Tape Reveals Lobbyist’s Boast of Wilson Ties : Trial: Transcript shows Clayton R. Jackson telling Sen. Robbins he’s an ‘ad-hoc’ part of governor’s team. Wilson says racketeering defendant exaggerated his influence.

A former insurance industry lobbyist described himself as an “ad-hoc” member of Gov. Pete Wilson’s Administration in a conversation with a state senator that was secretly taped by the FBI, according to transcripts released in federal court Tuesday.

Clayton R. Jackson, who is on trial on charges of racketeering, conspiracy and money laundering, bragged about his access to Wilson’s inner office but at the same time complained that the governor was too isolated and unwilling to listen to outsiders.

The latest transcripts of Jackson’s private conversations with former state Sen. Alan Robbins were released as Robbins, an admitted felon who is the prosecution’s star witness, ended eight days of testimony.

The conversations released Tuesday add further detail to an evolving picture of Jackson as a man whose $2-million-a-year business depended on his ability to influence people--including the governor--for whom he had nothing but disdain. Jackson was once regarded as the most powerful private advocate in the state Capitol.

Jackson is charged with offering Robbins a $250,000 bribe to scuttle 1991 legislation that would have repealed the so-called minimum rate law, which controlled the price that workers’ compensation insurers could charge for coverage of employees’ on-the-job injuries. The bill died that year, but Wilson signed similar legislation two years later.

Wilson and his aides have said that Jackson was exaggerating his influence in the governor’s office. Wilson said he does not remember meeting with Jackson but does not rule out that the lobbyist may have visited him in his office.

“Jackson has demonstrated, I think, beyond even common perception, the arrogance of some lobbyists who claim access and claim influence they don’t have,” Wilson told reporters Monday.

Nevertheless, the transcripts of Jackson’s conversations with Robbins in the summer of 1991, Wilson’s first year in office, show apparent firsthand knowledge of the workings of the governor’s office.

Jackson told Robbins he drew his conclusions after spending parts of several days with Wilson, Chamber of Commerce President Kirk West and California Manufacturers Assn. President Bill Campbell discussing the workers’ compensation issue. Campbell could not be reached for comment Tuesday. West said he could not remember if Jackson sat in on meetings with Wilson.

At the time, Wilson was blocking passage of the state budget while demanding changes in the workers’ compensation system.

“I spent about eight hours with the son of a bitch during the comp thing on the budget,” Jackson told Robbins afterward. “Just, uh, becoming a member of the Administration on an ad-hoc basis, it’s . . . frightening being in there.”

Jackson said he thought Wilson was suffering from the loss of the late Otto Bos, Wilson’s longtime communications director who died in June, 1991. With Bos gone, Jackson said, Wilson was relying solely on Bob White, his chief of staff.

“Now we’ve got three guys, and one guy died, so now we have two guys,” Jackson said. “The two that aren’t dead don’t have a clue.”

In transcripts of other tapes released earlier in the trial, Jackson said Wilson saw the insurance industry as a valued ally but not one he would stand by publicly.

Jackson said Wilson urged the workers’ compensation insurers, if they wanted to protect their own interests, to align themselves with the more politically palatable employers lobby.

“The governor’s attitude toward insurance companies is that they’re, politically, they’re pariahs,” Jackson told Robbins. “So what his unspoken message is, you insurance companies get behind your customers. And that way, I can talk about how I’m helping the employers, the doctors, the Indian chiefs. And that just happens to help you.”

But on the minimum rate law--the biggest workers’ compensation issue of that year--Jackson was not sure Wilson would deliver. Already in his first six months in office, Wilson had agreed to an income tax increase after promising not to and, a few days earlier, had backed down from his threat to veto the budget if he did not get the changes he wanted in workers’ compensation.

“I mean, look at all the commitments he’s made everybody,” Jackson told Robbins at one point. “Everybody’s solid as a rock. Ha ha ha ha.”

Jackson predicted that when the going got rough, Wilson would abandon Republican legislators and cut a deal with the Legislature’s Democratic leaders--Senate President Pro Tem David A. Roberti and Assembly Speaker Willie Brown.

“What he’s going to do is move to protect himself,” Jackson said. “And he’s going to protect himself by getting whatever he can get, and he’s going to do that by getting David and Willie. It’ll be a three-way deal. . . .”

That was July 11. Five days later, Wilson compromised with the Democrats, striking a bargain so watered down that Senate Republican Leader Ken Maddy of Fresno, Wilson’s closest legislative ally, described it as “a joke.”