Legislators Study 2 Images of Bergeson : Education: Partisan versions will clash in debate on nominee for state schools chief.

When lawmakers today begin deliberating whether Republican state Sen. Marian Bergeson should be California’s next superintendent of public schools, they will weigh two competing images of her.

The first, as painted by Gov. Pete Wilson, is the Republican version of Bergeson: pragmatic conservative, grandmother of four, a former schoolteacher who has the best interests of California’s children at heart.

The second, as described by Assembly Speaker Willie Brown, is the Democratic vision: a lawmaker reluctant to fight for school dollars and lacking the commitment to help minorities. He also hints that the Newport Beach lawmaker, who believes in Biblical creationism, is hiding a religious agenda.

Clearly, the correct view of Bergeson is in the eye of the beholder.

“She’s a solid, responsible legislator, but it’s a case where you know someone in one context and suddenly have to judge them in another” explained Assemblyman Phillip Isenberg (D-Sacramento). “People will have to give this a lot of thought.”

Today, the rhetoric will build in the Assembly, where Brown presides and Bergeson’s road to confirmation begins. The going is apt to be rough. One of Brown’s top lieutenants, Assemblyman Tom Hannigan (D-Fairfield), will chair two special Assembly committee hearings on Bergeson’s nomination. A floor vote, which most expect to be close, is scheduled for April 22.

Bergeson is likely to fare better among her colleagues in the Senate, but no vote will be held there until well after the Assembly has had its say. Opposition from one house is all that is required to block the nomination.

When Wilson tapped Bergeson shortly after former schools chief Bill Honig was convicted on felony conflict of interest charges, the governor said his nominee would be an independent advocate for the state’s schoolchildren.

Many agreed. Bergeson, who served on a school board before joining the Legislature in 1978, won praise from educators ranging from University of California President Jack Peltason to Honig himself.

“Her credentials are absolutely unassailable,” said Assemblyman Bill Morrow (R-Oceanside), a member of the Assembly panel that will quiz Bergeson. “She should be a shoo-in, but this will be a battle.”

The support of the Assembly’s 31 Republicans is a given, so the governor will try to peel off 10 Democrats to assure confirmation in the 80-member house. Wilson’s strategy has been to focus on Democrats from politically vulnerable districts, as well as moderates and women.

Meanwhile, a battle has been waged by both camps to recruit support from California’s education establishment.

So far, Brown and the Democrats have prevailed. Bergeson is opposed by the California School Employees Assn. and the California Federation of Teachers as well as abortion rights advocates and various minority groups, including the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People.

Bergeson’s biggest coup was persuading the powerful California Teachers Assn. to remain neutral.

Brown has voiced blunt opposition to Bergeson right from the start.

Irked by the quick editorial endorsements Bergeson got from major newspapers, Brown struck back in penning a commentary that portrayed her as a soul mate of “ultraconservative zealots.”

Brown cited Bergeson’s support for Wilson’s 1992 effort to cut money from public schools and her opposition to Proposition 98, which guarantees minimum funding levels for education.

Brown also suggests that Bergeson’s resistance to South African divestiture indicates a “historic opposition, if not hostility, to almost any action to benefit California’s ethnic minorities.”

Bergeson chafes at Brown’s critique.

Her opposition to Proposition 98, she says, stemmed from a belief it was an “arbitrary formula” that has created a “ceiling rather than a floor” for education spending.

Bergeson frankly acknowledges that, as a devout Mormon, she believes in the Bible and creationism. But she also said she strongly supports the separation of church and state and has never pushed for a religion-based curriculum.

Most galling to Bergeson is Brown’s veiled allusion that she is a racist. The nominee, who taught minority students in Southern California classrooms for years, said she considers apartheid “deplorable.”

“The reality is I have always shown great sensitivity to children of all races and heritages,” she said.