O.C.’s Bergeson, a Political Battler, Enters a New Arena

It’s the sort of stuff that can send many a politician plummeting. Back in 1990, state Sen. Marian Bergeson of Orange County suffered a humbling defeat in the race for lieutenant governor. Just weeks later, Bergeson watched in silence as the man she had clobbered in the Republican primary, John Seymour, was named a U.S. senator.

But the Newport Beach conservative showed no signs of suffering a late-career catharsis.

A year after her defeat, the 67-year-old lawmaker strapped on a parachute and jumped out of an airplane at 9,000 feet to land, with neither muss nor fuss, in a farm field south of Sacramento.

Having survived that physical plunge, she is once again on the political ascent.

As Gov. Pete Wilson’s nominee for state superintendent of public instruction, Bergeson could become the state’s top schools chief amid historic uncertainty over the future of California’s educational system.

At an age when many people are settling in for retirement, Bergeson is facing a gantlet of legislative confirmation hearings she must endure to win confirmation to the $102,000-a-year superintendent’s job.

Her closest friends and colleagues say that if anyone can survive an interrogation by Willie Brown & Co., it’s Bergeson. Don’t be deceived, they warn, by her immaculately coiffed hair, the designer eyeglasses or the sunny skirts and dresses.

“That lady can outlast people half her age and twice her size without ever having a hair out of place,” said John W. Nicoll, who was hired in 1971 as superintendent of the Newport-Mesa Unified School District by a board that included Bergeson. “I don’t know how she does it. She is a wonder.”

Modest and polite, Bergeson has earned a reputation among her colleagues in Sacramento as a tenacious fighter and persistent negotiator more intent on problem solving than bipartisan bickering.

“She takes the time to listen to all sides of a question,” said Orange County Supervisor Thomas F. Riley. “Sometimes it’s an emotional issue. But in Marian you have a person who is trying to be a problem solver, and someone who has the respect of all the people there.”

Bergeson also has won plaudits from educators statewide.

“She listens, she gathers information, she’s very knowledgeable,” said Jack W. Peltason, president of the University of California system and former chancellor of UC Irvine. “She’s got good judgment and good humor, but she’s not afraid to make tough decisions.”

A member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Bergeson’s ways are in part a product of her Mormon upbringing. She was raised in California and has lived with her husband, Garth, for 35 years in Newport Beach, raising four children. She has four grandchildren.

Her roots in education go back to her years as a grade-school teacher. She later served on the Newport Beach school board and its successor Newport-Mesa board and as president of the California School Boards Assn. Those roles served as the springboard for her election to the Assembly in 1978. She moved up to the Senate in 1984.

Her tenure has been marked by numerous legislative successes on behalf of her Orange County constituents and a devotion to conservative positions on key issues.

California Journal named her the top Republican senator in terms of integrity and energy, while readers of Orange County’s Metropolitan Journal cited Bergeson as the county’s Most Effective Politician in 1990.

“She’s probably been one of the most outstanding legislators ever to represent this county, and it will be a real loss for us,” said Orange County Supervisor Harriett M. Wieder, an inveterate Bergeson fan.

Bergeson has managed to make a mark in the Democrat-dominated Capitol, despite her Republican Party affiliation.

She is anti-abortion, has opposed efforts to ban discrimination against homosexuals and has spoken out against divesting the state’s pension funds of stock in companies that do business with South Africa.

A religious woman, she has stressed that religion shouldn’t be taught in the schools but should be “taught about.” She has also expressed support for the concept of allowing children a “moment of silence” during the school day but is not an advocate of prayer in the classroom.

There’s also a daredevil side to Bergeson. Aside from her sky-diving adventure, she has gone para-sailing, once broke her leg skiing and is the last one to leave the rides on periodic excursions to Disneyland.

She has also been known to display fearlessness when it comes to politics. In 1987, Bergeson engaged in a much-publicized confrontation with Brown on the Assembly floor, where the powerful Assembly speaker shouted at her. Then, as he turned to walk away, the slender senator grabbed him by the arm and appeared to lecture him.

Bergeson wasn’t finished. “She went over to the Senate and pulled one of his bills, brought it up and killed it,” recalled Jackie Heather, a former Newport Beach mayor and Bergeson adviser. “Willie understands power. She demonstrated that she had power. . . .”

Bergeson is held in high regard by Orange County educators.

Sheila Benecke, president of the Orange County Parent-Teachers Assn., was skeptical when she first met with Bergeson eight years ago in Sacramento to seek more funding for the Capistrano Unified District.

“I wondered if . . . we were wasting our time because in her hometown they were sitting pretty,” Benecke recalled. “Instead she sat there and listened to us and was aware of our position. . . . We are still unequal, but we felt that we were able to get her to understand. . . .”

Audrey Yamagata-Noji, a trustee of the Santa Ana Unified School District, hasn’t always agreed with Bergeson on issues but gives her high marks for being direct and honest. “She’s a pretty straight shooter, so you know where she is on the issues, whether you like it or not.”

When Bergeson first ran for the school board and then for the Assembly, her genteel demeanor and penchant for high-collared blouses prompted some to dub her “Marian the Librarian,” a name now nearly forgotten, says Heather.

But as an Assembly candidate, Bergeson had to pitch herself to the power brokers of Newport Beach.

“I remember (developer) John Lusk was there,” Heather recalled of one gathering. “The only question he had was whether she was happily married. Someone else asked her if could she play gin rummy with ‘the boys,’ because that was what Bob Badham, the former assemblyman and then congressman for the district, was so well known for. They were very patronizing. But Marian’s always been able to hold her own.”

Many political insiders in Orange County believed that Bergeson would leave Sacramento in 1994 and run for the supervisor seat Riley is expected to vacate.

“She was very close to running for supervisor, but I guess she was made an offer she couldn’t refuse,” Heather said. “I’m kind of sad because it would have been so much easier for her. . . . But that’s not her style.”

Eileen Padberg, an Orange County political consultant, said Bergeson is perhaps one of the few Republicans who can win the support of state Democrats for the schools chief post, largely because she is not an ideologue.

“Marian’s true belief is that ‘I can get things done.’ And ideology has very little to do with getting things done,” Padberg said.

If she survives the confirmation process, Bergeson could prove a sturdy statewide candidate for the job in 1994.

Despite occasional defeats, Bergeson has always bounced back. She even keeps a token of one of her low moments, a nearly six-foot-tall, stuffed pink panther that has followed her around since the early 1980s.

It’s a reminder of her fall from grace when she refused go along with her own party’s leader, Carol Hallett, who wanted her to support Brown as Assembly Speaker. Hallett got even, banishing Bergeson to one of the tiniest offices available for Assembly members.

“That was the time when she felt the most desolate, I think,” Heather recalled.

“So I decided we needed to find her a statue of Don Quixote, something big so Carol Hallett would see it,” Heather said. “We went to Old Town Sacramento, and instead I found this huge pink panther.”

Times staff writer Stacy Wong also contributed to this story.

* THE FIGHT IS ON: Nominee Bergeson defends Wilson’s education budget. A3