NEWS ANALYSIS : Wilson Suffers Setbacks in Appointments : Legislature: The governor usually has the upper hand. But a recent string of defeats illustrates how Democratic lawmakers can check the Republican leader’s influence in state policy.

With time starting to run out on his first term, Republican Gov. Pete Wilson is finding the Democrats who control the state Legislature increasingly thwarting his efforts to use his appointment power to influence state policy.

Wilson’s latest setbacks came last week when he acknowledged that he had failed to muster support for controversial appointments to the State Board of Education and the State Board of Prison Terms.

Wilson on Thursday withdrew the appointment of former Rep. John Rousselot to the prison board, citing insufficient support for his confirmation in the Senate Rules Committee.

That action by the governor came on the heels of his concession last Tuesday that his reappointment of Joseph Stein, the outspoken president of the State Board of Education, also was doomed.

Wilson also was foiled when he tried this year to name state Sen. Marian Bergeson, a Newport Beach Republican, to replace convicted former schools chief Bill Honig, and one of his appointees to the state Lottery Commission resigned on the eve of a confirmation hearing.

The recent string of defeats for Wilson illustrates how Democratic lawmakers can check the influence of a Republican governor through the appointments process.

Empowered to sign or veto legislation, a governor often has the upper hand in his relationship with lawmakers. But when it comes to appointments requiring confirmation by the Legislature, the roles can be reversed.

Historically, the Senate has given governors, including Wilson, wide leeway to appoint Cabinet secretaries and members to dozens of boards and commissions under their control. Of the more than 350 appointments requiring Senate confirmation that Wilson has put forward during his term, only about half a dozen have been rejected or forced to withdraw. But that may be changing.

Sen. Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica), newly elected to the Legislature’s upper house after a decade in the Assembly, has urged his colleagues to cast a more critical eye on gubernatorial appointees.

“There is nothing in the Constitution that I know of that says we have to give automatic deference to the governor,” Hayden said. “We are a co-equal branch of government.”

Most appointments by the governor have to receive majority approval by the Senate within a year of the appointment. But either legislative house can veto appointments to constitutional offices, such as superintendent of schools.

In part because of Hayden’s activism, Richard A. Cramer, a Wilson appointee to the state Lottery Commission, abruptly resigned in May, on the eve of a confirmation hearing at which he was expected to face tough questioning on a controversial contract the board had awarded.

Hayden also has organized opposition to Rousselot, on grounds that his association with convicted banker Charles H. Keating Jr., who headed the failed Lincoln Savings and Loan, made him an unacceptable choice for a plum state patronage job.

The bulk of the skirmishing, however, has been over education appointees.

Disagreements over education appointments date to the days of Wilson’s predecessor, former Gov. George Deukmejian, but seem to be intensifying. Hayden, as part of his recent campaign, has focused more scrutiny on university board appointees. Other lawmakers have been working over Wilson’s choices for the state school board, which oversees primary and secondary schools.

Wilson tried to reappoint Joseph Carrabino to a second four-year term, but the combative former UCLA management professor, first appointed by Deukmejian, resigned after accusations of racist and anti-Semitic remarks made his confirmation unlikely.

The second Wilson education appointee to fail was Frank R. Light, a La Jolla businessman whose demise was traced to his decision to embrace a bill that would deny public education funds to illegal immigrants.

Then, last Tuesday, Wilson abandoned the reappointment of Stein, an Indian Wells businessman. Stein had teamed with Carrabino in the effort to take power from Honig, a battle that indirectly led to the former schools chief’s conviction on conflict of interest charges.

Wilson Administration officials downplay the governor’s recent setbacks.

Dan Schnur, Wilson’s top spokesman, said last week’s troubles were an aberration in an otherwise solid appointments record.

“This is really more of a coincidence of timing than anything else,” he said. “The fact that such a small number have run into problems out of such a large pool of appointees speaks to the ability of the governor and the Legislature to work together when everyone chooses to do so.”

Maureen DiMarco, Wilson’s top education adviser, said she believes the Democrats’ resistance to the governor’s school board choices has had more to do with partisan politics than ideology. She noted that Wilson’s views on education issues, aside from his budget priorities, have been fairly well received by the Legislature.

“The common thread, clearly, is political maneuvering,” DiMarco said. “I don’t think very much of this has to do with policy.”

Others, however, have found deeper meaning in the battle.

“We’re at war,” said state Sen. Bill Leonard, a Big Bear Republican and champion of conservative causes. “Joe Stein was a very eloquent voice on behalf of having civilian control of the schools.”

Bergeson, herself a casualty in the fight, accused Democrats of systematically seeking to limit Wilson’s influence over education policy. The state board has the power to approve primary school textbooks, can influence boundary battles, such as the one occurring in Los Angeles, and has authority to pass and waive regulations that restrict the flexibility of locally elected school boards.

But Democratic state Sen. Gary K. Hart of Santa Barbara, chairman of the Senate Education Committee, said Wilson is to blame for choosing conservative nominees rather than more moderate ones.

“There is a conservative agenda there that is of concern to a lot of people, myself included,” Hart said, citing fears over academic freedom and religious fundamentalism.

Wilson’s spokesman said he expects to make another appointment for superintendent of schools in about a month.

Hart’s Assembly counterpart, Delaine Eastin (D-Union City), considered the front-runner for the superintendent’s job when it comes up for election next year, pointed out that two Wilson nominees--Yvonne Larsen and Kathryn Dronenburg--have won confirmation. She said others would, too, if Wilson would choose them from the political center.

“If the governor continues to make appointments on the right, I think he’s going to continue to have problems with the Legislature,” Eastin said. “Education always has been considered something where people expect to see pretty mainstream people in the saddle.”

Whoever is to blame, Bergeson said, the continuing battle is doing damage to the interests of school children throughout the state.

“The state is rudderless as far as education leadership at a time when there is a great need for it,” she said.