Democrat of the chairmanship of the Assembly Higher Education Committee, fired the committee staff and moved the lawmaker’s Capitol office to smaller quarters.

In a Sept. 4 letter to Hayden, Brown thanked the onetime student protest leader for his hard work on the education panel but said he was immediately relieving him of the chairman’s duties.

Hayden was taken by surprise.

“I’m the only outgoing chair of a policy committee . . . to have his staff given their unemployment notices in this manner and to have their office repossessed in this manner,” said Hayden, who is favored to win a state Senate seat in the Nov. 3 election.

Hayden said he did not know the reason for Brown’s action, but he termed it abrupt, especially for the six fired staff members. With the Legislature adjourned until December, the staff was preparing hearings on the effect of increased student fees at public colleges. The hearings were to take place this fall, before the new legislative session convenes.

Brown acknowledged that the timing was unusual, saying that during his 12 years as speaker he typically has waited until the start of a legislative session to name new committee chairmen.

But he said that this year he wants to give committee chairmen a head start, partly because the fall election will bring a bumper crop of new members unfamiliar with the legislative process.

Brown (D-San Francisco) told reporters last week that “the Hayden move was the first of the many moves that I intend to make” in replacing a handful of departing committee chairmen.

Hayden’s successor is Assemblywoman Marguerite Archie-Hudson (D-Los Angeles), a onetime Brown aide and former member of the Los Angeles Community College Board of Trustees.

Jim Lewis, Brown’s spokesman, said “she’s eminently qualified,” citing her academic credentials, including a Ph.D. in higher education administration as well as practical experience as a university administrator.

Hayden has been a persistent thorn in Brown’s side, but he would not speculate on whether the Speaker’s action was the latest manifestation of the feud between them.

However, Hayden said that at the end of the recently concluded legislative session that he tangled with Brown when he unsuccessfully sought to allow lawmakers to debate a lucrative severance pay package awarded to retiring University of California President David Gardner.

The Hayden-Brown squabble surfaced in late 1990 when Brown shifted Hayden from the chairmanship of the higher profile Labor Committee to the same post on a newly created Higher Education Committee. At the time, legislative sources said Brown acted at the urging of lawmakers who were displeased with Hayden, in part for championing “Big Green,” a sweeping environmental initiative rejected by voters.

The tension between Brown and Hayden resurfaced a year ago when Assembly Democrats approved plans to drastically redraw Hayden’s West Los Angeles district, jeopardizing his political career. However, the state Supreme Court later drew its own plan and Hayden won a three-way fight for the Democratic nomination for a new Senate district that straddles the Westside and the San Fernando Valley.

Also, for several years Hayden has criticized Brown’s appointment of Mark L. Nathanson to the California Coastal Commission. Nathanson was indicted earlier this year on federal political corruption charges. When Brown named real estate agent Diana Doo to replace Nathanson, Hayden urged the speaker to rescind that appointment too.

If Hayden wins the November election, some members of his committee staff are expected to join him in the Senate.

Hayden said he hoped that Brown will not “act vindictively toward innocent employees” and leave them unemployed for two months until they could join his Senate staff.

Bob Connelly, chief administrative officer of the Assembly Rules Committee, which handles housekeeping matters, scoffed at the suggestion that Hayden’s staff will be left jobless. Connelly said he “didn’t think there will be anyone out on the street. . . . We’ll find some way to protect them.”