CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS / LEGISLATURE : ‘Business’ Is New Buzzword for Candidates

Business is picking up these days in the state Capitol. Or so it would seem from the flood of business people hoping to move here.

With the advent of term limits and the public’s continuing dissatisfaction with the state Legislature, the 1990s have become the era of the business candidate. This June, nearly a third of all legislative hopefuls are using the word business in their ballot title--a higher percentage than ever before.

In fact, the appellation has become so popular that even many incumbent legislators are adopting it, giving themselves such ballot descriptions as “Businessman/Senator” or “Assemblywoman/Businesswoman.”

“There is a new awakening among small-business people,” said first-term Assemblywoman Barbara Alby (R-Fair Oaks), who runs a concrete construction business with her husband out of their home and is listed on the ballot this year as “Business Owner/Legislator.” “My husband said one of us had to go into politics to try to change things. I’m not too good at finishing concrete, so I went.”

The number of business candidates on the ballot began to soar after the voters imposed term limits in 1990. This year, there are nearly twice as many business candidates as there are incumbents, and nearly five times as many business designations as the next largest occupation: teacher or school official.

Some political analysts say the phenomenon has begun to change the composition of the Legislature, making for fewer career politicians and more merchants and entrepreneurs who can afford to take a few years away from their businesses.

But others suggest that many of these self-styled business candidates have only a tenuous connection to the title and are attempting to capitalize on the public’s disdain for politicians.

“The anti-incumbency feeling is strong, and the mood is to kick the rascals out,” said veteran assemblyman and non-businessman Phillip Isenberg (D-Sacramento). “So it doesn’t surprise me that every political candidate running for every office wants to try to tag themselves as an outsider somehow.”

Until the mid-1960s, the Legislature was dominated by attorneys who served as part-time lawmakers, enhancing their prestige and law practices by traveling to the Capitol for the session each year.

But after 1966, when the Legislature became full-time and salaries went up, serving in the Senate or Assembly became a career, attracting business people, attorneys, educators and local government officials, among others. During the 1970s and 1980s, many legislative aides also ran for office, contributing to the aura of the Legislature as a home for career politicians.

Proposition 140, approved by the voters in 1990, appears to be changing all that. With a six-year limit on serving in the Assembly and an eight-year limit on Senate terms, longtime incumbents have begun leaving in droves, making room for a new breed of candidate. By the end of 1998, the changeover of each house will be complete.

Senator and container manufacturer Rob Hurtt (R-Garden Grove) typifies the new kind of business legislator who is making a mark on the Capitol. Elected in 1993 in a special election, he makes no attempt to hide the fact he is in a hurry to fulfill his conservative agenda, which includes helping other business candidates win election to the Legislature.

“My approach is different from career politicians’,” he said. “A businessman has to make things happen. If you don’t, you’re out of business . . . I can come up and do it for a short time. I’m not interested in making a career of it.”

Over the years, candidates have used a wide range of job descriptions on the ballot, including poker-player, peon, female impersonator and mother trucker.

The secretary of state, who oversees elections, does not attempt to verify whether candidates are actually what they claim, relying on their opponents to uncover any falsehoods.

A Times analysis of primary ballot titles shows that 124 legislative candidates are using the term business in their designation on the June 7 ballot--31% of all candidates. In the more crowded June, 1992, primary, there were 142 self-described business candidates--a total of 29% of all contestants. By contrast, there were 39 business candidates in the June, 1984, primary.

Republican Steven T. Kuykendall is mayor of Rancho Palos Verdes and director of institutional credit for a mortgage banking firm. Running for the Assembly, he describes himself as “Businessman/Mayor” on the ballot.

“We are in an environment that has got to be more business-friendly,” Kuykendall said. “Business is not the bad guy.”

This year, having a business image is so desirable that 11 of the 69 incumbent lawmakers seeking reelection are using a joint business-legislator designation. Rep. Richard W. Pombo (R-Tracy) is taking it one step further: The first-term congressman lists himself only as “Rancher.”

“People in the Legislature are very sensitive to the charge they are full-time politicians, have lost touch with the people and are captured by the lobbyists,” said UC Berkeley political science professor Bruce Cain. “By designating themselves by their (other) occupation they can be real people with real jobs.”

As a video rental store owner in Chico, Bernie Richter built up name recognition by calling himself “Crazy Bernie” in television commercials. Now, as a first-term GOP assemblyman, he is calling himself “Assemblymember/Businessman” on the ballot.

He believes he is part of a new trend of merchants coming to Sacramento to reform government.

“Six years or eight years is probably long enough to get something done if you really work your butt off,” he said. “Old-time legislators would come up here and wait to work themselves up through the committee chairs. We don’t have time for that.”

If newly elected business-oriented legislators have had any effect on policy, it has not yet become noticeable. Most of them belong to the minority Republican Party and, as a result, do not have much clout in the Legislature.

Last year, the most significant pro-business measures passed by the Legislature were bills that tightened eligibility requirements and increased benefits for workers’ compensation. But those bills would appear to be the result of threats by business to leave the state over workers’ compensation costs--not the product of activism by businessmen-turned-legislators.

For some candidates, using the term businessman is more a matter of image than reality.

Spencer Burton, a Democratic candidate for the Assembly in East Los Angeles, lists himself as “businessman” on the ballot. In an interview, he explained, “My business is I am actively engaged in pursuing a state Assembly office.”

Joe Piechowski, a Republican candidate running for the Senate in South-Central Los Angeles, also calls himself “businessman.” He said he is the communications director for a nonprofit think tank that studies popular culture.

Assemblyman Nao Takasugi (R-Oxnard), running for his second term, lists himself as “Businessman/Legislator” even though his family sold its grocery store 12 years ago. He is now a landlord, renting space to the grocery and a fast-food chicken outlet.

Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco) said he was skeptical of many of the candidates in both parties who call themselves businessmen.

“That just shows you how big the recession is, all of these unemployed entrepreneurs apparently are now looking to government to restore their faith, trust and confidence,” he quipped. “If they were really successful business people, they wouldn’t be looking to work here. Give me a break.”

Political Business

Here are the leading occupations of Senate and Assembly candidates as they described themselves on the ballot in the four most recent primary elections. In the June 7 primary, a record 31% of candidates are calling themselves business people.

1988 1990 1992 1994 * Business 62 75 142 124 * Incumbent legislator 95 89 73 69 * Teacher or school official 19 35 49 25 * Local government official 20 16 36 18 * Attorney 15 9 39 18

Note: Some incumbents also have other occupations, such as attorney, but did not identify themselves on the ballot and are listed here only as legislators. Candidates who used two designations, such as “businessman/legislator” are listed as both.