‘Draft Willie’ Appeal Barely Stirs a Breeze

An aggressive fund-raising effort aimed at drafting Assembly Speaker Willie Brown into the governor’s race raised $39,949, a paltry sum in an era of multimillion-dollar campaigns.

A campaign finance report filed on behalf of the “Draft Willie” movement shows that after expenses, the committee had $17,101 in cash and debts of $2,536.

Alice Huffman, a lobbyist for the California Teachers Assn. who headed the effort, sent fund-raising appeals that raised eyebrows among lawmakers and lobbyists because they were so blunt.

“The best way to show your friendship to Speaker Brown,” Huffman told lobbyists, “is to join with us and other distinguished friends by making a contribution from your personal or company account for a minimum of $1,000, and to ask your clients to do the same. . . . We hope we can count on you as we know you have counted on Speaker Brown.”

The appeal fell flat. By June 30, the committee received $5,000 donations from the California Teachers Assn. and three other unions. Sen. Teresa Hughes (D-Inglewood) and Sen. Wadie P. Deddeh (D-Bonita) gave $1,000 each.

All this is not to say that Brown, who has insisted that he is not running for governor, has lost his flair for raising large sums of campaign money. Separate committees for his San Francisco Assembly district and the Assembly Democrats raised $1.07 million in the first half of 1993.