NEWS ANALYSIS : Summit Boils Down to Pressure Politics, Questions of Unity

Every role was filled in the political theater that was the California economic summit: Economists spread woe, advocates pleaded for money, legislators nodded understandingly, all of them arrayed before a multi-television screened set that bespoke an interest in the future.

On the surface, the summit that ended Wednesday underscored areas of agreement between Gov. Pete Wilson and the Legislature. But it did little to illuminate any new areas of compromise between two parties who spent the last year in a nasty, mutually destructive war.

The summit boiled down to a more high-tech but not exactly subtle form of pressure politics, raising questions about how much unity lies beneath the conciliatory tone.

Many Democrats suggested that the highly publicized forum would put pressure on the Republican governor to compromise in upcoming budget negotiations.

Their Republican counterparts, happy to lay responsibility for the conference at the feet of Speaker Willie Brown, suggested that the summit could instead force the Democrat-controlled Legislature to give a little.

Some, indeed, were optimistic that both were right and that public curiosity raised by the summit would lead to public pressure for substantive results.

“It puts more pressure on all of us,” state Controller Gray Davis told reporters. “We haven’t done anything yet. . . . Our job now is to implement these ideas and break the deadlock. If we don’t do that, we will just have wasted everyone’s time.”

However wide-ranging the discussions during the 18 hours of summitry, the conference was suffused with a sense of disconnectedness. For starters, it was the first bipartisan gathering of its kind, yet it came in the third year of a recession that has ravaged the economy and the psyche of California.

At times, the conferees overlooked current problems in their quest for future solutions. There were broad demands, for example, for more spending on education, job training and business enticements.

But there was little discussion of how the state will meet its most pressing economic problem--the yawning budget deficit that by summer is expected to near $10 billion.

Adding to the air of unreality--yet prompting hope on the part of many participants--were the friendly public offerings by the two political principals, Gov. Wilson and Speaker Brown.

Brown, who clashed with the governor time and time again last year and whose party is yearning to replace him with one of its own in 1994, introduced Wilson on Tuesday morning in glowing terms.

“We are indeed blessed with extraordinary leadership at the gubernatorial level,” Brown said.

Wilson returned the favor, at one point interrupting his remarks to express his “personal gratitude” to Brown for working with Republicans to pressure the federal government to repay state expenses for immigrants.

But unity is easier to maintain in a forum discussing long-term economic proposals than in the heated and partisan negotiations over a new budget, particularly in deficit-ridden times.

On paper, both Wilson and Brown stand to suffer if the summit fails to spawn new economic proposals. But in truth it is Wilson who could suffer most from another year of deadlock, since it is he who will face the state’s voters in 1994.

The governor went out of his way to limit that risk, distancing himself from the summit both physically and politically. He opened the conference with a speech and stayed less than three hours.

The governor’s press secretary, Dan Schnur, underscored Wilson’s belief that any negative fallout from the summit will deposit itself on Brown.

“Willie Brown is the sponsor of this summit,” said Schnur, noting that Brown turned aside suggestions that the conference be co-sponsored by the governor and the state Senate. “It’s very courageous for him to take on the responsibility, but it’s clearly his.”

Legislators looking for signs that Wilson would be willing to bend in upcoming budget wrangles were limited to interpreting nuances. One lawmaker took heart from two lines in Wilson’s speech, in which he praised an economic plan engineered by Assemblyman John Vasconcellos (D-Santa Clara).

The governor urged legislators to move quickly to institute tax incentives for business, particularly those that have won support from both parties. But he did not indicate pending compromises on thorny issues such as workers’ compensation reform and the grave budget cuts expected this year.

All told, however, Wilson did infuse his remarks with more optimism than he displayed last year when he spent much of his time spreading a gloomy assessment of the state’s future. The conference, he said, could be the beginning of “the great California comeback.”

“If we have real action, then California can have the magnificent future that it deserves, the future I’m confident it will have,” he added.

But while Wilson indicated the moves should come from the Legislature, many Democrats clearly believed that it is Wilson who should bend, if only to give himself a more statesman-like mien going into the 1994 gubernatorial election.

“This year, it’s incumbent upon him to produce something and incumbent among us as well,” said Vasconcellos, chairman of the Assembly Ways and Means Committee. “It seems to me if his advisers are at all smart they’re going to say get something done this year and go out (in 1994) with a record.”

Wilson’s political opponents were never far from the camera’s eye during the two-day summit.

State Treasurer Kathleen Brown, who is pondering a run for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in 1994, challenged business leaders to care as much about education and children as they do about issues like reform of the workers’ compensation system.

“The most important infrastructure in our state is our people,” she said. “It’s our kids and it’s our workers.”

State Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi, who may also mount a challenge in the Democratic primary for governor, repeated his call for comprehensive reform of the state’s insurance industry.

Controller Davis, considering a bid for lieutenant governor in 1994, struck the most partisan tone when he pointedly assailed the past Republican policies.

“The approach in the ‘80s did not lift all boats,” he said.

But more than one of the business leaders at the summit suggested that all of the state’s leaders, regardless of party, run the risk of angering the electorate if the summit has few tangible results.

“One of the solutions (is) to forget whether you’re Democrats or Republicans and to find a way to work together,” said Wilford Godbold, a businessman, in remarks directed to all of the elected participants.

“What we need is to have you depolarized . . . and be one entity. It’s naive but it’s the way to go and it’ll save California.”