Campaign Launched to Draft Brown for Statewide Office

An official of the influential California Teachers Assn. has undertaken a campaign to draft Assembly Speaker Willie Brown for the Democratic nomination for governor or other statewide office next year, it was learned Tuesday.

Alice Huffman, a political ally of Brown and governmental affairs director of the teachers union, said she began the effort without the knowledge or consent of the controversial Assembly leader.

Without public announcement, Huffman filed documents Friday with the secretary of state to create a campaign organization that would raise funds and support Brown for an unspecified statewide office in 1994. She named herself chair of the “WLBJ Club,” a title that uses Brown’s initials.

Although Brown recently mediated in the dispute between teachers and the Los Angeles Unified School District, Huffman said the draft effort was neither originated by teachers nor backed by her union superiors.

“Willie Brown has nothing to do with this,” Huffman said Tuesday, noting that Brown could face state Treasurer Kathleen Brown and Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi in the Democratic gubernatorial primary.

Michael Galizio, Brown’s chief of staff, said the Speaker knew nothing of Huffman’s effort and had no comment on it.

Brown has said that he wants no job other than Speaker. However, at a lunch Tuesday with reporters in Washington, he indicated in response to a general question that he might be persuaded to accept a draft.

“If there was a draft that came along and sufficiently had the security of my being able to win as I have won the speakership, I’d have to consider it,” said Brown. He said he knows of “no job better than mine, certainly no job that I could possess with minimal effort (that is) better than mine.”

Brown is serving a record seventh term as Speaker, regarded as the most powerful post in California government after the governor. But he is nearing the end of his legislative career because under term limits he will have to leave office in 1996 even if reelected next year.

Times staff writer Glenn F. Bunting in Washington contributed to this story.